Paris

 

We decided to make one more stop on our way home and decided on a couple of days in Paris. I had always wanted to visit Paris, especially after taking French in high school. With our delayed flight it was late into the afternoon before we made it to our hotel our first day. We stayed at the Renaissance Paris Republique. The location was a bit out of the way from a lot of the sites, but it was a very nice hotel and we felt very safe there. I think as a whole Paris is just pretty spread out, so getting to the sites was a bit more tricky than some of the other places I have visited. It is actually a pretty similar to Washington DC in so many ways, which makes a lot of sense if you know the history. After we got settled at our hotel we walked over to a market area and stopped for a sandwich at Caractère de Cochon. This was the cutest little deli and the sandwiches were fantastic! One of my favorite things we ate in Paris for sure! 

   

Next we grabbed an Uber over to Notre Dame. We were originally supposed to visit the Louvre this afternoon, but didn't make it in time. The Louvre ended up being closed anyway because of the heat, so I guess that just wasn't meant to be on this trip. We waited in line for a bit to get into Notre Dame. It is still so crazy how old the building is, especially when you consider how ornate and detailed it is. It was a very interesting place to visit.

 

 

 

 

We walked around the neighborhood a bit, hoping to see the flower market. It was closed down for the day. We decided to head down towards the Eiffel Tower, where we had tickets for the river cruise and took another Uber. The river cruise was great, and a perfect way to see a big chunk of the city. 

 

After that we walked over to the other side of the Eiffel Tower to get the iconic photo. 

 

 

We headed back the other direction across the bridge to Trocadero. There were so many people gathered there in anticipation viewing the Eiffel Tower at night. This was a really cool neighborhood and we stopped for dinner at Carette where we enjoyed delicious french onion soup and the best hot chocolate I have ever had. It was a late dinner, which felt very "French." 

 

We got a view of the Eiffel Tower before Uber-ing back to our hotel for the night. 

 

The next morning after enjoying some croissants, we headed up to the Montmartre area, and our first stop was at Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur. 

 

 

Montmartre was such a cute neighborhood, and we enjoyed walking around and doing some shopping.

   

 

 

 

Next up we headed down to the Arc de Triomphe, where we sat and enjoyed our macarons from Pierre-Herme. They were delicious! We ate plenty of carbs in Paris and they were all throughly enjoyed! 

 

 

We walked down the Champs Elysees for a bit and then hopped on the subway to get closer to the Louvre area. The subway was hot, crowded and expensive. Uber was definitely the better way to get around! We stopped by a few shops that were on our list, and picked up a few souvenirs. We stopped for lunch at a little bistro called Poppy.  It was heavily themed with poppy flowers and very cute!  I tried a croquet monsieur.  It was good but if choosing a French sandwich I would definitely go with the jambon-beurre from the first day. 

   

Next up we walked through the neighborhoods, eventually making it back to our hotel. We enjoyed stopping by the French grocery store Monoprix, and found a few unique goodies there. That night we had dinner at La Marine, which was on Canal Saint Martin. We enjoyed sitting outside to have our meal. We finished off the night with some delicious eclairs. 

   

We made one last stop at Mamiche the next morning for croissants. I got daring and ordered in French! My family had requested croissants from Paris for their souvenir, so I had to oblige. I thought the pain au chocolat was even better than the plain croissant. We took a taxi to the airport, and the trip home went off without a hitch. Of course we had problem after problem getting to Norway and Paris, but not getting home. The Diet Dr. Pepper on the plane made leaving a fabulous trip to Europe just a little bit easier! 

Final thoughts on Paris. 

It was SO busy. Everywhere we went was just SO busy. That said it was interesting how you didn't really have to wait at restaurants. I am guessing July is the busiest month to visit Paris. Between the crowds and the heat, I wouldn't recommend July. Same for the sister city of Washington DC. 

We saw very few other Americans. 

I would never have claimed to be a proficient speaker of French. Even with my months of duo-lingo practice prior to the trip, I am a barely even a novice. I could not understand others speaking at all, or speak myself. Even the French speaking in English were hard to understand. But I was pleasantly surprised that I could read most things. Signs, menus, etc. It made me feel like I did learn something in 3 years of French class!

I was pleasantly surprised with how friendly the French were to us. I had always heard that they didn't like Americans, but we had one rude interaction and everyone else was very nice and helpful.

Paris was such a fun place to stop!  It wasn't a bad place to visit for only a couple of days and I felt like we were able to see a lot.  

It only took me 43 years to make it to Europe, hopefully the next trip is much sooner!

Norway Part 5: Bergen

Our final stop in Norway was in the city of Bergen, which is a coastal city on the west coast of the country.  We took one last scenic train ride from Voss to Bergen and headed to our hotel, the Bergen Bors Hotel. 

 

 

The hotel was super nice and a perfect location to explore the city, being right in the city center. Even though we arrived in the late morning our room was ready for us, so we were able to get settled in before heading out to explore the city. We walked around, eventually ending up at Bryggen, which are the famous colorful houses of Bergen. The houses are a historical area, but interestingly enough were mainly souvenir shops on the lower floors.

   

 

We did an initial assessment of the shops, since this was our day to buy some souvenirs for our trip. We wandered over to the fish market where we got some fish sandwiches for lunch. They were both good, but the smoked salmon one was one of my favorite things I had to eat in Norway. 

   

The city as a whole had "Frozen" vibes. It had a lot of cute buildings and fun little shops. It was also a cruise port and swarming with people during the day. That was probably my least favorite part about the area.  

   

 

It is such a beautiful city! 

 

 

We ended up back at Bryggen in the afternoon and were able to find most of the items on our lists to take home with us. That evening we decided to try and find a Norwegian taco for dinner. The first place we tried was very clearly a knock-off Taco Bell and was out of tacos! So we ended up at another little restaurant, which had good tacos, but there was nothing "Norwegian" about them!

 

The next morning we had a little later start for the first time on the trip and headed out to get another cinnamon bun and try the sunshine buns. I preferred the sunshine bun with the custard frosting. I wouldn't say either item was life changing, but they were good. 

 

Next up we hopped on a bus for a tour of the city. I thought this was a great way to cover a lot of ground. We got to see a lot of different areas and learned a lot of interesting facts along the way. 

 

 

 

Next up was our most adventurous snack of the trip, trying a reindeer hot dog. It definitely wasn't great! 

 

 

 

 

We needed to wash the hot dog down with some ice cream and Hallaisen did not disappoint, 10/10! 

 

We decided to get off the beaten path and took a bus ride up to the Fantoft Stave Church. This was another great way to see different parts of the city, as this was up in the hills. We had read that there were two ways to get to the church but because the light rail train was out of service we ended up on the "hard" route. It was a bit of a hike up to the church! The church was really cool, but it was a bit disappointing to learn that even though it was originally built in 1170 it had burned to the ground in 1992, and this was a rebuild of the original church. I guess it just wasn't quite as cool as some of the buildings we had seen that actually were built so long ago. 

 

 

On our hike back down to catch the bus. It was a beautiful wooded area, but pretty steep. 

 

We walked around a few more shops. It was fun to visit a fabric store where they make the traditional Norwegian clothing. We also stopped by another grocery store to get some chocolate to take home. We decided to take one more stop while we were in Europe, and we decided on a couple of days in Paris on the way home. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 5 something the next morning. We had dinner at a little cafe close to the hotel before calling it an early night. As the trip seemed to go, right as we were starting to get ready for bed we got an alert that our flight had been delayed. Eventually we got on a direct flight to Paris but it didn't leave until about noon. It was disappointing to lose a chunk of our day in Paris, especially since we didn't have much time there to begin with. We slept in a bit the next morning and had one last Norwegian breakfast at our hotel. We really enjoyed the Norweigen breakfasts, and this was the best one yet!

   

 

How cool is this restaurant at our hotel! This was a great place to stay! We headed to the airport, sad to say goodbye to the beautiful country of Norway! We had such an enjoyable and memorable time there. This was a trip we will cherish forever! Next stop, Paris!

Norway Part 4: Norway in a Nutshell

 

On Sunday we were up bright and early once again to set off on our next adventure. We took a self-guided tour across Norway called Norway in a Nutshell. I thought it was great since they booked all the tickets and all we had to do was follow the route, which did include several transfers. We started on the Bergen Railway from Oslo Central Station. The first leg of the trip was the longest at 4 hours and 45 minutes. We enjoyed the scenery and we went through Oslo, into the suburbs and eventually the countryside, before heading up into the mountains. We had a short stop in Myrdal to switch over to the Flam Railway. It was basically just a train station at the top of the mountains with a few houses scattered around. There were a lot of people that seemed to be hiking in the area. 

 

 

 

We headed off on the Flam Railway, which is a famous railway that goes from the top of the mountain down to the fjord below. We stopped at a big waterfall along the way. The railway was very steep and included many, many tunnels. It was quite the journey that took about an hour. 

   

 

 

 

 

 

When we got to Flam we boarded a boat for our Fjord cruise through Naeroyfjord. This was our favorite part of the trip. It was just so beautiful and really fun going through on the boat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our 2 hour cruise we stopped in the Viking village of Gudvangen, where we hopped on a bus to our next destination, which was Voss. This was our stopping point for the night, which ended up being good because we were pretty tired from our long journey that day. We stayed at a really cool historic hotel right on a picturesque lake. It was a memorable place to stop for sure! 

 

 

 

 

We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was kind of funny. We walked in and there were about 4 tables full of people eating in a huge dining room. They told us we needed a reservation and would have to come back in 20 minutes. So we enjoyed the view and went back 20 minutes later. It was a limited menu with only a few options, and we both tried the trout. It was really good and this ended up being the most "Norwegian" meal of the trip with boiled potatoes and pickled cucumbers. 

 

The next morning we enjoyed another buffet breakfast. The jams in Norway were delicious! 

 

 

We boarded yet another train for our final stop in Norway, Bergen.