On Monday, Amanda, Mckenna and I traveled by train to get here. We had to change trains once, find the metro station, buy tickets, metro, and then walk to our hotel.

I’m happy to report we made it all the way to the hotel with no problem. It helped they had a nice BIG sign out front. Plus, we had Amanda.

We wasted no time before heading out to explore. We’re staying right next to Luxembourg Palace and Gardens, which are gorgeous!

Another view of the Palace.

There is seating everywhere...

It is a city park now and is sprawling. There were people everywhere - reading, picnicing, or just enjoying the beautiful day with wine and cheese.

We learned in Paris, you can have an open bottle of wine anywhere - my kind of city! 😊

That evening, we went on a bike tour.

During the tour, I couldn’t help but think about my daughter, Hannah, who arrives Saturday with Glenn(YAY!!!), and how much she would have hated it. Biking is not really her thing, unless she is on a wide path with hardly anyone else.

This ended up being a “thrilling” tour.

It was a great way to see lots of the city, and I enjoyed riding bikes, but thank goodness for our guide. It was a way more heart pumping tour than we’d expected - traffic is crazy! They are impatient drivers with little regard for lanes.

At times we were right out in traffic. Our guide would hold up her fist, which means dominate, and we were to all to converge and ride like hell as a group.

We didn’t lose anyone and we all survived. It was so worth it.

I’m not sure what a lot of these pictures were of, as we had no audio and our stops were brief, except for a welcome break.

We then traded our bikes for a boat and enjoyed a lovely evening cruise on the Seine. With wine.

In hindsight, not sure the wine was a great idea, as we had more riding ahead of us. But thankfully, it was all good.

It was all beautiful, and a nice rest after our exhilarating ride. We then got back on our bikes and rode to get an up close view of the Eiffel Tower. It is spectacular at night!

On the hour, from 9-11 each night, the lights sparkle. Unfortunately, we were there around 10:30, and were too tired to go back.

We Ubered back to our hotel, and happily collapsed into bed.

It was a great first day!