Day 6: Paris to Venice

We had a nice leisurely morning wandering around Ile St. Louis and seeing the cute stores and restaurants. We went to Au Bon Marche, an amazing food market/spice market/clothing store/etc and picked up some nice chocolate and drooled over all the amazing food there. We wandered back to our hotel and had our last Nutella crepe and grabbed a panini for the airport.

After a long metro/shuttle/airport/shuttle/walk, we finally arrived late at our hotel in Venice. Everything in Venice is so expensive! Our one-star hotel was just as expensive as much nicer hotels in other cities, and there weren't many luxuries - shared bathroom down the hall, no AC (which is fine, except for the next part), no screens on the windows (which is unfortunate due to the monstrous Minnesota-like mosquitos).

Every restaurant in Italy has a few standard dishes. One of them, which quickly became my favorite, was the penne in a smoked salmon cream sauce. We also got gelato and decided that chocolate hazelnut was the best flavor in the world.

Day 5: Paris

We woke up to enjoy another French hotel breakfast, bought a 10-pack of Metro tickets, and headed over to the Musee D'Orsay for some art. Marc found his favorite sculpture of a polar bear, and I found one of my favorite paintings, the Birth of Venus. I was surprised to see artists sitting in the museum painting replicas of the existing works on the walls.

We had reservations for lunch at a very fancy restaurant and needed to change out of our day clothes and into something nicer. We had our dress clothes in a backpack, but the museum didn't allow backpacks past security and had no external bathrooms. We finally managed to convince the security guard to let us bring the backpack in so we could change in the bathrooms. We made sure to pass him on the way out, and he finally understood our odd request and gave us an appreciative "ah!" on our way out.

We wandered over to Carre des Feuillants for one of the best meals ever. Some dishes included interesting ingredients such as sea urchin, squid ink, lavender marshmallows, and escargot. After lunch, we walked over to the Louvre to top off our cultural experiences of the day. We made our way in through the secret back entrance, avoiding all the lines. We visited the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa, and the crown jewels. On the way back to the Metro, we stopped by a special exhibit in a museum next door. The exhibit had many toys displayed, including an army of My Littly Pony dolls.

After a rest at the hotel, we ventured out again to find dinner. We decided that it would be a night of restaurant-hopping. We went to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel for an appetizer of fois gras. We then bought dinner crepes at our little crepe stand down the street. It was my first dinner crepe, and I had difficulty eating it without spilling egg out of the side of the crepe every 15 seconds. We finished the evening with creme brulee at a cute outdoor cafe. Our crazy energetic waiter tried joking with Marc in French, but the language barrier always makes jokes confusing and seems to lose them in translation.

Day 4: Paris

A nice thing about Paris is that almost all the museums and sites recognize a common pass. So Ariana and I got a 2-day museum pass to get us into almost everything that was on our list.

We visited Notre Dame, the famous cathedral on the island. After looking around inside and seeing all the amazing stained glass, we decided to try to climb the big towers. Unfortunately, the line was incredibly long and extremely slow-moving. We watched as a street performer dressed in funny clothes started wandering around and interacting with people walking down the street - greeting people as his mother, pulling people and cars with invisible rope, challenging people to martial arts fighting, etc. It certainly kept us amused!

Sainte-Chapelle resides in the courtyard of the French Supreme Court. We ended up making a complete loop around the building before finding the entrance (long line for security). We also stopped at the archaeological crypt on the same island - there are Roman ruins located just a couple hundred feet from Notre Dame.

I was all excited to go to the museum of coinage, but we got there and found out it was closed for renovations. So instead we went to the Musee du Quai Branly - it's a new world culture museum with hundreds of instruments, masks, and other artifacts from around the world.

The view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe was not quite as impressive as from the Eiffel Tower, but we could see for miles down the nice straight roads. Our legs were tired after that walk.

We also managed to find a restaurant right on the Champs-Elysee that wasn't too expensive, so we had a nice leisurely dinner there.

Day 3: Paris

We woke up early our first morning in Paris, around 8am. Our hotel served a delicious French breakfast downstairs. We feasted on croissants, eggs, bread, and other French delights. Our first stop of the day was the Eiffel Tower. We took an elevator all the way to the top and had a lovely view of the entire city.

After our descent from the Eiffel Tower, we looked for somewhere inexpensive to eat lunch. We must have passed ten different restaurants before finding the perfect brasserie for lunch. We split a chicken sandwich with mozzarella and tomato, a spinach and salmon quiche, a chocolate eclair, and a Fanta, all for a very low price. We took our delicious lunch over to the Champs-Elysee, sat on a bench, and ate while watching Paris zoom by on the busy street.

After lunch, we walked down the Champs-Elysee. Everything on that street was very expensive. We found a shoe store that sold some very impractical pairs of shoes for thousands of dollars per pair. We walked all the way to the end of the street and sat down to admire the giant obelisk.

After a brief rest at our hotel, we went to the Jardin de Luxembourg (during open hours this time!). We wandered around until dinnertime. My dad made reservations at L'Epi Dupin, a fabulous restaurant with delicious food for great value. We had difficulty ordering, since the only menu was hand-written in chalk in French on a wall. We eventually managed to order our meal, which consisted of duck confit, eggplant parmesan, cod, rabbit, peach, chocolate cream, kir royals, and tea. Each course was delicious.

One particularly memorable aspect of our dinner was the couple who sat at the table next to us. Tony and Stacey helped us order our meal, and we shared some lovely conversation with them throughout the evening. They have a daughter who I think is around our age. They also live very close to my grandparents. We may end up seeing them at some point this summer. It's funny how you can plan every detail of an evening, yet the most memorable aspects can be the unexpected ones that are impossible to plan.

Day 2: Madrid to Paris

We woke up nice and early to catch our flight to Paris. We stopped by a little cafe to grab hot chocolate and churros. The hot chocolate was very thick and extremely rich - we had trouble finishing our tiny cups. Churros, unlike their Mexican counterparts, have no cinnamon sugar and are similar to plain donuts.

We had decided to leave Ariana's suitcase with the Madrid hotel so we didn't have to lug it around the rest of Europe - this was an excellent idea! For a nominal price, we could get around with one large bag plus one small backpack each. That's definitely the way to go.

We flew RyanAir three times throughout our trip - Madrid to Paris, Paris to Venice, and Rome to Madrid. There's no assigned seating, but unlike Southwest, it's simply a first-come-first-serve arrangement where people start lining up at the gate up to an hour ahead of time. RyanAir also keeps costs low by flying in and out of small regional airports - this also means that we needed to take shuttles into the center of the city. We hurried to be the first on the shuttle, and we lucked out because our checked bags were the first couple off the plane. The shuttle to Paris took about an hour and was easy enough - then we just hopped on the metro and went to our hotel.

We had dinner at a little cafe across the street. They made a mistake and served us a cheese spread platter that we didn't order - we enjoyed it for a few minutes before they came up and said "Ceci n'est pas pour vous!" (This isn't for you!) and took it away. Oh well, we didn't get charged for it, and we certainly enjoyed it a lot! Then we went next door to get Ariana's first nutella crepe.

We wandered the city, saw the Pantheon and arrived at the Jardin de Luxembourg just as it was closing for the night - so we went back a different day.

The hotel had no shower curtain and the showerhead was on a long flexible pipe - as much as we tried to stay neat there was always a mess of water on the floor at the end.

Day 1: Madrid

Note: Marc and I took turns writing blogs describing our trip. Some are from my perspective and some are from his. Enjoy!


On day one of my whirlwind tour through Europe, I woke up early to go to the airport and check a suitcase. Marc was arriving in Madrid about an hour before I was to arrive, and he had the number of my Spanish cell phone. My flight went very smoothly. Shortly after I arrived in Madrid, I got a call from Marc. We had originally planned to meet at Customs, but we decided instead to meet at my baggage carousel for a variety of reasons. I told Marc that I had just landed and would be with him shortly.

My journey to the baggage carousel took longer than expected. The Madrid airport has many signs, some which are slightly misleading. I ended up leaving the correct terminal, taking a tram to the wrong terminal, then taking the same tram back to the right terminal. I eventually found my way over to baggage claim, where Marc was already waiting with my suitcase. It was wonderful to see him after 4 1/2 months away, especially right after getting lost.

We navigated through the rest of the airport and opted to take the 2 euro Metro rather than an expensive taxi. The Madrid Metro is simple, clean, and fast. We quickly found our hotel and settled in. Then we went out to explore our neighborhood. We found what we thought was a tapas bar and Marc had his first sangria. We then found out that there were no tapas, we were in a drinks-only cafe and my guidebook had mislead us. With the strong Spanish wine from a tiny little glass of sangria hitting our empty stomachs, we set out in search of Spanish food.

We eventually found a lovely place with a very inexpensive fixed-price menu. Marc had his first gazpacho and tinto de verano. We went back to the hotel to nap, and when we woke up it was time to find a restaurant for dinner. We tried to find a tapas place and searched for an hour or so, but eventually settled on a little restaurant with some traditional dishes. We had a sandwich and Spanish tortilla.