Paris: The city of lights, love and pickpocketers

Oh Paris, I think we have a love hate relationship. The first time I visited it was my first experience in Europe having just graduated from high school and I was disappointed in how unsafe and dirty the city seemed. On my second time around I much more appreciated the city now having been other places for comparison, yet despite the city's beauty and history the first thing that will come to mind when I think of Paris is pickpocketers. Lucky for us while I did catch a man in the middle of trying to unzip my purse within hours of our arrival in the city, it far from ruined our visit. Instead we enjoyed a beautiful few days visiting countless museums, monuments, palaces, early morning runs along the Seine in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower and watching some of the best tennis in the world!

After just a few days back home from visiting the Greek Isles we took off on an early Saturday morning train to Paris. The high speed French train was great and got us there within four hours. It was a nice day so after finding our hotel (which may have been the smallest one we have stayed in yet, that is until we went to Stockholm the following weekend) and grabbing lunch we made our way to the beautiful Sacre Coeur. Situated at the top of a hill a little outside of the main heart of Paris we almost overlooked visiting it, but upon seeing it I remembered how stunning it was from when I visited before and was glad we made the return trip.

Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart)

From there the rest of our afternoon and evening was dedicated to the Eiffel Tower. Since we had not purchased advanced tickets we had to wait in line well over an hour to go up.  And unfortunately for unknown reasons the very top level was closed off the day we went. Yet, the best views are from midway up anyways so we enjoyed being able to point out every monument in the skyline from there and were actually glad not to be going all the way to the top as it was already extremely windy and cold just where we were at.

Windy views from the Eiffel Tower!

It quickly got late and while we were hoping to enjoy a boat ride along the Seine we decided to skip it and enjoy a French dinner of crepes on our way back to the hotel which wasn't too far from the Eiffel Tower. On our way back we pondered why the French seemed to have dedicated that small area of Paris to the United States as we came across a miniature Statue of Liberty, followed by streets named after both President Kennedy and Roosevelt!

The Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower?

Back at the hotel that night we started making plans for Sunday as we were headed to the French Open! Although the draw had been released the day prior they had not yet released the actual schedule of play and court assignments. Months earlier we had secured great center court seats and so when we saw that night that of the four matches scheduled for center court on Sunday two of them were Federer and Serena Williams we couldn't have been more excited!

Two of four checked off the list, onto #3 very soon!

Very cool way to display the draw, handwritten after each match was completed!

Upon arriving at the grounds of Roland Garros on Sunday morning we met up with a friend from Zurich that had also secured a ticket for center court that day. While the first matched scheduled was a relatively low seed on the women's side we were still all anxious to get in the court and see the famous red clay for ourselves. As we recalled from watching last year's tournament most of the French did not make their way onto the court until much later in the day to only watch the highlighted matches, so we almost had it to ourselves. While we had bought two tickets just as we suspected there wasn't a whole lot of time that all of us sat and watched together. Little miss Emma was just a little too excited and tennis spectators (especially French ones I think) aren't the most tolerant of even the smallest of noises. So Emma primarily only "watched" during nap time. We thought we had a good plan of feeding her extended snacks while we were in watching to keep her entertained but that idea failed when we discovered that she simply is becoming very vocal very quickly and wanted to let everyone around her know how much she was enjoying her snack by repeatedly saying "mmmmmm..."

Emma at center court!

Go Roger!

Serena dominated her match!

Nevertheless we enjoyed our day split up between watching the matches on center court and meandering the grounds with Emma. Emma being her cute self managed to get a game used ball given to her, and we literally almost bumped right into Serena coming from her practice session. I'm most certainly glad we didn't actually bump into her because she looked mean. Mean and strong. Her legs and her arms are huge, especially when you are within feet of her - she is one tough lady. Let's just say I don't think most of us would want to run into her in a dark alley!

Someone's excited to get a game used ball!

While it has been nearly seven years since we were at the U.S. Open it was hard for us to remember and compare the two tournaments. But we were quite impressed overall with Roland Garros and really enjoyed our day there. Now onto Wimbledon to see how it compares!

Family photo at Roland Garros

Monday was to be our big siteseeing day with a laundry list of places to try to make it to. I must say I am sometimes amazed at how much we can squeeze into a day, especially with Emma. As she keeps changing with every trip we go on there are things that become a little easier and those that become a little more difficult. Yet one thing we never have to question is how cute and fun she is to travel with!

Precious daddy daughter moment

We started the day at with two famous churches - Notre Dame first and then worked our way down the river making a stop at Saint Chapelle, next up was Steve's daily stop for a croissant (mine for a coffee), followed shortly thereafter for lunch at a nice little outdoor cafe which was situated on a very busy intersection where we both witnessed a car accident and a foot chase while eating (not sure what it was about but thinking one person stole something from a nearby store), from there it was onto our museums for the day... the Louvre and the Orangerie.

Notre Dame without the scaffolding and with a clean facade in comparison to my first visit!

Beautiful inside of Saint Chapelle

The stained glass in Saint Chapelle was amazing, photos definitely do not do it justice!

The size and beauty of the building still impressed me just like the first visit

Bridge of locks on the Seine to "lock your love forever"

Just a normal day practicing our walking at the Louvre

By then we were all getting quite tired of both walking and being a tourist (although Emma had already managed three naps and her walking was perhaps not quite as strenuous), but we made our way onto the last two places on our list: Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. It seemed to be a busy day in that area of the city as there was a special military ceremony being held at the Arc de Triopmhe and we nearly stumbled across the red carpet for the premier of the movie the Hangover III. We didn't stick around to see the stars make their appearance but instead enjoyed visiting the top of the Arc de Triomphe which was well worth it and not something I had previously done.

Classic Arc de Triomphe photo

View from the top

Cool photo from the top to show five of the twelve streets converging at the Arc de Triomphe

It seemed like the weekend had gone much too fast when we realized it was already Tuesday and we would be headed back that evening. Yet we were excited to have enough time to sneak in a trip to Versailles, which is on the outskirts of Paris. While it was a rainy, cold day, it still could not downplay how amazing and over the top this palace and its grounds were. The size of the palace alone was impressive but when you added on the enormous gardens it truly is like it's own small town. In fact we read that at one point in time there were over 4,000 royalty and court members that lived there along with their families!

The "backyard" of Versailles

Beautiful chandeliers in the Hall of Mirrors

On a nice day we could have easily spent the entire day just meandering the immense palace grounds filled with well groomed bushes, trees, and beautiful fountains. Yet since it was not the most pleasant of days we found ourselves ready to get back to the city and on our way home.

Although I find myself thinking it after almost every trip, I really started to realize after our visit to Paris just what a great traveler Emma is and how much she "encourages" us interact with others and strike up conversations (which can be very intriguing) with people from around the world. It's hard for people not to smile when they see her, and I just can't help but to think how lucky we are that she is ours!

Absolutely love this girl!