Summertime

This summer is turning out to be a busy, but good one. Lots going on lately.

-more travel coming up in the form of a little trip to the homeland (aka Minnesota) to visit fam up there

-starting to renovate the office, painting first, pictures to follow sometime soon

-Little Nate Hills made his debut a few days ago to proud parents Kat and Karl. So happy for you guys, and I'm coming to meet you as soon as I get back from MN, little guy!

-Celebrated E & J's engagement with a little party the other weekend and got to go bridesmaid dress shopping this weekend. Hooray! So fun.

-Finally sat down and finished up the Europe posts. See below.

Final days in France

On day five we hopped on a train and went to Versailles. I was very excited for this excursion because I didn't get to see the palace my first time through France. The main gates were under renovation, so we didn't get any good shots of the front facade, but here's a small side view.

We toured the main palace seeing, of course, the hall of mirrors,

the king's bedroom,

and Marie Antoinette's bedroom. This is were all the public births took place in the palace. We were told they did it that way to ensure that a switcheroo didn't occur with the royal babies.
Then it was on to the palace gardens, which were amazing!

They were also huge. They made a footprint about eight times the size of the palace. This is the main promenade. It went on for forever.
We did lots of walking and toured the Grand Trianon, a vacatioin home on the grounds. Then we made it to Marie Antoinette's hamlet, the farm-like village she created to get away from the palace atmosphere.

Its been completely restored (except for the inside, can't go any buildings) and it is run as a working farm with gardens and animals.

It was so cool and peaceful that we all decided we wanted to live there.
We lunced at a restaurant on the central canal and then hiked back up to the palace, which was a treat because they had turned on all the fountains in the garden.

Day six started off with another train ride. This time we were headed to Lucerne, Switzerland for an overnight stay. This was much needed at this point. The hustle and bustle(and dirty air) of Paris was all starting to wear on us, so we were very excited to head to a smaller more refreshing area. We loved it. If you ever go to Europe I highly recommend a stop in Lucerne. It's a great little city.

After we checked into our hotel we decided to take a boat cruise around the lake(which is huge). It was a great way to see the countryside.

We headed back to town to do some shopping and touring. We walked across one of the older attractions in the city, a covered wooden bridge that spans the lake in the center of the city.

We, of course, had to have some fondue, and we fed the swans that live on the lake too.
We got home late the next night back to Paris and had to get a few hours sleep in order to be ready for our next train ride bright and early the following morning to the Normandy coast to tour all the WWII sights. We started at the beach where the US built a giant harbor to bring in all the supplies it needed for the big attack. These are the remains of some of the floating structures that were built so that ships could dock out in the deeper water and then unload supplies that were trucked to shore on floating bridges.

We moved on to tour some of the german gun holds. A lot of the things the germans built back then are still intact.

Next we stopped at one of the more heavily hit sights on the coastline. It was interesting to see that the landscape is still scarred.

Then it was on to Omaha beach (think the scene in Saving Private Ryan where they ride in those boats to the shore to make the initial attack). I can't describe what it felt like to be there...a mixture of sadness, awe, and pride. During the first two hours of the attack, no Allies survived. Thousands of soldiers died that day. This is a monument to the first group that arrived. You can see the beach in the background.

Next we stopped at the American cemetary. The land was gifted to the US by France and is considered American soil. If you had a baby while you were there it would have dual citizenship.

There are some 9,000 graves here. All the markers are evenly spaced in a way that they are in rows from all directions. You can kind of see it in the picture above.

Then we made a stop at the German cemetary. It had quite a different atmosphere. Over 22,000 remains are contained here. The mound in the center is a mass grave and the marked graves on the grounds often contain multiples soldiers.

Well, that's our Euro Vaca in a nutshell. We had a blast and I think now that we've all had a couple weeks to rest up we're ready for that next trip.

The sight seeing continues

Day three started out with a trip to the Louvre.

We saw all the major works...couldn't see everything, obviously, because there are like 5 days worth of art in there...

We decided to have some fun with Les Trois Graces (the three graces). It's one of my favorites pics from the trip.
After the Louvre we headed down the river and walked through Jardin des Tuileries. The obelisk in the background at Place de la Concorde is the sight where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were beheaded.

We continued on and lunched on the Champs Elysee. We walked the length of it looking at all the pricey shops and made our way to the Arc de Triomphe.

After that it was on to the Eiffel tower.

My mom really wanted to go to the top, so we all accompanied her even though it was kind of scary...well all of us but Jill that is. After her incident on the bell tower at Notre Dame she wasn't up for any high rise adventures. Views from the top:

It was great to see the city from such a vast viewpoint. I want to go back one day and do it at night. I bet the lights are beautiful.

Day 3

Day three began at Musee d'Orsay.

It's set in an old re-modeled train station and stocked full of pre-Impressionist and Impressionist art work and sculpture. We saw all the big names like Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Degas, and so on. It was great.

After lunch we headed to the Catacombs. Long ago the cemetaries of the city became very unsanitary and a plan was hatched to excavate tunnels under the city and move the human remains there. Hence Paris has catacombs.

It was quite a long walk down tunnels and passageways to get to the main entrance above which it reads "Stop. This is the empire of the dead."
It was an interesting place to see. Its hard to explain what it was like to be among that many skeletons.

We headed back out into the sunlight and took a long metro ride up to the north end of the city to explore Mont Martre, the bohemian-like artists quarters. We toured Sacre Coeur, the famous white church at the top of the hill.
On our way out of the neighborhood we made a stop at the Moulin Rouge for good measure.

Le Jour Deux

Day two began bright and early with a short walk to Notre Dame cathedral on the island in the center of the city on the river Siene.

We toured the interior first. The lighting made for good photos. Very gothic.

After walking through the inside we went back outside and got in line for the 400+ steps to climb to the top of the bell tower.

It wasn't an easy task. They have you climb up on one side and then cross a bridge that goes across the front center of the building to get to the other bell tower where you make the final climb to the top.

This is what it was like walking around the building to get to the second set of stairs.

I'll admit, it was definitely an unnerving experience. Heres a shot looking back at the bridge I mentioned. Notice the toothpick like spires it rests upon and the cracks in the stone. My youngest sister, who struggles with heights, had a sort of panic attack after this and had to climb back down without making it to the top.

Before the final climb there was a side excursion climbing up these creaky wooden stairs to see the bell. It was huge! (And these stairs were even scarier. Who knows how old that wood is!)

After the short climb to the top it all became worth it with the sight of the great views. If only we'd had a little sun to top it off.

We climbed back down and walked throught the garden behind the church to get one final view of the architecture.

Then it was on to the Marche aux fleurs, Paris's best flower market. The flowers were amazing. It was mainly potted plants, but they also had cut flowers too. I would have given anything to take some home for my garden.

After exploring the flowers we continued our walk on the island in search of more sights. We stumbled upon La Conciergerie, a very old prison that is now a museum. It is where Marie Antoinette was held before her execution. This is the main hall of the prison where the guards were stationed.

Here's the courtyard where prisoners were allowed some fresh air. (We couldn't resist.)

We had a short walk down the street to Saint Chapelle, another cathedral.

This turned out to be one of the most beautiful places we visited. The main chapel was almost completely encased in stained glass. Gorgeous!

After a little lunch (we ate a million baguette sandwiches while in Paris and of course crepes. I think Jill had a total of 28 croque monsieurs (grilled ham and cheese). She's a picky eater.) we made our way north to Centre Pompidou.

We visited the modern art museum on the 4th and 5th floors of the building. It was a nice change of pace from all the history we'd been immersed in up to this point.


From here we headed to the Musee Picasso which was a nice little museum with some of his lesser known works. Then it was on to our last destination of the day: Jardin des Plantes. Its a garden that dates back several hundred years.

It had some extremely large (and old) trees.

It also housed a zoo that dated back to the 1700's. It was small but very personal. You could get right up close to the animals.

The garden also had a labrynth that we played in. It was a maze made out of hedges that had secret passage ways and hidden exits. It was quite fun.

We dragged ourselves back to the hotel at this piont. We chose to try using the metro because our feet were very tired. It went well. I found it very easy to navigate and we ended up using it a lot during the rest of our time in the city.

If you didn't believe me when I said day two was big, you do now! We got a good nigthts sleep that night and got ready to start day three.