PARIS DAY 11

Our last (full) day in Paris. Bittersweet. Sweet for our budget, bitter for the fact that Paris is totally awesome. We decided that it would be great on our last day to get one last beautiful view of the city, so we took a metro and hiked up to Montmartre.

We took a "secret" staircase up to the basilica, which Owen was convinced was a super awesome shortcut. Well, he was half-correct...it definitely was a quick walk up to the monument, but we're pretty sure it was the sneaky path that people selling water bottles and stuff on the street use as a public restroom. So that was interesting. But at least we didn't have to suffer through the hike up Montmartre that most people complain about!

Awesome looking church, lots of stairs.

View of the Eiffel Tower from the top of the hill! You kind of have to climb up this fence and take a photo through a hole in it, or from above, but it's worth the shot I would say. Photo of that below...

We went inside the church of course (it was free) but you weren't supposed to take photos inside and unlike 90% of the tourists, we actually followed the rules. I'm sure you can google it if you want.

A lovely shot takes a little work! I love that you can see the tower peeking through that hole though :)

Tour from the main part of the basilica. A little hazy, but a little lovely.

Then for lunch we went to a place called Babalou-Sur-Seine, which was recommended by one of my friends from our old ward. I was a little hesitant (pizza in Paris??), but it was so good! I was actually super craving pizza after being away from the states for so long, and this fresh Italian place (which was incredibly conveniently close to Sacre Coeur) totally hit the spot. I got the ricotta pizza which was so delightful and fresh and BIG, and Owen got a spicy sausage one. Do not ask to split pizzas here, just a warning :)

They had this infused chili oil there you could drizzle on your pizza which was totally hot and totally good. We definitely are going to learn how to make this.

And we finished with the chocolate cake, which again, Owen wants me to learn how to make. Yeah it was goooood.

Then we hiked around the Montmartre neighborhood, and decided it would definitely be a cool place to stay if we visited again. It was a lot more laid-back and quieter and green!

Some church, it was cool.

Hopping along the sidewalk posts.

Super pretty ivy growing on all the buildings. I know its a weed and that it kills a lot of other species that would normally be there, but it's so pretty!

Yeah, lots of ivy.

Then we decided to head over to Places des Vosges, which is a cool neighborhood area where apparently Victor Hugo used to live. While we were over there, we went to one last free museum, Musée Carnavalet, which is a museum dedicated to the history of Paris.

We didn't know French and we didn't know much about the history of Paris, but it was still pretty awesome. It was way less populated than most of the museums we visited, and it was so much fun finding this little bit of history along our way!

Then we went to the best place ever, Chocolatier Joséphine Vannier. Not only were the chocolates delicious and the service super nice and friendly, the prices were actually not outrageous! It is probably a good thing we didn't discover this until our last day, or else we would have eaten so much chocolate on this trip!

Enjoying one last picnic at the park at Places des Vosges. This park was awesome because a) you could sit on the grass (though watch out for cigarette butts) and b) it felt like a lot more locals hung out here, and it seemed more like a neighborhood hangout than total tourist site.

And it was pretty, of course. Minus the pigeons (of course).

On our way home, we HAD to stop for gelato at Amorino because of all the rave reviews we'd heard.

I knew the gelato would taste good, but I had no idea that they would scoop it into such lovely little roses! It was awesome! I tried to watch their technique carefully, and if I ever find a flat ice cream scoop, I'd love to learn how to recreate it. I've never eaten such pretty ice cream!

Eating it in a swirling technique was a must.

On our walk home that night, one last photo and one last awesome church. I loved the red doors!

Overall, Paris was incredible. Of course it was. It's one of the greatest and most idealized cities in the world. It was definitely expensive, and definitely worth it in our minds. Do I think everyone should go to Paris? No. You have to be pretty into art and history to enjoy the greatest parts, you have to not mind waiting in huge lines or squirming through huge crowds or having lots of people blocking your views or having people smoking all around you, and having a significant budget definitely doesn't hurt. There were some things about our trip that didn't live up to my great expectations, and there were some things that totally surpassed them. As crazy as some people may think I am, I am totally glad that I planned out such an extensive itinerary because I really felt like we were able to make the most out of our time and see a lot of really amazing things. Most of all, I am so grateful that we had this opportunity together, I'm grateful to Owen for having a kick-butt job and going along with my crazy dream to visit this wonderful city, and grateful that there are such interesting and amazing places on this earth for us to visit!

PARIS DAY 10

This day was the BEST! We finally made our way to Giverny, and it was SO SO SO worth it! It was so beautiful! For those who aren't as crazy as me (or a bunch of other tourists haha), Giverny is the hometown of Claude Monet, and his former home is open to the public as a sort of museum. A lot of his most famous work (water lilies) was painted at that home, and the gardens that were the subject of his work are still meticulously maintained. And they are so pretty. 

We took a train out to Vernon, and then there were these super convenient shuttles taking people from the Vernon train station to Giverny. If we went again and had enough time, I think it would be fun to walk from the station to Monet's home -- it was about an hour walk I think? But the town of Vernon was super pretty driving through, and you go over the River Seine and can see all these sailboats and stuff that Monet painted!

Giverny itself is definitely a town maintained for tourists, but it's so lovely! Everyone had the most gorgeous gardens, and it was such a peaceful and pleasant escape from the city. I can't believe how many French people I spoke to didn't even know about Giverny! Or maybe it was just my super horrible French accent...

Owen and I have decided that it is our life goal to have a garden like this. IT WAS AMAZING!

And it happened to be dahlia season, and since dahlias are one of my two favorite flowers, I was pretty stoked of course. Dahlias are so bright and beautiful!

The picture below is why you should never assume someone knows how to use your DSLR, and you should just ask them to take a photo on your iPhone instead...

It would have been so cute, but its so blurry!!! Such a bummer. 

I was so glad that I found this floral dress at Uniqlo to wear to the gardens - it was a perfect choice!

So the gardens are behind his (very long) house. That must have been so awesome to look out onto every morning!

The only thing I wish was different at Giverny is that there were so many sections of the gardens that were roped off, and only gardeners could go amongst the flowers. I mean, it makes sense since a lot of people go through there every day and could cause a lot of damage, but I just wanted to run through the whole thing and smell every flower! That's why we need to make our own version of his gardens, of course.

Also there were some really hilarious looking chickens. So we took a picture of them. 

SO. MANY. FLOWERS!

Are you tired of flowers yet? Because I'm not!!!!!!!!!

Then we walked under this little bridge/tunnel way to the lily pad waterponds. Wow. 

We snagged a bench with this gorgeous view since the bench was a little wet and no one else wanted to sit on water...We just sat here and looked at this for hours, it was so beautiful there! You know a place is amazing when it's beauty is still overwhelming despite all of the tourists running around. 

THE FAMED LILIES!

We liked our benches. 

The famous bridges!!!

How could someone live here and NOT want to be an artist!!

These giant green leaf plants were just too big and awesome. 

I found out that Owen really likes fuschia plants. 

Then we toured his house, but you're not allowed to take any pictures inside of there. You can look at the inside of his awesome and beautiful house by clicking on this link. We were allowed to take this one picture though, which is the view of the gardens from his bedroom window. Wow, right??

His house was so colorful and awesome!

We never wanted to leave. 

But we eventually did leave, and walked around Giverny for a little bit and found this little gem - the Natural Mechanical Museum. Basically it was like every steampunk dream come true. It was full of all these amazing old machines with huge gears and pipes and they are all beautifully restored.

Unfortunately it was pretty dark inside the museum (which was free, by the way!) so it was hard to get any good pictures, but it was pretty cool! I love how there are so many unique hobbies that are supported in their community, and the craftsmanship was extraordinary. 

We walked throughout the town, and decided we would want to stay there instead of Paris next time, and then also walked along the river on the backside of Monet's estate. And Owen climbed a giant tree, despite me reminding him that our health insurance does not extend overseas.

We walked around Vernon for a little while too, and found this amazing church. It's also called Notre Dame (and that was where I learned that there are actually a lot of Notre Dames...) and you can see bullet marks where invading soldiers shot down the statues on the exterior of the church, which was pretty wild. 

We walked over to the River Seine, which we thought was much prettier on this side. And also very windy!!

If we had planned it better, we could have walked over to where these sailboats were and chilled on the beach a little bit...I think we will have to do that next time!!

Here is Owen's backside at the Saint Lazare station in Paris. Apparently Monet painted this train station as well, which is pretty awesome of course. 

Overall, our little venture outside of the city was well worth it, and we loved Giverny so much! For only a 45-minute train ride, we got a totally different and lovely experience. Highly recommended!!