Day 27: Versailles, Eiffel Tower, the Seine and Notre Dame

It was the first big day. We left the hostel bright and early (naturally, I didn't forget my beret) and after the flustered teacher told us the way, we went inside the "surface subway" (which to me is a train, but whatever) and off we went.

It was horrible weather. Rather, the weather was awful the whole time we were there. There was rain, wind, clouds... The sun? It stayed back in Lisbon. We arrived in ice cold Versailles and that wonder smacks us in the face. I'd never been there before (I should mention that the last time I was in Paris, before the trip I'm reporting now, was in 1998) and I thought it was breathtakingly stunning. And naturally, the prestigious gardens, there are no words that will do them justice.

After a quick lunch we headed back into town and, finally, I fulfilled my lifelong wish of climbing the Eiffel Tower. I didn't know you had to stop on the second floor, wait, and only then climb until the last one. That transaction took about an hour and a half (or more). Cold, mizzle, wind and everyone was so far up on one of the most beautiful monuments in the world. Yes, I was very lucky. After inumerous ahhhs and ooos and this is gorgeous, after the obligatory photographs of every angle of Paris, after a small tantrum (I was going to write bitch fit) caused by not wanting to leave, we left. This time towards the Seine.

Ah, how it's beautiful. I was sorry that we didn't make the whole route, but it was enough. The passage between the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame on those funny bateaux mouches was another dream come true. It's not every day that you're on a boat in the middle of the Seine, that you pass by the Louvre, by the Alexandre III bridge, by the typical parisian buildings that give me the oh-my-god-I-want-to-live-her-so-much-and-see-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life feeling, and stopping in Notre Dame.

It's incredible, I see so many photographs taken in 1998 in various locations that I also visited last year and I don't remember it. Yes, I was six, but I thought I'd remember a bit more of it. I only remember the little episode where one blister found its way to my feet and we couldn't do anything but getting inside a taxi and wander around the streets of Paris looking for a shoe shop (and I came out of one with slippers, even when I was six I already had a great style, you see? I wonder, where are those memorable slippers?).

The inside of Notre Dame disappointed me. The interior can't compete with the exterior, it's impossible, but it doesn't stop being admirable.

Paris, tu me manques beaucoup.

Bisou, bisou *

* Every photograph taken by me.