Landing at 6:15 am made for a very long day. Hour ride from the airport to our Westin hotel. Freshened up, dropped our luggage and took off for a long meandering walk.

Entrance to Jardene de Tuilieries right next to our hotel. Will explore more later.

French wine! Julie was correct - French wine is pretty damn good. This was from the Bordeaux region.

Beef stew with mashed potatoes- so so tender and pasta for Diane.

Diane on the boat passing by the Grand Palais.

Went under quite a few bridges. Everyone is different. One of the grandest.

Love the architecture of the buildings - this one was beautiful and had a name we recognized!

Diane’s sandwich.

A small section of the palace.

Boat tour sign - good tour company.

And right by the tower!

Near the River.

Took a quick walk through the Louve grounds - the museum is massive. We have decided to forgo going into the museum as it is overwhelming!

So,so tired. As our hotel room was ready, headed back to have lunch at our hotel - opening day of the garden restaurant. Decided to have “nap lunch”. Bottle of wine, meat and cheese plate for me and a club sandwich for Di - hard boiled eggs included.

Dinner at a lovely cafe. Champagne of course.

Near the Louvre.

Church of Eustace. Beautiful architecture inside and impressive stained glass.

Statues everywhere.

Notre Dame - undergoing reservations due to the fire so no visitors allowed. Still an awesome sight.

Post nap - decided to head for a river boat tour and our first sighting of the Eiffel Tower.

Paris is a loud and crowded city! \240So many motorcycles, bikes and scooters to get around. This is a common sight - motorcycle parking.

Lots of wandering around the streets today. An occasional bit of color.

Careful Tee - do not fall- uneven streets everywhere!

Locks on bridges everywhere. This one wa a little excessive.

VenDome near our hotel.

Best view - Diane taking selfie. \240

The artists of the square.

Tee taking selfie.

To get here we went up 98 flights of steps - orangetheory you got nothing on us today.

Gary - for you. Pink flamingo 🦩 on the balcony.

And snails!

Took the metro to Montmartre to visit the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre. Beautiful!

Stopped for a snack and a beverage. Aperol Spritz for Tee and champagne for Diane.

After a nap, we went out for a Parisian stroll in the dark, a snack and to see the city at night. We were actually out until after 1:00 am!

Arc de Triomphe.

Next up - Bakus - beautiful place. Tried a glass of French Pinot Noir and thennnn… a new type of spritz with ginger beer.

Frog Beer stop - Diane does not remember the beer she had, a wheat or course. I had another Aperol spritz - becoming a fan favorite.

Park near the top - peaceful except for the damn cigarette smokers.

Lit up at night from afar.

They are everywhere - only this one has a great outdoor patio.

Walked through the Gardens Tuileries on our way to our tour. It rained this morning. So everything was dewey fresh. Beautiful spot - wish we had parks that incorporated some of these ideas.

To many choices.

All pair well with this port.

More flowers.

Sculptures….

Flowers….

Nice walk to the start of our tour.

Tree lined walkways.

Goat weed eaters.

So the tour wasn’t quite what we expected.Started by going into a small pastry shop to pick-up pastries which we ate in the street standing around.

This was followed by us going to a cheese shop to learn about cheese \240and then pick-up cheese to eat at the wine shop. OMG - never knew there was so much to know about making artisanal cheese.

Next stop was for a bite of chocolate from a Japanese chocolatier. Pretty…

Tried three different kinds - not sweet - they don’t use much sugar.

To many choices! \240

Last two stops to pick up bread and dessert.

Early night in - sitting in our room at 10:00 and it is still light out. Have to wake up at 6:00 tomorrow to go to champagne country.

With all our choices, we went into a wine cellar and enjoyed a Brut wine and a natural Gamay.

At least today they were down hill, not uphill.

Things I learned about champagne making today. The region in France where they grow the grapes for champagne is chalk - really, the grapes are grown in veins of chalk. And all are made from three types of grapes - Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Meunière. Some are a mix of all three and some are just one. They use a two step fermentation process - one with the still wine and in the second phase they add yeast and sugar to generate the bubbles. However, this leaves sediment, so they have to turn the bottles twice a day until they are upside down and all of it has settled in the neck. They then freeze the neck and the sediment and extract that and quickly seal it again. Hard work! \240Mostly now automated. Who knew?

And up the steps. Stopped at 1962 for a second 😜

And the reward at the end 2 glasses of champagne.

The cave - really cool.

Walked down into the cellars to get the story behind making champagne.

One of the many views of the grape growing valley. Beautiful!

Us 😊

The town square.

Stopped in the town of Evernay for lunch - the champagne capital. Quaint little town. This was our lunch place.

Vegetable lasagna for Di.

Veal for guess who?

The largest wine cask ever. For a promotion, they pulled it into Paris with 24 oxen in the late 1800s. Sure it made quite a spectacle.

That was one of the villages we traveled through.

They keep the vines short and unlike anywhere else we have been, they replace the vines every 25-30 years.

Last picture in the very picturesque part of France.

Another small producer who only sells here and in Las Vegas of all places. Yes - they still use this old style manual grape press.

And our final stop before the two hour trek back to Paris.

Third stop was a little wine maker with a big taste and a beautiful view. And our second tasting of the day at G Tribaut.

The three types of grapes they grow for champagne.

What - more champagne? \240This one was called Mercier which I picked randomly. Who knew we were stopping by there next…..

At the train station, must drink your wine standing at the bar. Who are we to argue?

Love the carousels around the parks.

Art in the park.

Time for our train ride to Beauvais - glad to escape to the quiet. Paris is an essential visit for anyone traveling to Europe, but the number of people in the city is insane. Very difficult to find any peace unless wandering after dark or very early. They are trying to do away with cars and motorcycles in the city center. That will be nice, but so many bicycles will still make it difficult to maneuver on foot.

Enjoyable train ride with my book, my wife and vino,

Last view of the tower for now…

Our quaint hotel room (meaning small😜)

And Bordeaux with lunch.

Meandering around the city.

Another carousel.

From 1410.

The stained glass is amazing.

Astronomical clock inside. Built in 1865 with 52 dials that display rise and setting of moon and sun, position of planets, time in 18 cities and tidal times. Wow - lots of info in this machine.

Diane and her pose.

Maybe I can build one of these at my new casa.

Lots of flowers and small gardens.

A little old and a little new.

Chill time for the birthday girl.

One cheesy tourist picture..

Cheers Diane!

Thanks Russ, Irina and her mother for an amazing rooftop dinner

Decided to spend an hour or two at the beach - little chilly getting in but acclimated pretty quickly.

Home again, home again. Pistachio liquor- yummy.

And a beautiful sunset.

And a ribeye for Tee.

Totally beautiful.

And cake of course.

Chicken Kabas for Diane.

And good night. Blue lagoon tomorrow.

Pre-dinner cocktails- yes that is a blue wine. Apparently made from extracting the blue out of a red grape- really they can extract the blue from a grape??!!! \240It is NOT food coloring.

A bit of a roadblock.

And there we are, shivering in the water.

Can it get any more beautiful?

Our British table mates.

I know these two.

The turquoise water was so clear with soft white sand and fish to watch. Blue lagoon was definelty appropriately named!

And lunch cooked off the boat.

So many shades of blue.

And turquoise here.

Tomatoes and cucumbers abound here. Along with some grilled pork and chicken.

Russ and Irina - cracking himself up.

Sat on the patio as the sun set just enjoying a relaxing evening. Nice to be chill for a night.

Wine cave! \240

The water is so clear everywhere around here.

Time for. Winery stop -Sterna Winery. What a view.

Second winery stop.

Great sun day!

Tee’s happy place.

Ended up having dinner at Dolce Vita - preparing for our Venice getaway - up next!

Sea caves.

Kind of like a Texas bluebonnet. They grow in most places.

Us again :-)

5 euros for a 5 pour tasting with olives and bread to clear your pallet.

No ducking for me.

The roses smell so good.

Vines are shorter and rounder than the grapes we grow at home.

Today our tour guides, Russ and Irina, took us on a tour of their part of the island. Coralis beach behind us.

That stranded ship has become a tourist spot here on the island - they won’t remove it. So we decided on \240another cheesy tourist picture.

Out our window 😊

Russ and his laugh….

Our street - nice and quiet.

Beautiful church.

On the patio of our little apartment we will be staying in.

First gondola sighting.

A little dark - will have to revisit tomorrow.

Isn’t it so stinking cute? \240To bad the mosquitoes are so bad….

Ahhhh….

Our window - just hop out into the canal.

Saint Mark’s square - way to busy during the day.

Across the grand canal.

Gondola rest stop.

Got a little lost heading home so stopped for this 😜

Nice mums.

Didn’t see many headless statues - but did see this one.

Nice window boxes.

Start of our stroll.

Purchases for the day - new shoes for Diane, purse for Tee, limoncello bottle for home. Irina was the real scorer-nice denim jacket and Murano jewelry. Although getting lost in the alleys and taking the road less traveled was hard due to the large numbers of people, glad we got to see the landmarks today.

Walked through the gardens.

That is an actual 24 hour clock, not a 12 hour one.

Loaded fries

Corner spot.

Doing her pose.

Rialto bridge - where did all these people come from?

Nachos and chicken and waffles.

Three cute chicks.

Took about 30 minutes and a lot of bad directions to find a grocery store. Some of the food in the deli looked interesting……Eat in evening with bread, cheese, tomatoes, strawberries and lemoncello!

Home cooked comfort lunch - an English pub.

Nice view - looks quiet….

Took the water taxi - view coming in. All the buildings are beautiful.

Wowsa!

Meandering down the small streets - a shopping day.

Many of the doorways have these curtains in front of them - privacy from the tourists I am sure.

Wandered away from Burano to the nearby winery. They actually grow grapes in the salty water.

Pretty ladies looking forward to vino.

Diane found a great pair of Murano glass earrings to match her necklace that Russ and Irina gave her for her birthday.

Found this little shop run by the mom and the son does the work. Tee and Irina both got a necklace and matching earrings.

But nice place 👍

Little snack and refreshing beverage.

My favorite set of buildings.

Tada - beautiful necklace.

Nice canal with flower boxes. \240

Final pic of the day!

Selfie of course. Can see my new earrings.

Chocolate fountain - do not stop in Tee.

Found another leaning tower.

60 euros a bottle and not very good!

Nice art on the grounds.

Or did we?

Putting the finishing touches on my earrings. Mine are silver plated instead of gold as that is how I roll.

Water taxi back to a new location and started the trek back to the hotel. Google does not like the Venice streets and canals!

Nice bridge.

Teaching Irina the pose.

Aren’t they lovely. \240

Walking along….

Passes home.

Arrived last night into our hotel bed around 11:30 and awoke at 5:15 to get to the airport for our flight home. Delta business class was a great way to travel. Like them better than American. Staff was wonderful and flights all on time and seats were comfy. \240

Loved our trip, but just a little to much moving around for us. Think we would prefer staying in place and doing day trips. We were on 7 flights, one train, 2 buses and water taxis in Venice. Think I like the trains the best. No security, hop on and find a seat and away you go. You can even bring on your own snacks and wine. May have to try train travel in the US.

Missed our little Missy and our own bed, but thoroughly enjoyed our time with Russ and Irina. Think flying trips from now own will have to be 10 days or less.

Did learn that we can go 14 days with carryon luggage, so no more checked bags for us - unless of course we go to wine country and need our wine suitcase. Not sure why we have to have our passport checked 7 times at any one airport, but hey- it is what it is.

Even with carryon, we brought home two shirts apiece, jewelry and some small art. And a cheesy Eiffel Tower to stick in our house somewhere 😜

Until next time Europe….