European Vacation: The Finale (Paris, France)

Our last stop...Paris! When making travel plans several months ago, we found that it was very difficult to get a direct flight from Venice to NY, so we had to do a stop over in one of the other major cities. Our choices were London, Germany or Paris so we decided on Paris because Gabrielle said she wanted to go shoe shopping (Thank Goodness we didn't have much time for shopping because she would have been very disappointed when I told her she couldn't buy a pair of Louis Vuitton's...she's 10 and already has a shoe thing...I'm in BIG trouble!)  

When arriving to Paris, we found that it was much cooler than we had expected, in the low 60's to be exact, which was kind of a shock since we came from 100-105 degree temperatures. We spent two wonderful days in the city of love where we visited many beautiful sites like the Louvre and saw the inverted triangles...

The spot in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code where he wrote
that Mary Magdalene was laid to rest. 

The original Mona Lisa, which is actually very small, was once stolen in 1911 from the museum. Thankfully it was found and returned and now sits behind bullet proof glass. 

Beautiful architecture and fresco paintings could be found everywhere...

Then it was off to Versailles. Here is a picture of Marie Antoinette's bedroom.

And you can't forget the gorgeous, well manicured Versailles Gardens...

The next day, we went to the french countryside where we spent the afternoon at Claude Monet's home in Giverny. Such a warm, peaceful place to live with flower gardens everywhere. No wonder he was so inspired to paint there and Gabrielle, our budding artist, was EXTREMELY excited when she found out we were going there. 

Monet's inspiration for his famous Water Lily painting

I hope you enjoyed a little bit of our travel! We had a wonderful time and created so many wonderful memories for years to come. Au revoir!