July 12-14th - the arrival of the Folkers!

My friends had finally arrived Paris! Debbie wanted to hit the ground running as soon as they made it to the hotel, so I had everything perfectly planned. Well... almost. Had it not been for major holiday celebratioins, our next 2 days would have gone a lot better. But... it was a great 3 days. It was just tweaked a little see'ns now ALL of France was in Paris for Bastille Day. But.. one cool thing, so were we! SO... this picture is our favorite morning spot. The Notre Dame cafe. Yes, it's touristy but you can't beat the view of Notre Dame.


SO... we set out on our walk to the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre and of course the Tour Eiffel. There were amazing things happening all over the place. There was an air show going on as we were walking and 3 jets flew right down the Seine, streaming red, white and blue smoke (France's colors of course!) There was a huge parade of tanks also. I had no idea tanks could move so fast. I told our friends that I had all this brought in for their arrival. This is me on my favorite bridge in Paris. Everyone has one... the Pont Alexandre III is mine. It is gorgeous! It leads to the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, which then leads right onto the Champs Elysees. Paris SO agrees with me!


Dan and I had been to Versailles before but our friends had not. So, we arranged an entire day out to the Chateau Versailles and a golf cart ride around all the grounds and Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. It was a gorgeous day. We took the train from near our hotel in the Latin Quarter and arrived Versailles when they opened. The grounds of Versailles were beautiful and because we were there on a Sunday, the fountains were all working. I have been on "non fountain" days during the week, and can say that the crowds on Sunday are not worth seeing the fountains. It was nice... but there were twice as many people as last year when we were here on a Thursday.


Here is just one of the many buildings inside Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. It is just a gorgeous place to be and you can understand why she preferred being here over the main chateau.

I could never get tired of wandering around Versailles. Next time it will not be on a Sunday though.