{"id":2695,"date":"2011-03-22T17:31:54","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T22:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jjcaptures.com\/?p=2695"},"modified":"2017-05-14T12:26:47","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T17:26:47","slug":"paris-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/travel\/paris-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The next day we hightailed it south to Angoul\u00eame via TGV followed by nearly an hour long bus ride to Cognac.\u00a0 We spent the whole day in this region, mainly at Hennessy and R\u00e9my Martin, before heading back north to Blois via Tours.\u00a0 At Blois, we had our first proper French meal where the now famous Jonu proposal plans were laid out over wine and escargot.\u00a0 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!)\u00a0 We finally found a local watering hole that had all sorts of American paraphernalia that seemed to be extremely popular with the locals.\u00a0 It was packed to the point of being unsafe at 12am!\u00a0 Outside there were a bunch of pot smokers that gave us ideas for tourist spots to hit the next day.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Loire river is the longest river in France and the valley has some of the most prominent chateaux including Ch\u00e2teaux d’Amboise, Ch\u00e2teau de Valen\u00e7ay and over 300 others!\u00a0 However, the most prominent of them all is Ch\u00e2teau de Chambord<\/a>, which is the one we picked to visit given our limited time.\u00a0 Cameras were not allowed in most areas within the chateau, but it was one of the most beautiful structures I’ve ever visited.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The view from this vantage point out into the city is remarkable even at night time.\u00a0 We had snacks at a nearby plaza and went souvenir shopping before returning back into the center of the city.\u00a0 By this time we were unbelievably hungry and so we went on a quest to find some grub.\u00a0 As luck would have it, we ran into an Indian fellow who recommended a good Indian restaurant to us right down the street.\u00a0 By the time we got to the restaurant, the kitchen had officially closed.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Our final day in France called for a visit to the Eiffel tower.\u00a0 After that, we walked to Arc de Triomphe, and then hoofed nearly the full length of Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es avenue before hailing a cab to visit the Notre Dame cathedral.\u00a0 While it was no match for La Sagrada Familia (see Barcelona pics in Europe 2010<\/a>), it was still quite an impressive masterpiece.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Overall a great trip, eventhough it was really short.\u00a0 Check out all the pics below!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Guess<\/a><\/td>\n\"Yup....<\/a><\/td>\n\"Moet<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"More<\/a><\/td>\n\"Yup...<\/a><\/td>\n\"Beautiful<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Remy<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5052\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"The<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5055\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"Louis<\/a><\/td>\n\"Cognac<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"We<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5068\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"On<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5074\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5085\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5087\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"We<\/a><\/td>\n\"Storage<\/a><\/td>\n\"The<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Eau<\/a><\/td>\n\"Chillin<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5111\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5116\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5124\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5126\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5128\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5130\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"Thats<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Chateau<\/a><\/td>\n\"Countryside<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5136\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5138\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"The<\/a><\/td>\n\"One<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"King<\/a><\/td>\n\"The<\/a><\/td>\n\"The<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"The<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5172\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"Place<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Sacre<\/a><\/td>\n\"The<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5187\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Eiffel<\/a><\/td>\n\"Notice<\/a><\/td>\n\"Fat<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Truss<\/a><\/td>\n\"B&W<\/a><\/td>\n\"By<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5242\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5246\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5247\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"_MG_5249\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"_MG_5251\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"Notre<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Inside<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3037,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions\/3037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeswinjoseph.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}