Delayed Honeymoon: To Paris!

A busy and event filled day in Amsterdam was a wonderful prelude to a relaxing train ride to Paris. We decided to take the TGV because it was fastest means of transportation, and also didn't require us figuring out how to rent a car in Europe. 


We loaded up on the TGV, said goodbye to Anneke and Peter, and enjoyed First Class seats.  Believe me, I wouldn't spring for First Class on a regular basis, but this was our honeymoon!


Anneke, Peter, KG, Me

It's only about a 3 hour trip from Amsterdam Central to Paris Nord, and we were charged up and ready to go by the time we got off the train! The only problem was, I wasn't so keen on using the bathroom on the moving train, and once we got to Paris, it was going to cost me a Euro.  It really wasn't how much it cost, it was just a matter that I needed to pay for it! So, you'd better believe I was going to take a picture of it.

Welcome to Paris, here's the bathroom in the train station.  Yep, my husband thought I was crazy.  Oh well, he was bound to find out my secrets, sometime, right? Onward and more exciting - finding our way out of the train station, and to a taxi.  Absolutely overpaid for the taxi to our hotel, which was directly across the street from Starbucks.  Right, we're in Paris and so far all I've seen is a bathroom and Starbucks, really?


I am admittedly a hotel snob, and the Renaissance in Amsterdam was great, so 123 Elysees had a lot to live up to.  An itty bitty elevator and/or 4 flights of circular stairs stood between us and our room.  Yep, the pink room.

 Quick luggage drop, an awesome map from the concierge, and a two block walk.  Wait, we're two blocks from the Champs, man I did good! And at 11 o'clock at night, there was no shortage of people walking, eating, shopping, getting pepper sprayed (I'll come back to this). 


The good news is, the city of Paris installed some wonderful stairs and tunnels to access the Arc de Triomphe, so people don't need to run across 8 lanes of traffic.  Although, you'd just get a ticket, if you even survived the crossing.  A quick chat with another couple, an exchange of cameras, and the Arc!

We needed a good night's sleep before we moved on to the rest of the agenda on honeymoon day 3.


<3 J