Paris

In June, I headed to Paris for my second Spartan Race. Coincidentally, my dad was playing a gig nearby and we got the chance to meet up and spend some time in Paris together. I hadn't seen him in about 11 months, and my mom in 8. It was so wonderful to be in such a beautiful city and be reunited with my parents! We spent most of our times being tourists, going back to sights we'd been to 12 years ago, most of which I barely remembered. Our first stop was Montmartre. This part of Paris is definitely the stereotypical and picturesque idea that most people have of the city of love. It is so beautiful, up there, and you have incredible views of the entire city. Then, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe, and walked to the Eiffel Tower. It has been so long since I've seen these places and they are just as impressive as I remember them. The Eiffel Tower is just such an amazing structure!

We then met up in the morning and headed to the Notre Dame de Paris and actually managed to go inside. It is a breath-taking cathedral from the outside, and even more so on the inside. After eating in the Latin Quarter, we headed towards the Musée d'Orsay, a museum made out of an old train station. It has a huge collection of art, some very famous Van Goghs and when I was there, an amazing exhibit on impressionism.

The first thing we did on our last day together was to head up the Notre Dame de Paris. We got up extra early and got to go inside the bell towers of the famous cathedral. It was so worth it! My parents had never done it, so it was cool to be able to do this together. The gargoyles are really great and well preserved and you can just imagine yourself up there with Quasimodo! It doesn't really feel that high when you're going up and don't realize it until you look out and see where you are in the cathedral. The hard part was actually going back down the stairs as its an endless spiral staircase until you suddenly end up on the ground and the door opens back up. It takes a minute to stabilize yourself before being able to walk away!
After this, we relaxed for a while in cafés, walked along the Seine, checked out the Love Locks and made our way to the meeting point of our tour.
I work at Fat Tire Tours Berlin, and we are also have tours in Paris, so it just made sense to go say hi and do a tour with them as well. We picked the Night Tours, since I heard that was the best one. It really was! We biked around the city (it's way safer and a lot less scary than it sounds!), we stopped for the best ice cream in the city, had a lovely boat ride on the Seine and watched the Eiffel Tower light up. It was the perfect way to end a great few days with my parents in Paris.

I had the next day to myself after that so I headed to the Catacombs. I had heard so many good things about it, and having a sort of morbid curiosity, decided it was something I needed to see. It was definitely something out of of this world. Millions of skulls and bones all lined up and organized like a sort of weird arts project makes for a very very creepy underground visit. It was definitely worth the two hour wait in the blazing sun, though! I learned a lot about the underground world of the city and I don't think I'll ever see anything quite like it anywhere else.

I somehow managed to convince my boyfriend to come meet me after and we spent quite a bit of time walking around and taking pictures around the city before and after my race, which I will write about in a post soon! We only had about 36 hours together in the city, but it was well worth it. We finally had a bit of rain and some incredible sunsets, which made for perfect photography and a stunning end to a fantastic trip to the City of Love.