A little relaxation and Paris

I’ll backtrack a bit here and show a few pictures of us relaxing! Yes, it was quite hectic trying to get in all the sights we wanted to see in two weeks, but we did actually stop and just hang out a couple of times. The day we left London for Portsmouth to take the ferry across to France, we had almost a whole day to kill before our train left, so we hung out in St. James Park. With our big backpacks on, it’s not so enjoyable to do a lot of walking and sightseeing! As luck would have it, it was a beautiful day and there just happen to be a “practice parade” happening right on the street in front of us (a rehearsal for the Queen’s birthday parade a week later). We seemed to have good parade-karma because Alexis and I would stumble upon another parade a week later in Ambois, France! At any rate, we spent the whole afternoon hanging out reading or listening to IPODs (Andy and Alexis). It’s a good thing we rested up, because as you can see in the next picture, Alexis and Andy fell sound asleep in a parking lot after our all-night ferry ride to France! I don’t think Andy was prepared for how physically demanding this vacation would be - carrying 35lb backpacks, walking miles every day, bicycling hilly countryside, staying up late and getting up early, climbing endless stairs, etc.).

We saw lots of cool things while we were in Paris. We spent a good amount of time exploring the palace and gardens of Vasaille (picture is of the well-manicured gardens) and two major museums- Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre. We all really enjoyed the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism art at the Musee D’Orsay. Andy liked the colors in Gauguin paintings and we all stood in awe in front of Van Gogh’s works. The Louvre proved to be a full day with each of us taking away our own favorites in our minds. It’s hard to justify spending all our time in museums, however, when most of the architecture in Paris could qualify as art in and upon itself. Case in point- Notre Dame Cathedral. Although there wasn’t a very sacred feeling with the throngs of tourist bustling about inside and outside (quite loudly sometimes), it’s impossible to not stand with mouths agape in front of the stained glass windows. Alexis really liked the gargoyles all around the building and we all got a chuckle out of some of the statues along the entryway.

Hope you’re enjoying the “catch-up” of our trip; I’ll try to do a couple more very soon.