Guess who's back? Part 2.

Hi lovelies,

Welcome to Part 2 of my Euro trip.  If you're interested, you can find Part 1 here.

From Paris:

The very famous Notre Dame cathedral. I'm going to go on photo overload because it was so stunning inside, it actually brought tears to my eyes.

Keep reading after the jump!

No trip to Paris would be complete without a visit to Laduree. This was located on the Champs Elysee and the tea rooms inside were simply beautiful.

Laduree Champs Elysee.

Naturally, I had to drop in to take a look when I came across Sephora while walking along the Champs Elysee. Unfortunately, they weren't keen on me taking photos (not sure why?) so I will leave it at just this one photo.

Sephora Champs Elysee.

No visit to Paris was complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. It was incredibly cold the day we visited, so we didn't end up going up as the queue was incredibly long, but it was lovely looking at it nevertheless. We also visited at night but the night view photos are on my DSLR and haven't been uploaded yet.

Le Eiffel Tower.

Another place I'd always wanted to visit was the Pont des Arts, the famous 'bridge of love' which spans the River Seine. You can just see the back of the Louvre Museum at the end of the bridge. If you aren't familiar with it, couples are known to attach padlocks signifying their love to the bridge, throwing the key into the Seine. There have been concerns about the weight of the locks putting stress on the structure of the bridge and the rusting keys causing contamination in the river, some of which may be warranted as a section of the bridge collapsed just last week. Nevertheless, it's quite a beautiful sight and one which touches the heart of this hopeless romantic (it's also a great place to get drawn into a tourist scam so be warned if you ever visit).

Pont des Arts.

After strolling the Pont des Arts, we made our way to the Louvre. I took this panoramic shot because it reminded me of a scene from Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

The Louvre.

The museum was massive and I could happily have spent an entire week wandering its many halls. I did manage to see the Impressionist piece it's most famous for, which brings me to...

The Mona Lisa.

Because I'm just a little bit entranced with the pyramid, let's just look at another photo of it...

From Belgium:

My aunt was attending a conference so I tagged along to explore Belgium. We stayed in Brussels for 4 days, and here are some of the things we saw.

Mannekin Pis is a very famous statue in Brussels, and I will let you read about it here. In case you're wondering, yes, it IS a statue of a little boy urinating into a fountain (and that is a word I never thought would appear on my blog).

The Grand Place is a famous landmark in Brussels and a World Heritage Site. While it's beautiful in the daytime, it's truly stunning at night.

 If you know who Tin Tin is, there was a little shop in Brussels dedicated to him!

While in Brussels, we stayed at the very creatively named hotel, 'The Hotel'. Naturally, it was the very same hotel that Obama decided to stay in on his visit to Brussels! It was rather interesting as there were police, secret service and many other security personnel out and about. Metal detectors and security screens were set up in the foyer, and there were snipers positioned in the buildings surrounding the hotel.

I also took the train to Bruges, about an hour and a half outside of Brussels. It's a lovely city that's also on the World Heritage Site.

It's full of canals and beautiful architecture!

And the highest profusion of gourmet chocolate shops I've ever seen!

There you have it, lovelies...my European adventure. Thank you again for staying with me through everything, I appreciate the support more than I can ever express!

Much love,
MM.
x