France Trip Day 7: P.A.R.I.S.

This was another day where we didn't even want to sleep in. We jumped out of bed at 7:30, packed up our backpacks, and downed a fab breakfast (the typical croissant, baguette, bread, hot chocolate, and oranges - free with the stay!) in the little hotel breakfast room. Gary and the kids stashed our suitcases in our rental car in the garage where it was parked while I settled the bill, and then we were off on the metro! Stop #1 and ultimate goal of the whole trip: the top of the Eiffel Tower. Of all of us, only Gary had been to the very top before. It was a highly anticipated quest!



Some clouds filled the sky, but no rain like yesterday (mercifully). Gary taught the kids a pigeon kicking game (yes, we're animal lovers) and ran them around a bit while I waited in the line, which was much shorter than I'd been lead to expect. We waited for a total of maybe half an hour before stepping into the elevators.

I admit, I got a little vertigo as the elevator went higher and higher, and the supports around us grew slimmer and slimmer. It was thrilling though. And when we got out, in spite of the wind and clouds, a lovely view awaited us!
This is the view down the Seine towards Notre Dame, clear in the distance. And below, you can follow the biggest, curving road over to the Arc de Triomphe.


On our trip, it was foreordained policy that if we came across free toilets of any kind, the whole family would use them. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, guess what? There were free toilets! So we all availed ourselves of their use. And yes, when you're sitting there 1,000 feet off the ground, you CAN feel the sway of the building in the wind. Kinda trippy.

Next we descended the Tower and grabbed a chocolate crepe to keep up our blood sugar (that was my favorite excuse) and while I was ordering it, Gary took this video of Spence. It's one of my favorite clips of our trip, and captures Spen all over:



Here's Soph at the Arc de Triomphe, in the Place d'Etoile. Can you tell why they call it the Place of the Star? Look below for a clue (thank you Wikipedia):

I think I counted 12 major boulevards opening up to this famous circle, including the Champs Elysses, one of the most celebrated boulevards in the World. That's the biggie you can see from the top left to the bottom right.


We were SO proud of our kids - they did some major walking today! They walked from the Eiffel Tower, to the Arc de Triomphe, where we sat and ate an early lunch (baguettes, cheese, drinkable yogurt and fruit again) while watching the passersby (nuns, protestors, chic shoppers) on the Champs Elysses. There Sophie taught us a song in Gaelic, to the tune of the Farmer in the Dell, that sounds like "Ta ma la va te" repeated. Spencer proceeded to sing this tune down the entire stretch of the Champs Elysses while alternately walking and riding on Gary's shoulders. American kids, in Paris, singing in Gaelic - I love it!

We kept thinking that we'd hop on to a bus or metro when the kids had had it, but they just kept on going so so did we! The motivation was getting to the Tuileries Gardens ice cream stands. Along the way, we saw shimmering metal reflectors they've hung from all the trees along the Champs Elysses to make the whole place shimmer; insane lines at the Abercrombie and Fitch flag store (was Jedward there signing copies of the A&F catalogs or something?); and moped-pulled open carriages at the Place de la Concorde.



We found the kids' playground in the Tuileries Gardens (never had a reason to go there before now) and let the kids go crazy for an hour - somehow, no matter how tired they are, if there's a playground wham! off they go. They enjoyed it though. Sophie made a slew of little french amies - no surprise as she is kind and social. But then it was time to move our now-achy feet on a few hundred meters to the Louvre, above.
Alas, this is as close as we got to the Mona Lisa - it was taken in our breakfast room in our Paris hotel. Upon consideration of our time, energy and budget limitations, we decided not to enter the mammoth museum. Tired kids + acres of museum to run through = guaranteed meltdowns. So we betook ourselves to the underground shopping center beneath the Louvre, where the kids and I got ice cream (see Spence below) and Happy Meals while Gary ran to the Virgin Megastore for some big boy happy time. He came back with dvds of our favorite French movies, La Gloire de Mon Pere and the Chateau de ma Mere. Great idea!

We paid our 5 euros to use the bathroom there, and compensated for not going into the museum by going to its bookstore. The kids all picked out the postcard version of their favorite art work there, and I bought a Louvre coffee table book to go with the ones I'd purchased at Versailles and of the Loire castles. The kids have since used these as their "textbooks" when they play school at home. That, and the statue galleries open to view from the escalators, was all we saw of the Louvre, however. Still, a very successful day on the whole!
Even their ice cream is pretty!
The kids playing on the inverted underground pyramids beneath the Louvre.
We emerged from underground to make a pilgrimage to our favorite patisserie on the Fauborg St. Honore across from the Cour Carre of the Louvre. It has amazing food, bread, and pastries! We had one last, long, lingering picnic on the courtyard by the Palais Royale, gazing up at the Louvre and savoring our last Parisian baguette and camembert, orangina and pastries while watching a variety of young (and old) men doing rollerblade demonstrations.

Then we took the metro back to the Gare de l'Est, got in our car, paid the exorbitant fee to get it out of the garage ($60 for 28 hours? seriously?) and... got stuck in traffic up the Rue St. Denis for the next two hours trying to make our way to our Beauvais hotel by the airport.

I had never taken a tour of Paris' Little India quarter before, and the saris in the store windows were absolutely lovely, but after it had taken us almost an hour and a half to go 4 kilometers we were all going bonkers! After some accidental wrong turns and strange commands from the GPS, we were ready to just get out and walk. But eventually we made it to our hotel, slept well, got up early, returned our rental car, and boarded our plane to go back to Ireland. Ta da - all done. And what a ride it was! I love my husband and my kids! Thanks lads for a great time!!!