Week 8

Biking with Friends

 After Colmar and Beaune we had finally arrived in Paris! To kick things off we went on a bike tour of the city. We got away with just a few scrapes and only one near-death experience so overall not as bad as I expected. This is the first bike tour I've ever actually done and it was a great way to see the city, definitely wanting to do more of them in the future.

Notre Dame

Paris overall was really my favorite city I've visited so far. As long as you watch out for pickpockets it's a really great place to be a tourist. One of my favorite things to do was just walk around the city at night and explore the different parts of Paris. Most of the nicer buildings are lit up and look incredible at nighttime.

Notre Dame is absolutely my favorite building of the entire program so far. I've always had a thing for cathedrals and Gothic architecture, but this place was really something special. I got to sit in on a service one evening and it was definitely an incredible experience.

One morning we went on a walking tour to Montmartre. This area was a totally different side of Paris, very calm and almost small town-ish. Between activities I got to sit down at a little street-side cafe and have an omelet and some coffee. Just getting to sit and take in the moment was absolutely a highlight. I certainly wouldn't want to live there, but I could absolutely spend much more time there as a tourist. I'll definitely be back.

Versailles

The Louvre and Versailles were both major highlights as well. If I could spend a year in the Louvre, I would. There's so much incredible stuff there that it was impossible to see everything in a day. In order to see the highlights we still had to skip some really incredible stuff unfortunately. The grandeur of Versailles was out of this world. I can't imagine someone actually living there. The hall of mirrors was probably my favorite part of Versailles but honestly it was all breathtaking. The Paris excursion was definitely the highlight of the program for me so far.