Family Time in Paris!

Leaving Munich behind, I caught a high speed train to Paris where I'd meet my parents for the last two weeks of my travels. Having been on the road for so long, most of the time alone, I was ready to see my family and finish out the trip in relative luxury courtesy of the parents' credit card. But the most exciting part of their visit was the chance to make some amazing memories with my parents on their first ever trip to Europe!

Notre Dame

For those of you that know my mom, she always plans the most intense vacations where we spend 10 hours a day visiting sights, eating at the most famous restaurants and maximizing our time wherever we are. This trip would be no exception! They arrived late at night and after walking to our very small one bedroom apartment in a quiet, working-class suburb in the rain, we caught many strange looks speaking English in the neighborhood restaurant and plotted our impending "attack" on Paris.

Mom and dad at Notre Dame

Up early the next morning, we grabbed croissants and bottled waters and hiked out into the city to our first stop, Notre Dame. One of the most well-known churches in the world, the cathedral was finished in the 14th century and is one of the best examples of Gothic architecture in France. With its flying buttress design, grand towers, ornate gargoyles, bright stained glass and beautiful surrounding gardens, it was an impressive sight. We followed a walking route suggested by one of our guide books and wound around the neighborhoods on the Seine River which runs through Paris.

The famous Shakespeare and Company book store, famous as a meeting place for several of the best writers of the 20th century. I picked up the Da Vinci Code, a fitting read for visiting Paris and London.

My chronological order is also screwed up but somewhere in our four days in the city, we checked out the Louvre and its many galleries. Originally built in the 12th century it has served as a fort and for several centuries was the center of French politics. Now it's one of the largest museums and the most heavily visited gallery on earth. That glass temple was obviously not built in the 12th century and is a controversial part of the Louvre's more modern history.

You can't visit Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower...

The above photo was taken from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. We decided to take in views from here rather than the Eiffel Tower as the wait would've been about two hours... From the Arc you get a 360 view of the city including down the famous Champs-Élysées- noted for its high end shopping, street cafes and as the finishing point for the Tour de France. Could also be famous for its intense traffic...

Towering high above Paris is the stunning Sacre-Cour, a huge church finished in the early 1900s, which sits atop Montmartre, the highest peak in Paris. The area around Montmartre is also noted as the place where many famous painters such as Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh lived and worked.

Above, the view of Montmartre and Sacre-Cour from the Arc de Triomphe. And below, up close at Sacre-Cour.

Parisians, especially waiters, have a reputation as being rude and abrupt, especially to tourists, though we found this want the case, at least where we eat. Having seen so much of the rest of the world, I don't think Paris food is particularly special, though I couldn't leave France without trying escargot. Soaked in butter and garlic, it had an amazing taste, even if the texture was a little gooier than one might hope for...

Eating escargot...

Before leaving town, we had one final stop in the catacombs below Paris. Underneath the city, there are many caves, tunnels and old mines which were repurposed as tombs during 18th century due to health threats and overcrowding in the cemeteries above ground. Now, they are a major tourist attraction and house the remains of an estimated 6 million people!

Small tunnels and human bones.... Creepy!

Glad to get above ground again, we bid farewell to Paris and hopped a quick flight headed to our ancestral lands of Scotland!