Bonjour, Blair here. Because Basile knows how giddy I’ve been about our trip to Paris, he set up this blog so I could gush about our travels without having friends block me on Facebook for spamming them with Paris pics.

Today was our first full day in Paris, so we decided to hit the ground running. Or walking rather. We walked from our apartment in the Marais to the Eiffel Tower and enjoyed simply soaking the in city and the sites we passed along the way.

The jet lag struggle is real, so we got a pretty early start leaving our apartment.  Here is the view from our apartment this morning.

After doing plenty of window shopping at the hip boutiques in the Marais, we crossed the Seine into Ile de la Cité, a tiny island in the middle of the Seine, where Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle are located.

The sheer size and majesty of Notre Dame is always shocking, as the most common view of the front two bell towers truly does not do justice to the size of the massive gothic cathedral.

Basile and I have both been inside Notre Dame, and thus decided to avoid the long line and saved our euros for entry to a lesser known, but equally as historically significant church, Sainte Chapelle.

What makes Sainte Chapelle truly stand out is its 15 massive stained glass windows each 15 meters (that’s nearly 50 feet! ) tall that cover all four walls of the church.  The interior is very small inside compared to Notre Dame, but the smallness merely increases the dramatic impact of the stained glass, making you feel as if you are in an entirely glass church. The pictures don’t do the lighting justice. Simply, wow!

The windows show a total of 1,113 scenes from the Old and New testaments. Here’s a close up where you can see the detail of the scenes in the stained glass.  And to think all of the stained glass, with the exception of the rear rose window, was completed in the 13th Century!

After walking 5 miles, we reached our final destination–the Eiffel Tower! Basile and I have both seen the Tour Eiffel before, but like any great monument be it the Golden Gate or the Statute of Liberty, each time you see it you’re reminded of how beautiful and impressive it is in person.

Et, voila! Plenty of more pictures are sure to come tomorrow, as it will be my first time to the Louvre!

A bientôt,

Blair et Basile