Disneyland Paris!

MICKEY MADE IT TO DISNEYLAND PARIS!

Really I could just leave it there, but of course I won’t. I met up with an exchange friend from high school in Paris to fulfill our Disney dream that has been 5 years in the making! We had almost three full days in the parks and were there from opening until closing. 🙂 We rode nearly every ride (and even a few that were new for my friend who has been there multiple times) and soaked in the splendid Disney magic! Disneyland Paris had great walk-through attractions that took you through different movie stories like “Alice’s Curious Labyrinth”, “Aladdin’s Enchanted Passage” or the stained glass and storybook portion of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. One of my favorite attractions in Magic Kingdom though was “La Tanière du Dragon”, which was the prison that held Maleficent in her dragon form beneath the castle. The animatronics were so realistic and a few times it even scared me! You could see the dragon breathing, clench its claws, and nonchalantly swish its tail in the water while it slept. When it woke up it would blink, roar, blow smoke out of its nostrils, and swing its head! There was an adorable parade every afternoon with great music and dancing, but the final firework show at closing was by far the best. The projection show was top-notch, although it was a little strange to have an English-speaking Peter talking to a French-speaking Wendy. 😛 Although it was cool to hear some Disney songs in French and also made me realize how many of their movies are set in France and/or Paris.

We were easily able to park hop between Magic Kingdom and Walt Disney Studios, which worked super well with our plans. For February, we had pretty good weather the whole time and since it was the off-season the parks weren’t overly crowded! If nothing else though, we certainly ate well – Disney does a good job with that! I took way too many pictures on this trip and had so much fun posing Mickey and spending time with my friend! It was certainly a birthday week to never forget! 😀

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Magic Kingdom entrance (Disney Hotel)

Disneyland Paris castle! ❤

View of Fantasyland from castle balcony

Alice’s Curious Labyrinth

View from Queen of Heart’s castle

Even the bushes looked like the animated ones

Genie’s lamp in Adventureland

Kaa and Zazu in Adventureland

Big Thunder Mountain!

Walt Disney Studios!

TravelMickey with Walt and Mickey ❤

Versailles

Our final day in the Paris area was spent in Versailles at the infamous palace!  We purchased tickets in advance, which turned out to be a very good decision, because we waited in line for about 3 hours!  But it was still worth it!  Every room was lavishly decorated with tons of gold and artistically painted murals.  Just even the amount of gold on the outside of the palace in the courtyard was incredibly impressive!  The rooms inside, especially the Hall of Mirrors, were unbelievable but the gardens were just magnificent!  Even though it was the middle of December you couldn’t help but be awestruck by the beauty and sheer size of the grounds.  We obviously weren’t able to see every part of the gardens but there were tons of fountains, large pools, and high hedges that made you feel tiny in comparison.  I would love to visit the palace again in spring or summer when everything is in bloom!  I’m sure it’s phenomenal!

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Versailles Courtyard

Gardens

Hall of Mirrors

Paris – Day 2

Our first day in Paris was followed by another amazing one!  We spent the majority of the day in the Louvre Museum and we didn’t even get to see all of it!  Of course I was able to see the most famous pieces, such as the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, Virgin of the Rocks, and the Venus de Milo to name a few.  By the time we left the museum it was already dark out so we went to the Grand Palais to enjoy some lovely ice skating!  Definitely the best ice skating rink I’ve ever been to!  They had a huge disco ball that made the entire interior sparkle like a crystal, plus they were playing Michael Jackson music so everything was great!

After the Grand Palais we wandered through the Christmas Markets that were still open and were able to see the Eiffel Tower illuminate in a show of sparkling lights as we stood on a bridge over the river!  They only do this once an hour for 5 minutes at night but it is totally worth the wait! Overall, another successful day in Paris!! 😀

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Mona Lisa

The Winged Victory

Venus de Milo

Grand Palais ice skating rink

Eiffel Tower at night ❤

Paris – Day 1

My next trip was to Paris!!  We spent a total of three days here but I had to split it up into a post per day because there’s just too much to say and too many cute pictures!

We arrived on Sunday and the first thing we visited was Notre Dame.  The entire time the Hunchback of Notre Dame soundtrack was going through my head and I just wanted to burst out singing! The inside and outside of the cathedral was truly amazing but nothing compared to the rose stained glass windows inside.  After this we took a stroll down the river, which eventually led us to the Louvre.  We enjoyed the outside of it (we had tickets for the next day) which was also impressive!  It’s kind of crazy how huge the museum is!  We had lunch in a little cafe where I ate boeuf bourguignon, like what Julia Child has in her French cookbook. 😉

Our next stop was of course the iconic Eiffel Tower.  In the fourth picture, Mickey is in my friend’s hat because it was so super cold and we couldn’t hold him up so we just mounted him there. 🙂 We ended the evening by visiting the Arc de Triomphe.  We had a great view of the Eiffel Tower from the top, which made the stairs absolutely worth it!  We did some window shopping down the Champs Elysées afterwards (loved the Swarovski store!) before heading back for a good night’s sleep.

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Notre Dame

Seine River

Louvre

Eiffel Tower

Sunset by the Eiffel Tower

Champs Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe

Cassel & Flemish Hills

For those of you who don’t know, Lille is located in the north of France and on just my second day we took a little road trip through the Flemish region.  Our first stop was to the hills and the Mont des Cats monastery.  We enjoyed a nice traditional Flemish lunch over looking the hills before going to the town of Cassel.  It has the last remaining windmill in the area on the highest point, although they definitely need more because it was SUPER windy!  Around the edges they had city names pointing in their direction so of course Mickey is looking to Paris, my next destination! 🙂

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Flemish hills from Mont des Cats

Windmill

Looking to Paris!

Cassel

Lille

As my finals are approaching I’ve decided that posting to TravelMickey is a good way to take a break, especially since I haven’t posted anything from my very adventurous but tiring Christmas break!

Well I guess I will do this according to the timeline I had over break. 🙂

I arrived in Lille, France after a very long bus ride from Frankfurt to visit my wonderful roommate from the field station.  She showed me around the city, including cute and winding back streets, and we visited the Christmas market.  It was a really charming town that felt very French…although I’m not sure how to describe that but it just did. Haha

I spent time with her family for about a week as we did lots of baking and celebrated Christmas of course (the French do so much kiss greeting!).  We made our first Christmas logs – one speculoos (a type of spiced cookie) and the other lemon.  Both were very tasty I might add!

This picture is from the apartment we stayed in the night before we left for Paris (yes we went to Paris for three days!) right in the heart of Lille.  It had a great view of the city square!

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