The three European cities that Americans tend to have at the top of their wish lists when they dream about traveling to Europe seem to be London, Paris, and Rome. About nine and a half years ago I started traveling abroad and made Greece my first trip, to meet up with Tracy following the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. That will always be a special trip because we got engaged on the Greek island of Santorini. It had become a kind of point of pride that I'd skipped the typical spots and went to places like Dubrovnik, Croatia among others. After eight and a half years I finally got to the first of those three cities I mentioned at the beginning. On a trip to Berlin and Edinburgh last summer, we made a detour to London so that Tracy could meet some people and see the office where she would soon transfer to. And of course, we live in London now.
I did travel to Italy after the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Torino (Turin) just as I had 2 years earlier in Greece. We didn't go to Rome though. Tracy and her mother had been before, and we went to Florence, Milan, Torino, and Siena. The final city of those three is Paris. Only a bit over 2 hours by train from London, we made the trip this July to coincide with the 100th Tour de France. I've been a huge cycling fan for about 20 years; so seeing the Tour was a dream come true and seeing the 100th edition, won by a Brit who raced on a team sponsored by my current employer, well that was pretty amazing.
In short, I loved Paris. The city lives up to the hype regarding its beauty. I told Tracy it was the most ridiculously beautiful city I'd ever seen. Sure there are some parts of town that aren't, but every large city has that. Paris really did blow me away. We stayed at a great little hotel near the Hotel des Invalides, which is a war museum; and most notably, houses the tomb of Napoleon. It was a fairly short walk to the Champ-de-Mars park at the base of the Eiffel Tower. It was dusk already since we left London in the late afternoon.
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| Nightly light show at 11:00pm |
The first thing we did the next morning was head right back in order to go up in the tower. I went all the way to the top, of course. Tracy didn't make it that far but got some great pictures.
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| You knew this was coming... |
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| From the second level, the Arc de Triomphe |
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| View of the Trocadero across the River Seine |
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| Hazy view of the far off Sacre-Coeur |
I enjoy architecture and Paris has a wonderful abundance of it. We remembered from out trip to Buenos Aires that they called it the Paris of South America. A few buildings here and there, sure, but that's a stretch.
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| From the river cruise we took |
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| Sacre-Coeur |
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| Champs-Elysees from the top of the Arc de Triomphe |
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| Hotel des Invalides, not really a hotel |
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| Napoleon's tomb |
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| Our hotel, the Hotel Marbourg |
Of course we hit the highlights of Paris before the race. The Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Sacre-Coeur, Notre-Dame, Napoleon's tomb, Champs-Elysees shopping, Seine river cruise, etc. We primarily went to the Louvre for its main attraction, the Mona Lisa.
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| Venus de Milo |
Notre-Dame was high on my list but we never went up in the towers because it seemed that it was high on the lists of many others too.
The only trip we took outside of Paris was to Versailles. This is the palace that all other palaces are compared to. I've seen quite a few in the last year, but it did stand out from the rest. The Hall of Mirrors and the gardens were amazing, as were the crowds.
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| Subtle gate |
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| Subtle bed |
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| Subtle hallway |
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| Can you imagine sleeping here...seriously? |
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| Nice backyard |
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| Too big to be crowded, so a nice change |
You could wander the gardens for hours. We did decide to go off the beaten track and found a place in the gardens that was very different and we liked it quite a lot. Apparently, so did Marie-Antoinette, because she 'got away from it all' here in what is called the Hamlet.
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| Pretty, peaceful, and uncrowded |
OK, what's left? Oh yes, the bike race. As we walked along the course the morning of the race, we passed by all of the television trucks. Being in the business, this entertained us more than most people. But then I saw someone I recognized, Phil Liggett. He's the long-time announcer for the Tour de France broadcasts as well as other races. A legend. And I was determined to meet him. Summoning more forcefulness than I usually display, I walked right up and ended up having a little conversation with him. He's British and asked about where we lived, surprised that it was London, and asked for details. He was very nice and I didn't feel like it was a chore for him.
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| Me and Phil |
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| Eddy Merckx, 'The Cannibal', a 5-time winner |
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| The Yellow Jersey wearer is in there |
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| Light show on the Arc de Triomphe |
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| Behind the stage, between Colombian fans of the runner-up and anti-gay marriage protesters |
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| Chris Froome, the winner |
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| Post-race |
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| Froome starting the celebration at the team bus |
After the Team Sky bus left we asked this nice gentleman to take our picture. He smiled broadly and proceeded to pose with us as another man took our camera to take the picture. We were confused but just went with it. I took a picture of his name tag and looked him up. He was Jean-Pierre Danguillaume, a past winner of five stages of the Tour. He didn't seem to understand English and was quite happy to think that someone recognized him.
All in all, it was a great trip. I'm only disappointed it took me so long to finally go to Paris. We will definitely be back. We'd like to see the Loire Valley and a few other things, plus the trip is so easy.
Even the subway signs are nice.....
