Paris III

In Paris, we were eating baguettes, cheese, and wine under the Eiffel tower (like true locals), when a couple kids came up to us. In French they asked if I was American. They had a Football, and were looking for someone who knew the rules. I pretended I did, so we played American Football under the Eiffel Tower.

The Gardens of Luxembourg: Only in Paris are there multi billion dollar buildings, yet half the city smells like piss since there aren't free bathrooms.

The Louvre... Renee's favorite place in Paris. We went at night, and enjoyed the peaceful weather, and the Opera singer in the courtyard.

Just me pretending to be a statue.

Paris II

Thursday we were a tourist again. Here's Notre Dam.

After Notre Dam we walked along the Seine River as the sun set.... except for all the homeless, Paris is really a beautiful city.

Our host brought us to a night club. We only knew that it was a block away from the Arch de Triumph, however we didn't know in what direction. We got a good 360 view of the arch before we asked someone. We missed the closing of the Metro, so we stayed up all night in Paris. Here we are at 4:00am in front of the Arch.

This pretty much sums up our Paris experience...

Paris I

Paris!
Here I am at the Eiffel Tower on our first day in the city. We spent 3 days in Paris altogether. We had a picnic with wine and waited until dark for the lights to come on. This is my attempt to fit in. So many people walk around with baguettes :)... not a false stereotype

This is me with our couchsurfing host Mikella who has been living in Paris for about a year and showed us around the whole city.

This is me and Mikella walking through pere lachaise which is a very big cemetery. There are many big graves that have space for people to go inside and pray.

This is Sacre Coeur. It is a beautiful cathedral at the top of Montmartre (up about a thousand stairs) and there is an amazing view of the entire city.

-Renee

Tours, France II

4/11 - On Monday we took a bike right through Tours. Our couch-surfing hosts were awesome. Besides having a lot of fun hanging around and talking, they let us borrow their bikes! We met up with Dave, and rode for about an hour down the river that runs through Tours, there we had a picnic in the sun!

On the way we passed these houses. They look normal from the front, but they are actually built into the cliff. Apparently people will build the front of a house, then keep digging into the cliff when they need more room. Apparently the French love doing this because it keeps their wine at the perfect temperature.

Here we have Renee sitting at the dinner table with our couchsurfing hosts. We had a really great time with them. Aurelie and Cedric are seasoned travelers themselves... and had many great stories to tell. They also were well experienced when it came to being someplace unfamiliar, and we couldn't have had nearly as much fun in France if it wasn't for them.

Here is Cedric taking us to the train station. Especially crucial, since we had to print our tickets, and French/Dutch ticket machines work on an electronic chip, and can't read my US credit card (sliding machines work fine) - so we had some difficulty retreaving our ticket to Paris!

Tours, France I

4/9 - Instead of taking the train from Madrid, to France, we drove with Anjo, our host from Ceceda. Anjo was taking 2 dogs to their new homes in Germany and Holland.We left at 7:00 in the morning and passed through passed the Picos de Europa, Basque country, and up through French countryside. Including breaks it took 12 hours to go from Asturias Spain, to Tours, France. Renee did a good job taking turns driving the massive van.

Tours is beautiful. It has tons of old buildings, beautiful architecture, and gardens. It also doesn't have many tourists, so it's very clean.

We met up with our friend Dave who is studying abroad in Tours - he lives right next to the Cathedral of Saint Gatien.

It is big.

We took a walk inside - there are some great stained class windows portraying stories from the bible.

We also made sure we topped by the center of town, found a Cafe, and got crepes.