Meeting Valencia

Ah, Valencia! This is such a great city. Our stay there started with getting of the train and seeing Cynthia. I was sooo happy to see her that tears of joy were welling but my throat. (A weird sensation, but anyone who has felt that will know what I am talking about.) It is so great to get off a train to meet someone who is RIGHT there waiting for you. In my travel experiences up to this trip, I have only traveled by car or plane, and you just don't get the same feeling. It is cool.

After our greetings, we went on to be introduced to the city. And it is such a welcoming city. With Matt as our official tour guide and Cynthia enthusiastically putting her two cents in, we were enthalled by the city and the festival that was just beginning to take form.

Sagrada Famila temple

I found this picture of the bascilica on the website http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsname=Wikipedia&dekey=Sagrada+Familia&gwp=8 It was started in 1884 and upon completion it will be the largest bascilia in the world. Gaudi died in 1926 and in 1940 work restarted on the project.

Barcelona

Upon arriving at the airport from Paris, Kristin and I decided to take a taxi to our hotel as we didn't know the city at all. Since it was night, we were pretty glad we had chosen that route. We were quite relieved to finally reach our hotel safely as the taxi driver couldn't quite get us directly to our hotel because of pedestrian only streets. Our hotel was nice and clean.

The next day we headed out to the Las Ramblas (a large pedestrian area between the road). On the Las Ramblas there is a bird market, flower market, and quite a few street performers. THe restuarants along the street also bring tables and chairs out on the the Ramblas to attract customers that don't want to cross the road.

After walking the length of the Ramblas, we decided to go to the Sagrata Familia bascilica. This thing is impressive. After the temple, we grabbed a bite to eat, headed back to get our bags, and made our way to the train station. We were then on our way to Valencia.

Paris pictures

Just the girls

After we sent the guys off to the train station, Kristin and I headed off to the Seine for our night bateau (boat) tour. It was so beautiful all the buildings lit up at night. Paris is the city of lights. After our tour, we headed back to the hotel, but not before getting a crepe (Grand Marinier, yum) and a bottle of wine. Once back at the hotel we realized we had sent ours with the boys so we just drank the peach water we had bought with the wine.

The next day we caught the metro to Rue Cler, browsed the market shop, and purchased some groceries for lunch. Afterwards, we headed to Sacre Cour and then Printemps-a huge dept. store. When we were finished shopping we had just enough time to grab some dinner, our bags and get lost on the way to the airport. Once we found our way to CDG airport we were off to Barcelona.

Paris

Our first day in Paris was a whirlwind of sightseeing. Ater being delayed a day in the Dallas airport we were so glad to find our hotel and our friends. We met our traveling partners, Chip and Kristin and joined up with Davy, who would be our travel guide of sorts in Paris. After getting a bite to eat at the crepe/panini stand and strollong around the neighborhood we were staying, we headed off to the Eiffel Tower. It was chilly and the lines were long so we decided to come back later to go up.

We decided to take the long walk from the Eiffel Tower to Champ-Elysses and see the Arc de Triomphe.

After checking out the Arc de Triomphe, we headed back to the 5th. We stopped by a square close to our hotel for some picnic fare. We got some bread from the boulangerie, cheese from the fromagerie, picked up some sausage and a rotisserie chicken, and some salad and mushrooms. After picking up a couple bottles of wine we were set for our picnic. There weren't any parks by our hotel so we took our feast up to the room and ate. After eating, the guys went to Davy's hostel and Kristin and I took a nap.

After our nap, we all headed out on the town. Our hotel was right by the Latin Quarter so we wandered through the tight busy streets, intrigued by the restaurants that would smash plates as you walked by in an attempt to intice you into their establishment (amoung other things). We were on a mission to find a jazz club but never found one that was what we were quite looking for. We wallked on an appetite and decided to stop at one of the many crepe stands. Kristin and I shared a Nutella and banana crepe while Nathan and Chip got paninis. We wandered quite a while and ended up at the Pompido Center. By this time, Davy was running out of time to get back to his hostel before the metro stopped running. He headed out and we started meandering back towards our hotel.

We went to see Notre Dame lit at night and then slowly went back to our hotel.


The next day Kristin and I had big plans to get up early and go up the Eiffel Tower before the crowds made it in. That didn't happen. After breakfast at the hotel we went to Notre Dame again, this time to see the inside. After a tour and pictures we headed on, eventually making our way to the Louvre. We decided we didn't have enough time to go inside so we headed on instead to the Eiffel Tower, walking. We walked down rue de rivoli through the Tuileries Garden and wound through a couple neighborhoods to find the Tower right in front of us. We went up, were awed, took the paromaic pictures and headed back to our district to eat dinner and send the boys off to Andorra.