We woke up a bit late (by design) in Frankfurt after spending the night at the Marriott Frankfurt Hotel in downtown. The Marriott was an amazing hotel, towering over 44 floors and offering a great early morning view. Actually I think it was the first really morning sunrise we had caught, most of our mornings had consisted of only a breakfast and a subway ride, after which it was noon. After printing our boarding passes we caught a taxi to the airport to quickly learn that our flight was delayed by 45 minutes. This was the start of many crazy delays. After the attempted Christmas Day bombing scare we were concerned that the security in Frankfurt, which was already tough, was going to be unbearable and very time-consuming. This would be coupled with the concern that Frankfurt does not like to post a gate to the departing flight until an hour or less before the flight departs. Normally this is not much of a problem, but Frankfurt’s gates are spread across multiple levels and do not have any way to connect to another set of gates for a concourse without going through security again. As one can imagine we wanted to avoid this at all costs. I took an educated guess that based on the earlier flight with the airline which set of gates it would be and we went through security. We were very fortunate that security was not any more difficult than normal. Since Frankfurt in a major hub to the US it’s security is very strict and involved x-rays, metal detectors, visual search of your belongings, and a final pat-down.

After killing an hour or so, we finally discovered that my guess on the gates was correct and we were ready to board, or so we thought. The departing time came and went, and still no crew. You would think that since the flight was delayed once that the crew would already be there, but no they were late. During this time our patience was rewarded with a complimentary upgrade to business-class for Natalie and myself. Finally the crew showed up and we were able to board. After a fairly lengthy stay at the gate were pulled out onto the tarmac only to receive word from the captain that there were having a problem getting the water turned on and were going to have to let a mechanic sort it out at another gate. After nearly two hours of work, they determined that the main cutoff valve in the luggage compartment was switched off, not sure why that took two hours, but oh well. Finally, 3.5 hours late, we took off for Chicago.

This was our “leave Paris”-day, very sad. There was still much to see and do that we simply did not have time to do or the weather did not permit the activity. Activities like visiting the Dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum, venture to the top of the Eiffel Tower, climb to the top of Notre Dame, visit the Plasis Royale, and many more will have to wait until our next visit. Before we departed Natalie and I headed out on a very short walk at the Place de Voage. I say very short because it was well below freezing and just did not make a very long walk. We left Jean-Pierre’s house around 11:30a to head to CDG. We had over 3 hours to make our flight, but we were anticipating very poor traffic or other delays, none of which came. We were forced to say some quick goodbyes as the drop-off area at CDG was a long line of anxious drivers.

Air France, well to put it simply: they suck. We went to go check-in and check our bag. The lady at the desk spoke very good English, and quickly processed our boarding passes and checked our bag. She informed us of the gate and boarding times. I quickly pointed out the handwritten gate she put on our boarding pass did not match the one printed above it. She replied, “Oh assumed you were on the flight that was boarding right now.” As I watched our checked bag disappear under the rubber wall on the conveyor belt, I asked what would happen to the bag. In hindsight we should have insisted that she not do anything with the bag, but did insist that it would be easy to fix and reissued a new checked-bag receipt. As you may have guessed, our bag did not arrive in Frankfurt and Air France has no idea where it is . Fortunately, it contained only extra shoes, some gifts, and coats. Nothing that we needed at the moment, but would dearly like to have back.

Once we arrived at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Frankfurt, the front desk lady had recommended an excellent German restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel. It was a little hole-in-wall restaurant and offered a wide range of German food. Needless to say, the food was amazing and it provided a much welcome break to the exclusive-French food cycle we had been on for the past two weeks.

Today would be our last full day in Paris, and it left us quite a bit to attempt to see. We too many activities to hit, we opted to start the morning by heading to the Natural History Museum of Paris, specifically the Museum of Evolution. The museum was amazing, I was torn by the beauty of the building and the incredible taxidermy specimens on display inside. The museum featured an impressive collection of both modern and pre-history animals, either well preserved or presented as a taxidermy display.

We met Jean-Pierre back at his flat around 2:00p, and headed for the Catacombs. For as long as he has been leaving in Paris, he had never seen the old Catacombs where in the late 1700’s Paris in order to deal with its increasing sanity and real estate problems, exhumed all the bodies of the mass graves around the Churches in the city. The remains of six million Parisians were placed in a newly dug out labyrinth of tunnels under Paris, now known as the Catacombs. The bones are neatly stacked like firewood throughout the tunnels leaving only a narrow space to walk through. Each major pile holds a plague informing you to what Church contributed the remains and when. Among the femurs and ribs, the skulls on most of the piles are faced inward, however some of the piles they are faced out or in odd decorations. It’s amazing to think that the piles represent six million people, each one having a unique story that will likely never be heard.

Later that night, we headed over the Louvre to try to get some quick night photos of the exterior, something that we realized we had failed to do. While we were able to get a few pictures, we did not stay very long. The well-below freezing temperatures and wind reminded us to much of Sweden and froze us to the bone.

Finally, we got our chance to visit the Louvre. After learning our lessons from the previous day, we woke up early to wait in a much smaller line just after opening time. The Louvre was absolutely amazing, and astonishing that so much priceless pieces can fit within one building. Once inside, we made a bee-line for the Mona Lisa, figuring that the lines would only get worse. Seeing one of the most famous paintings in history was awesome, but damn, there are a lot of people crowded into a fairly large room containing the relatively small painting. Directly to the left of the Mona Lisa room was the Madonna of the Rocks painting by Di Vinci, made famous by the book and movie “The Di Vinci Code”. After those two highlights, we left the Italian painters section and headed to see more of the sculptures and artifacts. This included the Egyptian collection, the Venus, Middle-Age sections, and other middle-east (Iran, Persia, Babylon, etc) collections. We also visited the closed-in courtyards that featured many famous statues, making for excellent photos in the natural light.

By this point our feet were killing us, so we decided to head back to the flat. After a few hours of recuperation, we invited Jean-Pierre and Antoine out for dinner as the least we could do for all their hospitality. We chose a local pizza and Italian restaurant near St. Paul. While I was not impressed with the food, the company and discussion was great! Oh yeah, the dessert of Crème Bulee was very good.

Bon Annee!! Or Happy New Year! It took us awhile to wake up this morning, I don’t think we moved much before 10:30a. Since it was a holiday today, we weren’t able to visit too much. We tool this opportunity to visit some of the various sites around Paris again, including the Eiffel Tower.

We met up with Claude, Ann-Lee, Jean-Pierre, and Antoine to visit Musee Andre and their exhibits. The museum was once the private residence of the Andre’s, a wealthy couple that enjoyed collecting many incredible pieces of artwork. The museum was featuring the some works of  Donatello and others.

After the exposition, we headed over to the Claude and Ann-Lee’s small time-share hotel room for an aperitif of the usual Champagne and appetizers. They treated us to a restaurant near the hotel, which based simply on its appearance was nothing special. However, the food was great and like the rest of French food, was quite filling.

Small note here, we were one of the lucky ones that got our old DH server upgraded to a new shiny one. Yeah, needless to say that speed of the server is quite impressive and I have never had our photo gallery site perform so well.

Go check it out:

http://www.andyandnataliepics.com

Not too much happened today from a traveling perspective. Natalie’s relatives and friends joined us throughout the day to visit, so we never had an opportunity to even leave the house. The amusing part of the day was as each set of relatives arrived, we would reset the champagne and appetizers. I, honestly, lost track of how much I drank that day. That night we headed over to a little Russian restaurant and were treated a very fine three-course dinner. During the dinner, at least one member of the family that ran the restaurant was playing old Russian folk songs. After the dinner, everyone joined from the kitchen and played at least another 8-9 songs. Dinner and a concert, well worth it!

Today was our first great outing! We started the day with the normal waking up around 10:00am, taking our time to leave the house. Using the subway we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe as our first major tourist spot. The Arc was just as impressive as I thought it would be. Natalie and I grabbed some tickets for admission and headed to the top. Only 218 steps later, we arrived at the indoor, top exhibit featuring models of the Arc and related statues. A few more steps later, we were treated to an amazing view of the Champs-Élysées.

After the Arc, we caught the subway again and headed for the Eiffel Tower. The trip was easy enough, but once you got off the subway you were bombarded with street peddlers offering you rare, once-in-lifetime key chains of the Tower. In case you missed the rare deal, look no further than two feet away and you find the same item for a different price. The Tower was just as large and magnificent as I thought it would be.  The lines to enter the tower, on the other hand, were larger and much more impressive than I thought. The lines were crazy, maybe three hours later you had a chance to enter (and that was for the stairs line). Needless to say, we opted to walk around the garden and take a few pictures enjoying the wonderful weather we had.

After some lunch at a tourist restaurant, which was way over priced and not the greatest food, we headed back along the Champs-Elysees to the Place de la Concorde. This is the famous location for the guillotine during the French Revolution. The same guillotine that took the heads of much of the French aristocracy including Louis XVI in 1793. We arrived at the place just before sunset, so naturally we were treated to the best possible light and skyline conditions for pictures.

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Today is Christmas Day! We started off the day properly by sleeping in after a great Christmas Eve. As it was Christmas Day, nothing was open and so little was seen. After breakfast we attended a Christmas mass at Jean-Pierre’s nearby church. The service was great, but the temperature in the church was so low we were grateful to leave (not enough layers). After the service, we headed back to flat to enjoy a 2-hour lunch and warm back up a bit.

To finish out the afternoon, we headed up to Sacre Coeur Cathedral just before sunset. Unfortunately, we were unable to photograph the interior of the cathedral, which was amazing! But the outdoor and neighborhood shots were nearly perfect with the sunset that we were given. You can see more of the photos here (please login first). After the cathedral, we headed into the nearby town of Montmartre, which is kind of the “west hills” of Paris. Within the square, are dozens of artists, all eager to draw your portrait in about every style available.

To help warm back up and being fairly tired of just sitting, we opted to walk over half the way back to the flat. This again was enjoyable as we got to see more of Paris that is not frequented by tourists. Once the walk got the best of our feet we hopped on the nearest subway and headed back to relax the rest of the night.

Today was our first full day in Paris and it was Christmas Eve! It was tough to fall to asleep during the night, you felt tired going to bed, but actually falling asleep was a challenge. That was until about 3:00a, then you were out cold. We slept in until about 10:30a, which still felt like waking about in the middle of the night. But guilt and the smell of breakfast forced us out.

After a great breakfast, we set out with Jean-Pierre to head to the Christmas Market near La Grande Arche de la Défense. The Christmas markets were nothing special, except for the food that was being offered, but it was a our first chance to see the Grande Arche and try some hot spiced wine. Which was much needed since it was so warm out.

After enjoying and photographing the market, we headed back on the subway to Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral was absolutely incredible, and provided a nice break from the cold wind. The inside was immaculate, but very dark and difficult to photograph. We spent at least an hour inside the church photographing the interior. After feeling warm enough, we headed back outside to photograph the main entrance, including a picture of St. Denis. Finally we decided to walk around the church admiring it’s elaborate structure. But, the wind continued to get the best of us, so we called it a day and headed to find the nearest restaurant to warm back up. Nothing like a Quiche Lorriane and hot chocolate to do the trick.