Bastille in Paris
July 14th, 2015
Our first site of the Eiffel Tower
After a 6 hour train ride we arrived in Paris! Just the few streets we walked to get to our hotel are as charming and ideal as we could imagine. We dropped off our luggage and hopped across the street to a café for lunch. Of course, neither of us could really read the menu and both ordered what we thought were white wines, Chuck ended up with a dessert wine and Anna with wine liquor. It made for an interesting start to an afternoon lunch. After beer and schnitzel all over Bavaria, Anna was looking for something lighter and ordered a salad, but without being able to read the description, ordered a salad with prosciutto, cheese, toast with goat cheese, creamy dressing, egg, fried potatoes and just a bit of lettuce-probably the most unhealthy, delicious salad she has ever had.
Now that's a crowd!
After the long train ride and knowing we would want to stay out late to celebrate Bastille Day, we decided to take a nap in our room and were pleasantly surprised to hear people down in the plaza below, when a man began to sing opera. It was quite the welcome to Paris! We headed out for the Bastille Day fireworks and were excited to stop for our first baguette sandwiches and wine to bring along.
We were able to grab a pretty great spot to watch the fireworks and concert. We chatted with a few people around us and found out that normally the concert has huge acts like Coldplay or U2 but this year it 250 musicians from the National Orchestra of France and the Radio France Choir. The music was beautiful and made the perfect background to our first picnic in Paris! The sun went down (at 10:30 PM?) and the Eiffel Tower was lit up in red, white, and blue while the crowd began to sing the national anthem. It was the beginning of the best introduction to Paris we could imagine. With or without the Eiffel Tower as a background, this would have been the best fireworks show either of us had ever seen. It was probably about 40 minutes long and had fireworks coming right off the tower in all directions to the music. It was stunning. Once the show was over we got some good views of the tower before trying to head home. That became a 2-hour ordeal as the trains were completely packed and all the taxis were taken! We finally made it back to our room at around 2 AM but it was worth the experience.
