PRAGUE, Czech Republic

Au Revoir Paris
This morning our backpacking trip around Europe began. we turned in our keys and hopped on a plane to Prague, first stop for the month

short, two hour flight

We arrived about 5pm, took a bus and metro to the city center, checked into our hostel, exchanged our euros for korunas and got some czech food

In Prague we are riiiiiiiiiiiiiiich... kind of

Eurotinerary is SET!

 

 

After much much much much planning, our EUROtinerary is complete and flights are booked!

Here is the lineup:  

Paris> Prague> Amsterdam> Liverpool> London> Switzerland> Copenhagen> Berlin> Athens> Rome> Venice> Milan> Barcelona> Paris

Today is a sad day...

We climbed 387 steps to the top of Notre Dame to the bell tower and forgot the friggin' Quasimodo crocheted finger puppet back at the apartment. EPIC FAIIIIIIIIIIL

Catacombes de Paris

103 steps down...                                                      "Stop! This is the empire of death"

underground spans 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) long

bones, bones, so many bones... 6 million bodies worth of bones

Parisians are short, Andy is not

acquiring bad Ju-Ju I'm sure...

Quarry that could collapse and cave in at any time... thanks a lot for adding that in the description

time to get the hell outta here!

Chateau Versailles

We made it!

Takashi Murakami sculpture in the palace

Hall of Mirrors

Tale as old as time...

Bedroom ceiling and tassel hat

The Gardens are huuuuuuuge

Grand Trianon

attacked by bees!

Marie Antoinette was totally a Green Bay fan!

Lunch by the fountains, Andy feeding the swans

As a result swans began to attack and bravely attempt to snatch my sandwich out of my hand

hurr???

Marie Antionette's Estate

I feel like a giant gingerbread man!

Farm

At least ya'll undastand my French... dont ya?

Train ride home after a loooong day

Versailles (Attempt 1)

We were supposed to go to Chateau Versailles today but...

...we woke up late

...it was raining the kind of rain that makes your parapluie look like this

 

...we were misinformed and therefore unable to purchase our Versailles tickets ahead of time at the train station

...then we got off at the wrong stop

  ....and by the time we made it to the Chateau it was 10am and there were hundreds of people in line to purchase tickets. 

 

            Standing in line would have put us at noon to get started giving us only 6 hours. which may seem like a lot of time but is not. There is The Palace, The Grand Trianon, The Gardens, Marie Antoinette's Estate aaaaand Takashi Murakami's exhibition... none of which can be rushed. Especially since we have become accustomed to strolling as the Parisians do, in addition to having no particular time schedule we decided not to force it. Today was just not the day. 

       Instead we spent the day walking around the actual city of Versailles, which I dont think a lot of tourists get to do since seeing the Chateau takes up a whole day. Its a quaint city, quiet compared to Paris, with many decorative motifs on the facades of the architecture, lots of neutral and pastel colors. I was able to get a lot of good detail pictures, around 200, that once I get my hands on a printer I plan on incorporating into some artwork.

Antique/ Thrift stores in France are amazing and covered from floor to ceiling, every inch.

Of course, had to stop at Creperie Saint Louis for coffee,in honor of the good ole midwest (which of course this Creperie's reference to Saint Louis has nothing to do with)

 

Our train home dropped us off at the Notre Dame metro station. 

The lines were short to get into ND because of the rain so we visited the inside for the first time today (I know, sad since its across the street from our apartment.) 

Apparently there is a tour that takes you 387 steps to the top of the towers which we plan to do soon

 The following two pictures are for our gmaw's who are reading...

 this counts as going to church, right?