Paris Day 3-5 (Mom is helping play catch up because we have two exhausted children)

Angela--On our third day, we woke up late and headed out for a quick bite to eat at a nearby Patisserie. We then took the metro to a charming neighborhood call Montemarte where we took a tiny train up to the top of the "mountain" where we saw the famous church Sacre Couer and walked around to local shops and street artists. Audra had her portrait done while Attie and I walked around a little. When we had had a snack of gelato and crepes, we walked back down to head to The Arc de Triomphe. We had to climb lots of stairs for our view of the Champs Elysee but it was worth it. We also saw the Eiffel tower up close, and while we were having a drink near the Eiffel Tower we noticed smoke in the horizon and lots of fire trucks.




We later found out that Notre Dame was on fire:( Luckily we had visited the night before because our hotel is actually less than a mile from there.

At night, we decided to get dressed up and go out for nice dinner in our neighborhood. Both girls had a pesto ravioli, and Scott had duck. I ordered a salad that had foie gras, smoked duck, and duck livers on it. One of my goals is to order the strangest thing I can that I still think I will eat. It was actually delicious.


Dinner finished around 10:30 (they eat late here) which is why Audra was rushed last night to write her blog:)

Paris Day 4

We started the day a little earlier, so we were able to check out a local breakfast shop. The girls had waffles and a mocha. They are learning that Europeans eat much less sugar:). We then took the metro to a chocolate museum where we got to learn about the history of chocolate and sample of course. There was an Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe made out of chocolate. Then we went to the Rex theater which is a famous movie theater where lots of famous movies have premiered. We did a behind-the-scenes tour and got to record a scene.




After a snack and a metro ride, we ended up on a river cruise down the Seine. We got to see Notre Dame after the fire despite the fact that they aren't allowing any metro trains in the area. It still looks structurally pretty good. After that we got a crepe and made our way towards Montparnesse (a skyscraper with great views of the Eiffel Tower). We rode an elevator up to the top and had a drink while we watched it get dark. Unfortunately Attie realized she lost her phone (probably on the boat tour) but we were determined not to let that ruin our trip.


We were tired after Montparnesse, so we took the metro back to our hotel and got take out sushi from next door  and were in bed by 11. We had tried to check out the D'Orsay museum and the line was hours long, so we decided we would get up early to beat the rush to the Louvre on Wednesday.

Paris Day 5

The 6:30 A.M. alarm came too quickly, but we struggled through and were able to get a pastry before heading to The Louvre by 8:00 am. The line was long, but it moved quickly. We saw The Mona Lisa and the Egyptian exhibit but learned quickly that museums might not be the girls' favorite activity.  We then took the Hop on Hop Off bus around the city which was a nice (although not efficient) way to see some of the major sights. We got off near the Eiffel Tower, had lunch and got in the massively long line to climb to the top.


Ultimately, we decided that we'd rather spend our day seeing some other things and decided not to travel to the top of the Eiffel tower. Instead, we caught the metro and went to the catacombs....which was dark, but actually really cool. We hit happy hour after and had a view of a pet shop with a window full of puppies, so we were all happy.