Paris

Michael and I loved Paris! It was one of our favorite cities we visited this summer. The weather was a little rainy and overcast, but it was a nice break from the heat of southern france.

The Louvre is huge and gorgeous. 

Venus de milo

The Mona Lisa is much smaller than you'd expect and behind bullet proof glass. 

Arc de Triomphe. 

Pont de l'Archeveche "Love Lock" bridge. Put a lock on the bridge and throw the key in the river. Represents eternal love. (what do people do who put a lock on the bridge and get divorced later?? Do you think they ever go back and cut the lock off??)

Cathedral of Notre Dame. 

L'Hotel National des Invalides

Oh how I love Laduree.

Yummy french macaroons. 

La Basilique de Sacre Coeur de Montmartre

Michael and I signed up to do an all day tour of Versailles with Fat Tire Bike Company. We started off the day at the open air market of Versailles. Buying baggettes, meat, cheese, and fruit for our picnic. 

I like the symmetry of the grounds. 

Marie Antoinette's hamlet.

Here the whole group stopped for a picnic lunch on the Grand Canal.

Apparently King Louis XIV was an avid supporter of the ballet and performer himself. This is one of his signature poses :)

The Palace is huge and there were a lot of people that lived there, more than 20,000. And there were no toilets when it was first built. Eventually they put in 9 toilets that only the king, royal family and high ranking nobles could use. So apparently Versailles had a very unique smell. Chamber pots were thrown out into the court yard. So leather umbrellas were necessary when walking in the court yard. Gross. 

Hall of Mirrors with some creepy guy staring at us.

Paris has city bikes and we used them to ride around everywhere. 

Somehow we visited the Eiffel Tower twice while we were in Paris and didn't manage to take any picture of us in front of it. I guess we'll have to go back again to get those pictures.

Nice and Marseille

Nice is a lovely city in the south of france. We were only there a couple nights, but enjoyed walking around the city, going to the beach and soakin' up some sun.

View of the Port from Castle Hill

The beach was really nice (but crowded) with grey pebbles. 

Cours Saleya market in Old Town. 

Yummy Foccacia bread from the market. 

View of Old Town and the beach from Castle Hill

 

Marseille, France was only a 45 min train ride west of Nice. It is actually the second biggest city in France (next to Paris).

Salvador Dali elephant sculpture in Old Port. 

Marseille market. 

Bees! Almost all of the desserts at the market were covered with swarming bees. I guess the people there don't think that is gross... Eww! Bugs are bugs and that is icky. 

View from our airbnb apartment. 

The cute little French lady we were renting a room from. She didn't speak any English and we don't know any French, but we still made it work. She made us breakfast every morning and was so sweet. 

Barcelona

Barcelona is a beautiful seaside city. We rented bikes and rode around the pier, then throughout the Gothic Quarter. The only downside to Barcelona was that it was insanely HOT while we were there. 

The Mercato St Joseph La Boqueria was one of my favorite markets in all of Europe. They had everything from fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, candy, tapas and the most delicious juices. 

Michael's favorite juice was fresh coconut juice (not the coconut water, but the milk squeezed from the meat of the coconut) and I really liked the pineapple and coconut combo. They were SO yummy!

Super cute egg stand. 

And my favorite lunchtime booth, where I would get chorizo empanadas. 

We walked around the Encants Vells flea market. 

We hid out in Nike for a while enjoying their a/c. 

Before traveling to Barcelona I had never heard of Antoni Gaudi. But you cannot visit this city without seeing his architectural influence everywhere. He was a Catalan architect during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

This is the entrance to Park Guell. Gaudi designed both these building near the front of the park. There were also really neat mosaics, columns, and bridges in the park. 

The Sagrada Familia is a Catholic church designed by Gaudi. They started building it in 1882, and still have NOT finished. The projected completion date is 2030. 

The inside was beautiful and very different than any other cathedral we saw.

Casa Mila. A building designed by Gaudi. 

Casa Batllo. Another amazing Gaudi building. 

Barcelona has one of the best urban beaches in Europe. It was a nice beach but very crowded. 

Barcelona is a great city and we would love to visit it again (when the weather is cooler).