Gibraltar and Paris Part 1

I am finally getting around to writing my recap of my trip to Gibraltar, France and Belgium. I should have written this about a month ago, but life got busy and this was put on the back burner. So much so that I am currently on another trip right now for work. I hope to have my current trip up way sooner.

I left to Gibraltar on a Wednesday and got in on Thursday afternoon. Since I have been to Gibraltar before, I didn't take many photos or explore that much. I did eat good food, work out and walk into Spain.

I took this photo while walking over to Spain. You walk across the runway of the airport to get between countries.

This is the view from the top deck of my hotel in Gibraltar (Sunborn Gibraltar)

We left to Paris on a Saturday. It is difficult getting to and from Gibraltar since there are only a few flights per day. So we had a full day of travel. We didn't get into Paris until almost midnight.

Sunday was a free day and of course it was raining. That didn't stop us from exploring. We had an expensive breakfast (20 euro for a chocolate croissant and cappuccino) and then went shopping along Avenue des Champs Elysees. I bought a Longchamp bag, Parisian outfits for the girls, some books another other things. We also stopped in Laduree for their famous macarons.

 The Arc de Triomphe

 A memorial under the Arc de Triomphe

Laduree (I had macarons daily on my Paris trip)

That evening we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We were going to walk up the stairs for the experience, but it was raining pretty hard and we didn't want to fall. So we took the elevator. And let me tell you, the views are amazing. And it is even more beautiful at night. We went to each level, we shopped around and took so many photos. It even hailed on us for a bit on the second platform.

 Isn't she beautiful? Seeing the Eiffel Tower was always on my bucket list and that one is finally checked off!

 Eiffel Tower views

 This set up was on the first platform and behind me was a restaurant.

Yes, I made my coworker take a photo of me and the Eiffel Tower

We were soaked but really happy. We went to a steakhouse that we had in London, but it was a French steakhouse, so we had to go to the one in Paris too. We went to Le Relais de l'Entrecote. They are a simple steakhouse where you pick how you want your steak cooked and they bring you out a salad, the steak, fries and that's it. We did share a bottle of wine. So good.

That green sauce is amazing. I could eat buckets of it.

We cabbed it back to our hotel and I had some macarons for dessert.

Monday we had to work all day, but I managed to snag the last tickets of the day to the Louvre. I had planned to go Tuesday afternoon after work, but they are closed on Tuesdays. So my co-worker hung out at the hotel and I went to the Louvre.

The Louvre has always been on my bucket list too. I read The Davinci Code and had to go see what it was all about. And it was amazing. I did get lost about 5 times, kept passing the area where the Mona Lisa was and spent the full two hours roaming around. I could write an entire post on the must sees for the Louvre.

 Centaur and Cupid

 Venus de Milo

 Benvenuto Shield

 Napolean's rooms

 Victoire de Samothrac

La Liberté Guidant le Peuple

 Michelangelo's Dying Slave

 Sphynx

 Hieroglyphics

I took a cab back to our hotel to meet up with my coworker and then we went to Bar Italia Brasserie for dinner. We both had pastas and wine. But the highlight was meeting a couple who told us about an authentic French bistro to try for the next night.

Since I overloaded you all with a ton of photos, I will continue on with the last day of Paris and Belgium in my next post.