Paris | Part II

Paris, continued! On our second day, before the rain hit, we ducked into the Louvre museum and spent a few hours wandering around... We were so glad that we took advantage of audio guides provided by the museum. Using the guides was pretty inexpensive and they included navigation.. They were actually Nintendo 3DS's... Truth be told, we felt a little out of touch trying to navigate using the map feature, but in our defense, the Louvre is the world's largest museum and a bit overwhelming. And let's face it, we're getting old...

So the Nintendos were really pretty helpful to find our way around.. Neither of us is necessarily all that "into" art (I know... please don't cringe!), but we definitely didn't want to miss some of the more famous artwork so we chose one of the tours that highlighted the main masterpieces. It's true what they say - you could spend weeks in the Louvre. The next day, our bike tour guide actually told us that there are college students who spend entire semesters only studying works in the museum... and there are thousands of pieces in storage that aren't even on display!

Family-friendly Louvre fact: show up with a stroller and you get to skip the line! The helpful security staff led us straight to the fancy open-air elevator (see the tiny people on top of the silver pole) and down we went! It's the little things. :)

We attempted a second 'guided' tour of Egyptian artifacts and only made it a little ways in. Eva was done! We really enjoyed seeing the Louvre and getting to see the Mona Lisa in person, even if it did require elbowing our way through the crowd. Eva was pretty happy during most of our visit, but definitely let us know when she was ready to leave! Eventually, we found our way outside... for awhile we thought we'd never find the exit, and stopped at a sidewalk cafe for crepes. Delish!

The next morning we were scheduled for our bike tour with Bike About Tours, a company recommended by our new exchange-student friend, Rachel. We met her through my aunt, who knows Rachel's mom... Sidenote, she came to visit us last weekend - we had a fun, relaxing day showing her around Como. She has traveled more during her time as an exchange student than many people travel in their lifetime! Truly It's impressive! Read more about that here on Rachel's blog... Our experience with Bike About Tours was fantastic. We emailed ahead of time to schedule and they went above and beyond locating a child seat that was the right size for Eva... They even let me switch tour days because we checked the forecast and didn't really want to ride in the rain with our little one.

Here we go!  :)

Nap time for Eva! This was quite entertaining for our entire group...

The whole group - Notre Dame Cathedral in the background...

Following our guide - and taking photos. I like to live on the edge. ;)

Finally - here are some more of our Eiffel shots. :) This little girl has no idea the things she has seen...

Paris | Part I

Lots of playing with Eva to keep a sleepy baby happy! 
She crashed hard right after these were taken...

Our only warm, sunny day in Paris was the day we arrived. Most of our trip was cool, breezy and sometimes rainy.. I am so, so glad we went straight to the Eiffel tower and took photos there while the sun was shining! We returned again at dusk to watch the lights come on and people watch in the park. Eva was getting tired, so we had to keep her entertained until she finally fell asleep, but the atmosphere was magical. There were thousands of young people lounging on the grass, drinking wine and waiting for the twinkling lights to start...

The tower was just plain impressive. Did you know that it was originally meant to be a temporary tower, built for the World's Fair in 1889... I am sure glad they decided to leave it standing when the Parisans realized what a great radio tower it was. Here's a link to a short article with more info on the tower. Wow! :) I took a lot of photos while in Paris... and tons of the Eiffel. Can't wait to get some of these printed and hung at home!

A view from the other side, with the park behind us...

On day two of our trip, we took a walking tour using another Rick Steve's mp3. I'm sure hearing about his audio guides gets old, but truly, they are so informative! They save us money - and many of them come with pdf maps that are useful, too... So we started our walk at Notre Dame cathedral, and then we finished up the day by going to the Louvre museum, just in time to avoid the rain! We were exhausted by the time we made it back to our hotel... Lots of walking! 

A view of the cathedral's front side...

The view of Notre Dame from the back is actually more impressive than the iconic front side. So much detail!

This year, Notre Dame cathedral is celebrating its 850th anniversary! It's hard to even imagine a building that has been around so long. Originally, the city of Paris was going to condemn/destroy the structure, but pressure to clean it up came after Victor Hugo's novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame became so popular. Some even say he wrote the novel as a plea to save the cathedral.

On the far left side of this photo (above) you can see a blue spot - it's a large set of temporary bleachers with a large 850 banner, and it was totally to blame for me not getting one picture from the front of the entire building. It was blocking my view. Yeah, I'm a little bitter. But there are tons of awesome photos online. Anyway, 850 years! Incredible!!! 

Another highlight of our walking tour was seeing the famous Shakespeare and Company Bookstore! It was busy and we were starting to drag...  So we didn't go inside, but snapped a few photos out front. You can read more about the bookstore here.

One of my favorite things about visiting Paris was that everything was decorative and beautiful. I think this was a street sign near a metro stop along Champs-Elysees, a famous shopping area.

Loved the metro signs, too... Remember my complaint about how much walking we did? Well, I had read that Paris is a city you need to walk to truly experience. We took that advice a little too literally. By the end of our trip, we had probably walked over 20 miles... Whew!

Getting to Paris - and back!

I have been meaning to post about Paris for awhile now - honestly, I've been putting it off because sometimes, it's just hard to find the right words. We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to travel and see places that we have only read about or seen in movies... sometime's it's all a bit overwhelming. It's overwhelming to see such amazing things and try to capture them into words. Overwhelming to deal with the language barriers everywhere we go! It's overwhelming to think that we are almost. home. Overwhelming to mentally process the "to" and "from" parts of traveling in Europe... I could go on and on.

While we are incredibly grateful for every opportunity we've had here, we are also eager to be home. Our travels are coming to an end. This particular trip was a fantastic way for our time here to draw to a close. Paris was really amazing - truly better than either of us expected it to be! Just before we left, we were both dreading the trip a little bit. (Terrible, I know! Please don't hate us for that!) Here's how it looked, though. Honestly, wouldn't you have been a little anxious, too?

• Train ride from Como - Malpensa Airport (including one train change).
• Shuttle bus from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2.
• Flight to Paris.
• Taxi to hotel. (Should have just taken the metro, would have been cheaper and easy. Hindsight is 20/20. We learn a lot of lessons in hindsight! ;)
• Stay in Paris, walk, walk, walk!
• Train to Caen, switch trains to Bayeaux.
• Stay in Bayeaux.
• Train back to Caen, switch trains to Paris.
• Metro ride to airport, one switch.
• Flight to Milan.
• Shuttle to Terminal 1.
• Train to Como (including one train change).
• Sigh of relief! 

Obviously, we didn't grow up using public transportation... because every time we approach one of these trips, we have to take a deep breath and brace ourselves for the million-little-steps-involved. It takes a lot of patience. Especially when you're traveling with a 14-month old! (Hard to believe she's already 14 months old?!)

Believe it or not, we have made lots of progress and don't find the process quite as overwhelming as we used to... It hasn't been the "piece of cake" we thought it would be originally, but we are getting the hang of it!

Springtime Photos!

Finally! Our weather has been warmer and more sunny... and we've been going for nightly walks (sometimes runs). Along the lake there's a gorgeous path to walk, it's really fantastic on weeknights when there aren't too many other people. Como  is such a touristic town that it's pretty crowded on weekends and not nearly as relaxing! ;) Here are some springtime photos taken before our trip to France!  

She laughs every time we put her sunglasses on her... too cool!

Another trip up to Brunate on a clear day - photos of Como below..

Eva is never holding still. This girl is hard to photograph!

Making friends at the park...

YAY! Spring is here!

... now that I'm caught up on posts, I can start to work on stories from our trip to Paris!!!

American Food in Italy...

Cole has become somewhat of a circus act to his colleagues. He can eat... a lot. They have marveled at his ability to put away food pretty much since we arrived. A few weeks ago we hit up a local "American" burger joint, Crazy Driver Diner, and Cole and his co-worker, Lucca had a burger-eating-contest... It was a fun night with some decent food... not quite as good as Kansas beef, but definitely a good time! :) 

The sign in their parking lot..

Beer was served from an old motorcycle gas tank!

Time to eat, boys! Cole, Lucca and his adorable daughter Francesca!

The "Cadillac" burger!

Aren't these two adorable? :)