We made it through immigration at the train station (nobody told us we had to, just vaguely pointed until we wandered upstairs and to the right place by sheer luck) and made our train just in time. The boys scribbled on their notepads and mini action figures.
The train was going FAST! I caught a pic of it at 313 kmph which is almost 200 mph!
When we arrived, my google was having a hard time figuring out what to take: metro, bus, etc. And it was telling me it would be an hour to get there. It was already 7pm and we were ready for dinner and bed after a full day of driving, walking, and train. So we took two separate taxis and got to go through the noisy, crowded, psycho-driving streets of Paris to our hotel, which was right off the street where you can see the Arc de Triomphe!
View from our airbnb of a creperie! Score!
The streets of Paris were pretty dirty and stinky. We were surprised at how it reminded us more of Philly than a city of romance haha
The creperie did not disappoint. Delicious paninis with crepes for dessert and tasty Fanta to wash it down.
To get to the airnbnb, we entered a code to go through a door, into a courtyard, another code to go through another door, up three flights of stairs and then unlocked our front door. Paris is filled with these mini courtyards and everyone is just crammed all together in endless rows of these complexes that are ancient.
We checked out the next morning and, since our airbnb wouldn't hold our luggage, walked a few miles to a spot that would hold our luggage. We rucked with our backpacks through the Champs Elysses Gardens, the Place de la Concorde (18th century plaza with Egyptian obelisk), Tuileries Garden with gorgeous statues, and the Louvre.
The Louvre was closed while we were there (but that was just fine with some of us haha) and we did a youtube tour before we came so they had an idea of what was there...and then we dropped off our luggage at the cafe that was a "nannybag" location.
They served us free pain de chocolate while we decided what to order. THIS was where the best of Paris began! The food!
We each ordered a crepe, which turned out to be two ginormous crepes with amazing cheese and meats inside. Beyond delicous.
John turned to Jim and, motioning towards his food, said, "I want to bear my testimony about THIS!"
Then we were off to our explorations for the day! We learned, the hard way, that the Sainte Chapelle is right next to a working justice court, so there were many guards with big guns stationed at almost every route google tried to take us there. FINALLY, we found the correct route onto the island that also houses the Notre Dame Cathedral and made it to Sainte Chapelle.
The Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the greatest Gothic masterpieces of Christendom with the richest decoration found inside. The shrine is famous for housing an exceptional collection of 13th-century stained glass.
Construction began sometime after 1238, commissioned by Louis IX, and the chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248. This statue of him is on the lower level. You reach the upper level by narrow circular stairs. When we reached the upper level, the unexpected beauty and holy feeling took my breath away.
15 stained glass windows that are 15 meters tall. They tell the story of the Bible, and how the relics that were housed there came to Paris.
After finishing looking around Sainte Chapelle (it wasn't big), we walked over to the Notre Dame Cathedral. I was shocked to see how the fire from years ago totally devastated the whole place. They have painstakingly, supported what they could, carefully taken out and begun restoring what they could, and are slowly restoring it. They had large posters showing all they are doing and it's an overwhelming job. Hard to believe a fire was allowed to basically destroy the place, but they are doing all they can to restore it.
The Paris Metro was a beast. Part of this was not speaking any French, but even with all of my prep before we came on this trip, it was still SO hard! Thankfully, we only had to take it a few times.
And we didn't lose anyone, although we prepped everyone on all the emergency scenarios haha.
The Eiffel Tower! My only memory of this as a teen was running down the stairs from the top. It was so fun to see it as an adult and have my kids and Jim get these memories too!
Since we had the time, and we are always hungry...pretzels and water to give us the energy to go on! It wasn't crowded here at all, and the lines were managed very well with timed entries.
We went to the very top and had amazing views in all directions.
Then we all went down the stairs. I didn't run this time, a few of the kids did!
Random awesome green building. A part of me was thinking that all that green was just a walkway for bugs of all types and rodents to make their way into the building...
The view from further away gave us some great shots.
Stairs!! At least we didn't have our luggage again yet!
We took a shot by the Arc de Triomphe but our legs were getting pretty tired and we still had to catch a train to London.
John kept track of how many stops left and did a very good job of it. He was amazing on this trip, and just held my hand as we went all over together.
Walking to our nannybag, we saw this cafe and had to stop. Fresh squeezed orange juice. Endless pastries. Tarts. Things I don't even know what they were called but looked to die for. We could eat here every day and love life.
My small sampling of Paris. SO. GOOD.
We went back to our nannybag cafe, took the Metro to the main hub and caught an ICE train to London after a quick lunch. This was our longest day with so much walking and carrying our backpacks around. We went over 10 miles, lots of it being on stairs, and saw so much! Paris was nice to see, but the stink and crowds and busy streets were no fun. The food and tourist sites were incredible and amazing though!
I had reserved seats this time, with tables, and the kids played with mini figures together and made stop motion videos. Next stop: England!
No comments:
Post a Comment