Completed 11/24 - BURN IT ALL (well not the Disneyland part) - a June 2024 TR for Paris and Disneyland Paris

[Araminta18]

Pere Lachaise Cemetery - Friday, June 7th 2024 (part 1)​

My first picture from today is time-stamped at 11:59 am - clearly I was documenting all the things! I know I must have gotten up and gotten breakfast, because pastries and an omelet cooked by someone who is not me? yes please. But not sure why the delay between breakfast and doing my thing for the day...maybe I took another nap? No idea. Anyways.

Where was I heading today? Pere LaChaise Cemetery! This was recommended to me back when I went in 2022, but I didn't make it then, so I figured now would be a good time. Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and other famous people are buried here, and apparently it's also just a nice quiet place. So I downloaded a Rick Steve's audio tour and headed off on the metro to the cemetery, arriving right before noon.

I was surprised to see that I had to go up stairs to get in! It's like the whole cemetery is elevated:

The path I'm on is the cemetery, but you can see off to the right that the road is down a bit.

Anyways, I'd looked at the map and had an idea of some of the graves I wanted to visit, but mostly I figured I'd follow the audio tour, since that included most of the grave I was interested in.

This one wasn't on the tour, but it was on the way to the starting point of the tour, so it worked out: Belize's grave! He wrote the opera "Carmen", among other things.

The audio tour started at the main entrance (duh... ), and was really a great find. Super easy to follow, and very informative. Highly recommend! I got to see where Maria Callas's ashes were for a while:

They aren't there anymore, but they were there for a while.

Then of course, Oscar Wilde's grave:

Yes, there is a clear plastic shield around it - no lipstick marks, please!

Then, Gertrude Stein - she of the "America is my country but Paris is my hometown" quote:

I like the heart in the darker stones there.

There were a bunch of monuments to those who died in concentration camps during World War II, as well as several monuments to the resistance fighters who were killed.


Then, Edith Piaf's grave -


Her life was super tragic. Part of what I liked about the audio tour was it gave some of that context and history for each of the famous graves.


This was a grave that wasn't on my list but was on the tour - a cartoonist who was murdered in the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

Moliere!

He wasn't buried here originally, but his remains were moved here after the cemetery opened, in an effort to make the cemetery seem fashionable and cool. I guess it worked? Lots of famous people are buried here now.

 

[Araminta18]

More graves but also food! - Friday, June 7th 2024 (part 2)​

Ok, a bit more of Pere Lachaise.

The architect/inventory/guy in charge of the Paris metro - people leave metro cards on his grave. A+ to this guy - the metro is indeed amazing.


Jim Morrison's grave - it's definitely blocked off a bit so you can't get super close. I didn't realize he was only 27ish when he died! So young.

I wanted to see Heloise and Abelard's grave, but it was under construction.


Then, Chopin's grave! That was neat - I like Chopin a lot and didn't realize he was buried here:



Baron Haussman's grave - he was the architect behind the rebuilding of Paris into a modern city in the 1800s - making way for the beautiful big boulevards, etc.


Rossini's grave.

Then for all you Sondheim and/or pointillism fans:


The grave of Georges Seurat - the painter of "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884" and the main character in the musical "Sunday in the Park with George". I'm a Sondheim fan, not a pointillism fan, if you were wondering which.

This was the last grave I saw - it was about 2:15 pm. It really was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours - it's very quiet and peaceful there in the cemetery, and lots of little paths and things. Highly recommend if you have some extra time, but I would prioritize seeing the other Parisian attractions first (Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, all the touristy traps. )

But it was lunchtime, so I headed nearby to le Marais area and the "market of the red children" - one of the oldest markets in Paris. I ended up giving up and just ducking into a sidewalk cafe cause I was hungry, and getting a Croque Madame.

It wasn't amazing or anything, but still good. My plan was to wander around the area and look in more bakeries and things to bring back more treats for later and for Trevor to try. I got some macarons from Laduree - I *LOVE* the bitter almond ones. Those are the one true macarons - the rest are for suckers. Seriously - I don't even like almond but for whatever reason, those bitter almond macarons are just amazing. Highly recommend.

I ran into a couple more bakeries and got some yummy pastries - including a chocolate eclair:

Yum!

Then back to the hotel to rest a bit - we had an exciting evening planned once Trevor got off work. Any guesses on where we were heading?

 

[Araminta18]

Walking to the Arc de Triomphe - Friday, June 7th 2024 (part 3)​

Tonight, we were heading to the Arc de Triomphe! So as soon as Trevor got off work (around 8ish), we headed out. We thought about taking the Metro, but the walk wasn't too bad and then Trevor could see a bit more of the city, and the Champs-Elysees, etc. Our tickets for the Arc weren't until 9:50 pm, so we had a bit of time to enjoy our walk.

The Madeleine church.


View of the Luxor Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. They were building all sorts of stands for the Olympics so this was about as close as we could get. Well, sort of - we ended up walking around the perimeter to the Champs Elysees, and got another view of it:

And you can see the fence blocking us all off.

It was pretty neat right there on the Champs Elysees though - normally its a super busy road but they'd blocked the road itself off too, so us and a few other people were just chilling and walking on the road.

There's the Arc!

We slowly made our way up the street, passing all the fancy shops.

The juxtaposition of the "we Work" sign next to the plaque saying Thomas Jefferson lived here made me laugh.


I don't remember which luxury store that was - Yves St Laurent, maybe? But they'd turned their store into a bag/luggage. Kind of neat!

We made our way to the Arc via the underground tunnel and were in line at 9:40. 1. yes it is indeed this light out in Paris in June at 9:45 pm and 2. there was a surprising amount of people in line for the Arc that late! But 15 minutes later, we'd passed security and were on the stairs.

SO MANY STAIRS. And yes it definitely made me dizzy. But we made it to the top after 5/10 min or so.

They had a gift shop and some displays there inside the Arc at the top - we spent a good amount of time shopping cause gift shops. And then, up we went! A few more stairs and we were outside on the roof. It was SO CROWDED! But we made our way around and were patient and got some fun shots and amazing views.

That's Sacre Coeur off in the distances.

Trevor's camera is a slightly clearer shot.

 

[Araminta18]

More Arc de Triomphe - Friday, June 7th 2024 (part 4)​

Ok, different view! I think this is La Defense -


This one is definitely the Eiffel Tower though.

SO many people but we tried to do a selfie!

Also, we noticed that between yesterday and today they'd put the Olympic rings up on the Eiffel Tower!

It looked pretty good, actually.

One more selfie, from a slightly different angle. I'll tell you, it is BONKERS crowded on top of the Arc, and you have to wait or be pushy to get up against the "edge". But it eventually paid off.

Our plan was to stay at the top until the Eiffel Tower started sparkling at 11 pm, but apparently they were closing before then, so we decided to beat the rush out and see if we could make it down to see the Eiffel Tower from the street. We would need to walk a ways though, because of the trees and buildings in the way - we could just make it to the bottom of the Arc.

We left at about 10:30, heading downstairs. They'd set up the Arc for the Normandy memorial, so that was neat to see.




Pretty cool to see it so up close and personal!

One last selfie, as we started speed-walking down to the Alma bridge to try and catch the sparkle. Would we make it!?

 

[Araminta18]

The Sparkle! - Friday, June 7th 2024 (part 5)​

So we were booking it down the street to make it to the Alma bridge. Lots of walking SUPER fast! We were passing some neat places though - we passed this one building that had the blinds completely open and look at the decoration in that room!

The outside is meh but that room on the upper floor - wow. Paris man.

We made it down to the bridge with like 90 seconds to spare. Woot!

The sparkle! It only sparkles for 5 min at the top of each hour, but only after it gets dark, and it gets dark so late in the summer that it sparkles only once at 11 pm. But so neat to see. And Trevor hadn't seen it yet so I was determined he get to see it.

Videos don't really do it justice - or at least, not our cameras. But it's definitely worth making efforts to see, if you're ever in Paris.

Afterwards, I thought we'd just quickly look at the liberty flame, but it was behind construction walls. Womp womp.

The tunnel next to this bridge is where Princess Diana died, so people leave lots of flowers and things for Princess Diana at the flame. But not right now I guess.

Hard to see, but they've renamed it "Place Diana".

Anyways, it was time to head home. There was a metro stop right here but it was CRAZY crowded. We were clearly not the only one with the idea to watch the sparkle from this bridge. But we eventually made it on and back to the hotel. Not a bad day!

Tomorrow, I was heading off on a day trip to Mont St Michel. Gonna be exciting!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 22870 steps (10.2 miles)

 

[Araminta18]

Heading to Mont St Michel - Saturday, June 8, 2024 (part 1)​

Saturday dawned suuuuuuuuuper early. Well, for me. I was going on a day trip to see Mont St Michel, in the Normandy area, about 3 hours away from Paris (the inspiration for Corona from Tangled, though not gonna lie I was excited because I thought this was where they'd filmed the climax of one of my favorite movies: "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1982) - turns out I was wrong about that but it was still neat. ) I'd done a trip to the Loire Valley with this company in 2022 and enjoyed it, so I booked them again for this day tour. The only downside is that I needed to be at the meeting place at 6:45 am. And the meeting place was right by the Arc de Triomphe, which added an interesting wrinkle cause today (Saturday) they were doing a huge ceremony commemorating D-Day at the Arc with Pres Biden and other dignitaries. I took the Metro and ended up getting a bit turned about because most of the exits at the Arc de Triomphe stop were blocked off. But I made it, and luckily wasn't late. The tour guides were a bit worried that we'd get blocked in or otherwise prevented from leaving by the roadblocks put in place for the event. But all of us on the tour made it on time and so at 7 am we headed out!

It was a pretty uneventful drive - I took a nap. But by 10:30 we were getting close! Our first glimpse was through the car window:

But the driver pulled over and let us take some pictures.

It's so cool, just this little castle island rising out of the horizon.

We parked, and then you wait in line to get on a bus that takes you over the bridge/causeway to the island. That took a little bit, but by 11:05, we were being dropped off!

Sorry, there's gonna be a BUNCH of pictures of the island for a bit. It's just such an interesting architectural thing, I think.


The sun was going in and out behind the clouds, so we got some really interesting shadows and light.

Everyone goes in through the main gates straight ahead, and you get dumped into this TINY crowded street.

Our guide made sure none of us were claustrophobic and took us on a shortcut to get out of that crowd:

a VERY tight squeeze! but we all made it.

Another picture of the space, just for context.

It dumped us out up here, where we had a bit more space to breathe and talk and learn about the history of the island and the fortress.

Pretty cool to see the houses all stacked on top of each other and so close together. At least, I thought it was cool.

 

[Araminta18]

Touring the Abbey - Saturday, June 8, 2024 (part 2)​

We were in a little square next to the cemetery -

That was neat to see.

Then, we kept heading up to the castle/abbey itself. That part was self-guided, which worked for me. The guide had given us some history (it was a monastery, then a prison, and then back to being a church/monastery which has some monks/nuns that live there full time. SO MANY stairs though guys. Seriously.

Looking back at some of the stairs. Just some! I made it up to the top right as the noon bells started ringing, which was neat.

Fun little bridge thing.

The chapel there at the top opened to an outdoor courtyard area with great views of the island and the ocean.

I liked looking down at the entrance - the tiered gardens and such, and then you can kind of see the end of the causeway and everyone walking in to the main entrance.

Better view of the causeway and the beach.

As I was looking around, someone pointed out to me something a bit closer -

Seagulls with some baby seagulls!

Super cute.

And a selfie 'cause is it even a post of mine without a selfie? I just realized in this one you can kind of see a bug bite on my cheek there - I'd been getting bit by mosquitos after we left the windows open in the hotel room the first two nights. We closed the windows after that but... Oh well! Anyways, back to the report!

I love this view, just the starkness of the abbey/castle/whatever with the ocean behind.

Inside, it was also lovely. And the monks/nuns were doing some kind of service with pretty music.

 

[Paulaparm]

Beautiful!! I never would have made it down that narrow passage though!!

 

[Paulaparm]

Love the bells!

 

[Araminta18]

Gothic Arches! - Saturday, June 8, 2024 (part 3)​

There was a cool model of the whole abbey.

Not quite what it looks like but then I'm a sucker for models like this.

I liked the cloister area, but I think I just like the gothic architecture of a bunch of arches in a row.



From one side you look in to the courtyard, from the other side, you look out and down on to another garden area.

I liked the intricate carvings above each arch:


Yea, this whole post is basically pictures of this one little courtyard area and arches.

I kept making my way through the abbey - lots of austerity, which I guess befits a monastic order and then a prisoner. But also some really pretty sculpture and artwork:

Not entirely sure what this is but it's cool.

There was this cute little garden area too:

I love the little well!

And then I kept making my way down and through and found one of the prisoner areas where they would stick a prisoner in the wheel and the prisoner would have to walk in the wheel to pull up supplies via a stone "ramp" I'll show you in the next post.

 

[Araminta18]

Last post of the Abbey - Saturday, June 8, 2024 (part 4)​

Ok, this is the stone "ramp"-

It's a bit overgrown, but you can see it in picture of the island. It's super steep and I can only imagine what it would have been like to have to walk in the wheel to pull the supplies up.

Definitely a torture device! Woof.

I kept going and made it to this wide open space with more pretty gothic arches.


They had this Japanese Cherry Blossom "tree" in it as an art installation. Not sure why, but it's cool.

I was getting near the end of the tour - mostly I could tell 'cause I was going down lots of steps!

So those arched windows up there on the left are the view from the cloisters. I put in the picture I took from there looking down, and now you get to see it from the bottom garden area looking up!

Same place but the sun had come out!

Had to go down another level.

The end of the tour has you walk by the side of the abbey -

I just think all these views are so cool - not much else to say. And if you're bored...only two more pictures of the Abbey, I promise!

And finally made my way back to the entrance!

See, all the stairs! So many. Soooooo many.


Another view of it.

This was essentially the end of the tour of the abbey. I was glad I got to see it but I was absolutely over the stairs at this point. I was also hungry! Time to eat...where to go?

 

[Araminta18]

In Which Tiffany Has a Breakdown - Saturday, June 8, 2024 (part 5)​

I made my way back down that super crowded street, though it was less crowded at this end, and ended up ducking into the burger shop recommended by our guide. Nothing else looked super appealing, and the guide (and google) both had good reviews of this burger place, so why not? Yes, I do get the irony of being an American and going to Mont St Michel only to eat burgers.

Look at that cute packaging though!

And it was really good. Well, the burger was good, but the fries were fantastic. The French, as you'd expect, definitely know how to do fries. I also enjoyed being able to sit down for a bit I did not take good enough notes to tell you exactly what was on my burger but I think maybe it was a bacon cheeseburger? Not sure. But it was good.

After lunch, I just meandered through the shops, making my way back to the entrance. I bought some postcards and some gummies (they had a candy shop?! so random, but I bought stuff so I guess not that crazy?). At the entrance I realized that you could go up on the ramparts, so I did that.

Pretty cool!

Quick view from there.

Then, it was time for me to make my way back to where we got on the bus. I thought about trying to take the bus back, but the walk wasn't tooooooo far and I thought it would be pretty, so I headed off walking.

Pretty view! Honestly so neat. I took a bunch of pictures but most of them didn't turn out so I'm not putting them here. I did run into some sheep:

One last view:

Honestly the walk is kind of long but it was super pleasant. I recommend it. I did get passed by one of the buses and I'm only including this picture because I really love the graphic design/logo for the island:

Isn't that cool!? Makes it look like the island with the abbey.

Back at the main visitor center where we got on the bus that morning, I met back up with the guide and the other people in the group, and we hopped back in the car to head back. We did do one quick stop for a cider tasting - apple juice for those of us who don't drink - and then back to Paris.

And this is where it all started to go wrong and the trip report title comes into play. I mentioned earlier that I had gotten mosquito bites, including one on my face. And it felt like I got new ones each day; I was scratching a lot. And I noticed there was even one on my eyelid! But sitting in the van, driving back to Paris, looking at the various bites I had, including some on my arm that were three in a row - I realized that it may not be mosquitos, but rather bedbugs. I think I'd kind of thought that earlier and then pushed it away 'cause I didn't want it to be bedbugs, but was finally realizing I needed to face facts and that they probably were bed bugs.

actually me. I was doing a lot of googling and the things I was seeing (mosquito bites tend to heal in a day or two, bed bug bites last a week or so, bed bugs often bite in little lines of three, etc) seemed to match what my symptoms were. I was definitely getting anxious on that ride!

When we got back to Paris (we made good time - 7 pm! And we ended up missing all the blockades by the Arc de Triomphe, so that was nice), I hopped on the metro, and headed back to the hotel, getting more and more worried about having bedbugs. I was very terrified of bed bugs, and I'd even checked the hotel before we'd unpacked! I didn't see anything, but the bites seemed to indicate otherwise. Back in the room I was taking off the sheets and looking all over for evidence of bed bugs - I didn't see any bugs and they'd already changed the sheets so I couldn't tell if there were bedbugs on the sheets from last night or evidence of them eating, but I did see some stains on the box spring that may or may not have been bed bug excrement (aka blood). Honestly at this point I was just WAY in my head. Trevor came back to the room only to find me like on the floor, surrounded by the bedding, essentially in tears. It was not a good night. We did go down to the front desk, and they didn't seem to think it was bed bugs, despite me showing the bites and the stains on the box spring. *sigh* They did move us rooms though, to a lovely new room on the third floor - I literally JUST realized that I never took pictures of the room. That's how discombobulated I was - I was just terrified that we had bed bugs and we'd bring them home and they'd just never go away.

Anyways, it took several hours for us to get moved rooms and everything (they did give us some trash bags and I put all our bags in there just in case), and Trevor calming me down and getting me to a kind of resigned state. I was very much in the BURN IT ALL stage, except we had stuff I didn't want to lose, like the souvenirs I'd JUST bought at Disneyland Paris on the first day, and other things we'd brought with us.

So we made plans: we needed to do laundry anyways, so the plan for the next day was for me to take ALL our clothes to a nearby laundromat, and dry everything on SUPER high heat to kill the bed bugs if there were any, and then actually wash them.

Yea, this is a bit scattered of a post - it's reflecting how scattered and flustered and worried I was that night! Anyways! We got all settled in in the new room (which was lovely with VERY high ceilings and felt WAY less claustrophobic than the first room), and it was about 10 pm, and we were both starving. So we ended up going to a little cafe near the hotel that still was serving.

We started with some nice mocktails:

I got the Persica: Peach, lychee, and soda water; Trevor got the Laly: strawberry, apple, and soda water. I think the Persica is the yellow one but I'm not sure now. And I didn't take any notes on the food - i'm sorry! I was still just so down. But I got the burrata:

This was good but weirdly a bit heavier than I expected - I didn't finish it.

Trevor got the Hanger Steak with gnocchi.

I think he liked it but again...no memory and no notes.

Bread!

It wasn't an AMAZING meal but it did the job and considering how upset I was, I probably wouldn't have been able to appreciate anything else. We did have a bit of a fun moment when a motorcade went by (I think maybe it was Pres Biden's?):

We live in the DC area but honestly, I think this may have been the first time I've seen a motorcade! LOL

After dinner, back to the hotel and the new room to try and get some sleep. It was a rough day - Mont St Michel was amazing but the possibility of bed bugs just really put a cloud over everything. BURN IT ALL indeed!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 15915 steps (7 miles)

 

[Araminta18]

Beautiful!! I never would have made it down that narrow passage though!!

Not gonna lie, I was a bit worried about fitting through! I went last and managed to squeeze by, but I was definitely a bit worried, which made me a bit claustrophobic!

Love the bells!

Me too!

 

[dizneedoll]

Mont St Michel looks beautiful. I love that architectural style and you got some great pics. But no way I’m doing all those stairs!

Bed bugs are no joke and I don’t blame you for freaking out. A couple of years ago, I stayed at a hotel across from Disneyland on Harbor (I can’t even remember which one it was now) but I woke up on check out day with red, itchy bumps allover my ankles and I freaked that it was bed bugs
I went the front desk and reported it. They took it really seriously and the manager told me he was calling a pest control to come inspect the room and he would call me afterward and later he did and said there were none found. Phew.
Turns out it was the infamous Disney Rash. I got it from sitting on the ground for the parade and about a year later the same thing happened so now I learned my lesson and don’t sit on the ground anymore.

 

[alohamom]

I love all the perspective/POV shots of Mont St Michel. All the details are incredible and I totally marvel at the achitecture. So much thought was put into its construction, thanks for the detailed posts.

I think I'd kind of thought that earlier and then pushed it away 'cause I didn't want it to be bedbugs, but was finally realizing I needed to face facts and that they probably were bed bugs.

I wasn't expecting this! Yikes, I think I would have reacted exactly the same way.

 

[Araminta18]

BURN THEM ALL! And Tour Paris - Sunday June 9, 2024 (part 1)​

Sunday morning we both inadvertently slept in a bit - oops! But after catapulting out of bed and Trevor getting ready and heading to work while I grabbed some food downstairs, I grabbed all of our clothes and headed off to a nearby laundromat. And by "nearby" I mean about a quarter mile which doesn't seem super long until you're carrying ALL your clothes in a trashbag. I was tired by the end of the walk! But I made it, to a very quiet laundromat, and dumped all the things into a couple of driers on the very highest heat. All my googling seemed to indicate a dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes would kill any bed bugs and any eggs, so that's what I did, sending a text to Trevor that I hoped nothing that was clothes would die and that anything and everything else would die in the heat.

I ducked around the corner to a small grocery store to grab some laundry detergent and more plastic/trash bags, and then back to the laundromat. I ended up putting about 60 minutes on all the dryers, just to be on the safest side. Not that you care but that's what I have in my texts to Trevor.

It took a couple more hours to run everything through a regular wash load and then a drier cycle, and then back to the hotel I went - I think I got back at around 2 pm? So it took a while but I felt a bit more reassured. And yes I did inspect the beds upon waking up and didn't see any stains or anything on the sheets (no bugs and no signs of blood or anything) so I was cautiously optimistic. Very cautiously.

This was Trevor's last work day, and he ended up getting off a bit early, at around 4:15 pm. So we were free and clear for the rest of our trip! yay! What to do now? We ended up buying hop on/hop off bus tickets and doing a loop. I'd really found that to be interesting when I went back in 2022, and hoped it would give Trevor a good overview of the city. It started off by the Louvre:

so pretty!

Selfie! had to remind you whose trip report this was.

The narration on the bus tour was interesting and while we had to skip some stops/do some detours due to the Olympics construction, Trevor liked it.

Not least because it gave him lots more opportunities to spot the 8-bit art - that's a beaker on top of the street sign on the building.

More Notre Dame!

The construction is theoretically almost done - its supposed to reopen in December!

We did get to see some cool things because of the Olympics, like this display/group of statues in front of their National Assembly:

They each have a different sport thing in their hand, like a skateboard or boxing gloves.

We went up the Champs Elysees and got a slightly different view of that building that was turned into a suitcase:


And one more Arc de Triomphe selfie for good measure.

Back to the Eiffel Tower:

During the day the Olympic rings are the right colors - they're only lit up white at night.

Slightly better view.

We also got to see the Place de la Concorde again with the Luxor obelisk:

 

[Araminta18]

Night Bus Tour of Paris - Sunday June 9 2024 (part 2)​

One more view of the Place de la Concorde - its kind of fun to see the Olympics setup:

At least, I think so! Normally this is busy and buzzing with cars and people.

As the tour wrapped up/finished the loop, we headed back through the Louvre:

My view of Trevor the entire time.

And the picture he was taking

Honestly I know people judge the hop on hop off buses, but I really think they're a great way to get an overview of the main tourist attractions with some info and just a nice view of the city. I'd definitely recommend it!

Some small clips from the tour:

We headed back to the hotel for a little bit and ended up at the 5 Guys across the street from the hotel, mostly cause we wanted to see what 5 Guys in France would be. It was mostly the same but tasted a little bit different. It was kind of nice though to know exactly what we were getting, and getting something familiar, after the stress of the day/day before. We're so unadventurous sometimes! But I think everyone who has traveled understands the draw of something super familiar after a few days.

After dinner and a bit of a rest, it was time for the night time bus tour that was included in our hop on/hop off bus ticket. The tour started at 9, and this was a slight miscalculation - it wasn't dark yet! Duh! Oh well. It was still fun - we got to see some slightly different sights -

The Moulin Rouge, which the day bus tour doesn't go to. We'd seen it already this trip but still.

It ended up being much colder than we thought - I should have brought a heavier jacket!

Paris really is gorgeous at twilight:


Including this clip for completion's sake - it didn't turn out super well but we were trying to get the silhouettes in the upper windows of this museum. Oh well!

The night time bus tour ended at the Eiffel Tower, specifically to catch the sparkle! yay!

It is so funny watching all these tour buses jockey for position to try and make sure they're in a good position when it starts sparkling - we were driving so slowly up to this point and then basically just stopped in a bunch of spots.


And we took advantage of the pause to take a bunch of selfies. Then, the sparkle!

It's really fun to be that close when it starts and catch everyone's excitement. We really enjoyed it.

Once the sparkle was over though, we TOOK off back to the starting point to finish off the tour. The driver was like "i'm done please get off". I was happy to be back in the warm metro heading back to the hotel, but overall it was a really fun tour - I definitely recommend it. Though maybe don't do it in the summer when it only gets dark near the end of the night tour. But it's nice to see everything lit up, especially if you're already somewhat familiar with the sights.

That was our day - what would we do tomorrow, Trevor's first full day off?

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 10740 steps (4.6 miles)

 

[Araminta18]

Mont St Michel looks beautiful. I love that architectural style and you got some great pics. But no way I’m doing all those stairs!

Bed bugs are no joke and I don’t blame you for freaking out. A couple of years ago, I stayed at a hotel across from Disneyland on Harbor (I can’t even remember which one it was now) but I woke up on check out day with red, itchy bumps allover my ankles and I freaked that it was bed bugs
I went the front desk and reported it. They took it really seriously and the manager told me he was calling a pest control to come inspect the room and he would call me afterward and later he did and said there were none found. Phew.
Turns out it was the infamous Disney Rash. I got it from sitting on the ground for the parade and about a year later the same thing happened so now I learned my lesson and don’t sit on the ground anymore.

Yea I think if I'd realized it was so many stairs I would have thought twice, but it's probably good I didn't know!

Oh gosh that's terrifying! Glad it turned out to not be bed bugs, but that's still so scary.

I love all the perspective/POV shots of Mont St Michel. All the details are incredible and I totally marvel at the achitecture. So much thought was put into its construction, thanks for the detailed posts.



I wasn't expecting this! Yikes, I think I would have reacted exactly the same way.

Oh I'm glad you enjoy them! I felt kind of silly including so many but I just thought it was so neat - we just don't see that style anymore at all so it's just so novel.

Yikes is a good summary! Definitely not what you want on vacation.

 

[alohamom]

That selfie of you and Trevor in front of the Effiel Tower with the Olympics rings is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, what a great idea!

 

[Araminta18]

Sainte Chapelle - Monday June 10, 2024 (part 1)​

We slept in a bit this morning, got breakfast, and then packed up - time to move hotels! Now that Trevor was officially off work, we were moving to a slightly cheaper hotel, over in Le Marais. Still pretty near all the tourist attractions but much lighter on the pocketbook

We didn't see any bedbug evidence in the new room on this last day, and no further bites, as far as we could tell, so that was good. I was still anxious about it - it definitely cast a bit of a pall - but at least no new bites or evidence. *phew*

We packed up and grabbed a cab over to the new hotel, and were all checked in by noon. There was a bit of a terrifying moment at checkin - I forgot that my Marriott account is under my maiden name (yes I've been married for 10 years, it's fine), so when I gave my married name at checkin they were like "oh we canceled your reservation for lack of payment" and I was like "what?! I didn't get any notification or anything?!" and was definitely starting to freak out a bit. But we got it all quickly straightened out and they even had our room ready, so we dropped our stuff off and then headed out for the day! We had a tour at St Chapelle at 1 pm, and so we started walking over there.

Alien 8 bit art!

We deliberately took the route that took us past Notre Dame, just for Trevor.



Then, over to St Chapelle. It wasn't super well-organized - we'd bought tickets online ahead of time but there were three lines and there wasn't a lot of guidance or signage. We essentially just got in one that we thought was right, waited half an hour, and then were let in. St Chapelle is a gorgeous little chapel but it's inside the Palace of Justice compound, so you have to go through a lot of security to get there. And then once you see it it's literally in the middle of a parking lot!

Or at least that's the vibe it gives off to me.

We spent some time looking at the exhibit/signage on the fence around it, and then we were inside, wondering at the gorgeous stained glass.


(there's more pictures...feel free to skip if you're like "meh" )

We can't see the rose window at Notre Dame but this is a pretty good substitute.


It really is so gorgeous in there - the only thing we were missing was the sun out from behind clouds in order to complete the picture. I'd seen it before and Trevor really wanted to see it in person after seeing my pictures. It didn't disappoint!

There were even interesting decorations on the floor.