Last weekend was the first weekend I spent outside of Italy since I got here. We traveled to Paris, France, and it was absolutely incredible. Lucky for me, the airport is only about a half hour from my apartment by train, so the trip is pretty easy. My flight from Rome to Paris was quite an adventure, though. After getting through the gate, we had to take a bus to board the plane, so the flight attendants checked your boarding pass again just to make sure you weren’t trying to sneak on the plane. One older gentleman didn’t really like this rule and got pretty angry and aggressive with the flight attendants, so they had to kick him off the plane, along with his wife and their three grandkids. We were delayed about 45 minutes, but the rest of the flight went smoothly. We flew over the Alps, which were really beautiful!
On Saturday, we went to Versailles, which is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. Everything is covered in gold, and there’s so much art and history that you can barely see everything. Even just the sheer size of the place is incredible. There are multiple palaces and gardens, and they run a train system to take you from place to place. We spent almost 4 hours there, and still didn’t see everything. My favorite part was Marie Antoinette’s house; it was beautiful.
After Versailles, we went back into the city and headed to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Our timing was perfect: at the first stop, we got to see the entire city in daylight, and we watched the sunset, and at the very top, we got to see Paris at night, all lit up. It was breathtaking. There honestly aren’t enough words to describe how beautiful it is. At the very top, there’s a champagne bar, but it was way too cold and windy for that.
On Sunday, we went to Notre Dame (but not inside because we didn’t have much time), the lock bridge, and the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore. When I went to Paris over the summer, my family and I put a lock on the bridge, so I searched for a while, but I couldn’t find it. Either it’s buried beneath other locks, or it got taken down (every so often, the city takes down sections of locks, because it weighs down the bridge too much).
Again, our flight home was eventful. We were supposed to fly out of Paris at 8:30 on Sunday night, and land back in Rome at 10:30. We didn’t end up taking off until after 11 PM, and unfortunately for us, EasyJet gave us absolutely no explanation of why we were stuck. Thankfully, the airport had a McDonald’s, so we could eat. Unfortunately, it was on the wrong side of security. We made friends with one of the agents and he let us go backwards through security so we could get food, and then we had to put our chicken nuggets and fries and burgers through the metal detector to get back into the terminal, which was pretty funny.
This weekend, AUR has organized a trip through Tuscany, so we’ll be visiting Pisa and Florence, and we’ve got a wine tasting scheduled. I’m excited to continue exploring Italy. Check back next week for another article!