Playful Rooted

Happy 2014! I can’t believe it’s the new year and already time to get back in the swing of real life. Being away for so long was fantastic but exhausting. I could really use about another week of vacation!

I’m kicking myself so much for not blogging during the trip, but I was a little busy sipping gluhwein and soaking up Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Luckily I have plenty of pictures to jog my memory. So even though we left for vacation almost three weeks ago, I’m going to attempt a recap at everything we did. Since we were only in Paris for a half day, I’ll ease into it with that.

We took the train from Montpellier to Paris on a Wednesday morning. We had several hours there before our train to Munich was set to depart, so we spent most of the day wandering around Montmartre. I had wanted to see Sacré-Coeur for a while, so we hiked up the many steps to the top of the hill where it sits.

Beautiful!

I loved the beautiful, but foggy, view of Paris from above.

On the other side, a small Christmas market had been set up.

We checked out all the stalls and drank hot chocolate while strolling around the tiny but cute market. Afterward, we headed to the Moulin Rouge.

If you’ve never visited this area of Paris, it’s pretty seedy and gross. Tons of sex shops and sleazy people – I guess things you might expect to be around the Moulin Rouge, if you’re smarter than I am. Ben and I had the pleasure of witnessing a homeless man rooting through a box of g-strings. It was sure something.

After leaving Montmartre, we headed toward the Jardin des Tuileries and walked around the Louvre neighborhood for a while.

We did some shopping, ate some delicious vegan food at Bob’s Kitchen, and then headed to the train station, where we boarded the train for the 7-hour overnight trip to Munich.

Details on my first sleeper car trip to come!