Paris 2010
As a last hurrah before the end of Chris’ long but celebrated bachelorhood, the 3 musketeers decided to hit the champagne and cognac regions of France over Thanksgiving break. After landing, we quickly checked in to our hotel in Paris and hit Moet & Chandon via TGV in the champagne region (Epernay) followed by dinner at Reims and returned back to Paris.
The next day we hightailed it south to Angoulême via TGV followed by nearly an hour long bus ride to Cognac. We spent the whole day in this region, mainly at Hennessy and Rémy Martin, before heading back north to Blois via Tours. At Blois, we had our first proper French meal where the now famous Jonu proposal plans were laid out over wine and escargot. That night, in the frigid cold weather, we ventured out by foot on a quest to find a bar that would serve us absinthe (Have to!) We finally found a local watering hole that had all sorts of American paraphernalia that seemed to be extremely popular with the locals. It was packed to the point of being unsafe at 12am! Outside there were a bunch of pot smokers that gave us ideas for tourist spots to hit the next day. Being the nerds that we are, we declined their offer for some “special” stash that were going to smoke later and headed back to our hotel.
Our primary reason for stopping over at Blois instead of heading north all the way back to Paris was to hit the Loire Valley region. Loire river is the longest river in France and the valley has some of the most prominent chateaux including Châteaux d’Amboise, Château de Valençay and over 300 others! However, the most prominent of them all is Château de Chambord, which is the one we picked to visit given our limited time. Cameras were not allowed in most areas within the chateau, but it was one of the most beautiful structures I’ve ever visited. The most dramatic aspect of this building has to be the asymmetrical roofline followed by the double helix staircases which is rumored to be designed by Da Vinci himself.
After spending all day at Chambord, we made our way back to Paris and hit Sacre Coeur Basilica situated at Montmartre-the highest point in the city. The view from this vantage point out into the city is remarkable even at night time. We had snacks at a nearby plaza and went souvenir shopping before returning back into the center of the city. By this time we were unbelievably hungry and so we went on a quest to find some grub. As luck would have it, we ran into an Indian fellow who recommended a good Indian restaurant to us right down the street. By the time we got to the restaurant, the kitchen had officially closed. My mastery over the Hindi language came to good use as I convinced the owner to reopen to the kitchen for his fellow “countrymen” and had a great dinner. After dinner, we set out to find the world famous Harry’s New York Bar and had a couple of rounds of absinthe there and hit another bar that was playing good music before finally calling it quits.
Our final day in France called for a visit to the Eiffel tower. After that, we walked to Arc de Triomphe, and then hoofed nearly the full length of Champs-Élysées avenue before hailing a cab to visit the Notre Dame cathedral. While it was no match for La Sagrada Familia (see Barcelona pics in Europe 2010), it was still quite an impressive masterpiece. We returned back to the hotel after roaming around a bit more and packed all our stuff for our early morning flight back to Houston the next day. Overall a great trip, eventhough it was really short. Check out all the pics below!
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beautiful pictures homey. finally got to see it.
Thanks man… Kind words from a pro like you gives me motivation to improve!
Looking forward to more photos… these are two years old JJ 🙂
hey homey, waiting for new pictures… where are they? how are you doing?