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We are beat from Disney, so we decide to sleep in and catch up on some much needed rest. The room is blessedly dark and quiet, thankfully! because last night was a huge party in Paris to celebrate the first day of summer. I went out to the grocery store after we arrived at the hotel last night to pick up some bottled water and snacks...the streets were nuts! Literally every person in Paris under the age of 35 was on the streets partying, even saw a huge rock concert in front of the Pantheon. It's 10:15 when Heather wakes me up in a rush in order to run down stairs and get some breakfast for us before they close at 10:30. Obviously take-away breakfast is not common at this hotel, so it takes a few minutes to get over the communication barrier and get a tray made up...it's cereal, a couple of crusty rolls with jam, and a couple of coffees (come to find out at check-out it cost 10E per person, if I'd have known that, I would have definitely skipped it).
It's noon by the time we hit the street, another mix up with bad directions in the subway, thank God for the cops, they are the only people who seem to know the right direction and aren't rude, and finally we're on the way to Sacre Couer. We're getting the hang of traveling on subways with a kid and a stroller...2 weeks later. The subway lets off near Sacre Couer on the 4th subterranean level with no elevators or escalators up, so it's a long climb up and out carrying MD, stroller, and backpack. Out on the street level, Sacre Couer is at the top of the highest hill in Paris so its an even longer climb up the streets, only to find a huge set of stairs at the top (like 200 steps straight up with no landings)...in lieu of the stairs we opt for the long way around on the steep street. And STILL there are stairs to take at the top! Anyone that says taking the stairs up is a quick, easy route, is crazy.
Oh, but what a reward for taking the long way! We arrive on the far less visited side of the Cathedral so it's quiet, peaceful, and easy to take pictures because we're literally the only ones on this side. But around the side and to the front of the building there is a horde of tourists, some even got there on a gimmicky tourist train (no points for not carrying yourself up the hill!). The view over Paris is phenomenal! It's about an 180 degree view (can't see the Eiffel Tower). Its free to enter the church and its beautiful inside with great stained glass windows, awesome gothic architecture, and a peaceful, quiet ambiance despite the 1000 or so people inside (everyone is whispering, unlike Notre Dame which was a dull roar). Our visit doesn't take more that 45 minutes, including buying a little wooden train set out front from a street hawker.
The steps going down aren't that bad and it's much quicker. At the bottom of the stairs are a couple of cute restaurants, so we stopped into one of them and had the best meal of our entire trip; not because the food was the best (although it was good), but because we had an awesome spot next to a window with a cool breeze where we could people watch and enjoy the fantastic weather and man oh man, is the weather awesome here!
Down the hill and back into the subway, we're starting to get the hang of the subway system now, we're able to navigate ourselves through the map and make 2 connecting subways without having to ask for help. Why is it that it takes until the very last day of the trip to finally work out the public transportation system?
We pop out of the subway in front of the Louvre and walk through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Champs-Elysees. We're here in Paris...so we have to take the obligatory stroll down the Champs and see what all the hub-bub is about! As advertised, its super crowded and nothing authentic about it except for a lot of luxury shopping stores, 3/4 of which we don't recognize. But the flagship 7 story Louis Vitton store is here and Heater is super excited...until we see 80 people wrapped around the side of the building waiting to get in (come to find out, that line is there from opening to close every day of the week). So we stopped into a few other stores briefly but thankfully didn't buy anything...expensive stores on the most expensive shopping street in the world!
I'm excited to get to the end of the street and see the Arc de Triomphe, any fan of military history has to be excited to see this monument, and outside of its historical value it is quite beautiful architecturally. It's surprisingly not crowded, but we elected not to take the trip to the top since we had a full load of strollers and bags, but often times the path less travelled is the more rewarding! We were able to enjoy an almost empty ground level and plaza for an hour; snapping awesome photos of us just living in the moment and enjoying our sunny day in another city away from home (great memories!!!).
Since we never take the easy path anywhere, we strolled from the Arc back down to the river and jumped on the bus to the Eiffel Tower again...Heather is in love with it! We're hoping to find a restaurant or street vendor and have an evening picnic on the lawn. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) there isn't much in the way of food around the Eiffel, so we settled for a couple of ice creams and picked a spot off to the side of the main lawn where there were few people. You know me, I'm never one to sit still for very long while on vacation, so I do a little local exploring behind the tree line and discover this great little park with 1 slide right in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower! No one on it, and it doesn't look like it gets used much, so we made ourselves right at home and captured some great memories of playing on the slide with our 2 year old daughter with the Eiffel Tower in our background :)
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