City of Light, City of Love, City of "Do we go to Disney today?"

That's right--I've finally been to Paris! And Disneyland Paris, but we'll get to that...

Bill's parents have made a habit of coming over to visit us in the fall while we've been living here. Something about Bill's birthday being at the end of September and Madeline's the beginning of October maybe? Regardless, we've been using their visits as an excuse to do some travelling. Last year it was Ireland, and this year, Paris.

We left England Saturday the 17th (of October). We went by Eurostar, which was quite convenient. We had booked an apartment for the five of us for our five nights in Paris, as we found that would give us a lot more space for our money than the average Parisian hotel. Plus, it meant Madeline could have her own bedroom--a big plus in my eyes. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of the apartment, but here's a shot of the outside:

We had the second and third floor, above the brown doors.

On Saturday we mostly just settled in and bought a few groceries, as we didn't arrive until about 3pm. But that night we made the trip over to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night.

Now, my friend Corrina, who'd just been to Paris in the spring, told me that they light up the Eiffel Tower at night every hour, on the hour, for about five minutes. She said this was really special and not to be missed. We got to the metro stop near the Tower at about 8:40 or so, to find that the tower was currently lit up. A little confused by the timing, I nevertheless didn't want to miss our five minutes and have to wait another hour to see it again. So I started power-walking. It was about a five or ten minute walk. We got there, and it was still lit. We walked around, ooh-ing and aah-ing and taking oodles of pictures and being generally amazed, and it was still lit. Maybe because it was the weekend?


Anyway, we started working our way slowly back in the direction of the metro, stopping occasionally for more pictures. Suddenly, it started TWINKLING! Lo and behold, it was 9pm. The twinkling lasted about five minutes. I had a good laugh at myself, but in retrospect, we're kind of glad we didn't fully understand what Corrina was talking about at first--it allowed us to really appreciate the Eiffel Tower as it's normally lit up, before we were blown away by the twinkling. Which, by the way, really IS special and not to be missed! We're glad we didn't.



Sunday morning, Bill, Madeline and I headed to the Louvre. Bill's parents, for whom this was their second trip to Paris, and who had therefore already seen the Louvre, were good and went to church. Even though it was all in French.


I enjoyed the Louvre, but as Bill later said, it would have been better with "More time and less three-year-old." Madeline is a fairly precocious kid in a lot of respects, but fine art is still rather lost on her.
We did make sure we saw some of the most famous of the Louvre's collection (that's the Mona Lisa behind Madeline--it actually is that small...), but we didn't really get much of a chance to truly appreciate them, or to take in much of the rest of the museum. Granted, there's something like seven miles of hallways in the place, but still...




After the Louvre, we walked up to the Musee d'la Orangerie, which is kind of a neat little museum dedicated to Monet's water lilies. There are two round rooms, with four of his paintings in each room. It's a unique presentation, and I thought it was well worth the stop.


After that, we headed to Sacre Coeur to meet up with Bill's parents. We had a gorgeous day to appreciate its beauty.



This was Madeline's favorite part of Sacre Coeur, and what we used to bribe her good behavior with...


Monday we went back to the Eiffel Tower. We tried to get there relatively early, but still stood in line for well over an hour to get tickets to the top. Luckily Madeline found some kids to play with while we were waiting. She demonstrated multiple times on this trip that play knows no language barriers! The view from the top was fantastic.







Once we were back at the bottom again, we found a crepe stand for a quick lunch.


And Madeline found some pigeons to chase. This is one of her favorite pastimes when we're travelling. I know I never bothered blogging about it, but she did a lot of pigeon chasing in Amsterdam, too.


We then went on a boat trip along the Seine. Bill and Madeline shared a "romantic" moment along the way.


After that, it was off to the Arc d'Triomphe. Here Emily and Bryant were rewarded for their good karma by getting to ride to the top in the elevator, while Bill, Stephanie, and Madeline had to take the stairs. Bill got to do them twice. He's in much better shape now. For the full story, ask Bill. I'm sure he'd love to get some sympathy by sharing it with you!



Did you know that many insurance companies specifically will not cover you if you drive on this roundabout? Not that I'd want to...


We walked along the Champs Elysees a bit and let Madeline have a quick nap in the stroller while Bill found a new appreciation for French cars.


Tuesday we had heard that the train workers were going to be on strike, so we had a plan A and a plan B for the day, depending on what all was affected. Since as far as we could tell, nothing was affected, we were able to go with plan A.
First we went to the Rodin museum, which (common theme for our trip) I'd have liked to have had more time at. Sculpture is an art form I tend to enjoy even more than painting, in general.
One of my favorite shots of the vacation: The Three Thinkers...




After that we had a quick stop at Invalides, home of Napoleon's tomb.



Then, after a long walk in the wrong direction we caught the metro to the Musee d'Orsay, where Madeline had a nice nap and the rest of us enjoyed some great art.




Notre Dame was amazing on the outside, but a little too dark on the inside for my tastes. We didn't stand in the line to climb all the stairs to see the gargoyles as it had already been a pretty long, full day. And that's what zoom lenses on cameras are for anyway, right?





Madeline found some more pigeons to exercise, and her favorite part of Notre Dame: the playground! (I bet you didn't know Notre Dame has a playground...)



Sainte Chapelle, while less impressive on the outside, is awe-inspiring on the inside. Too bad you can't combine Notre Dame with Sainte Chapelle somehow!



As our apartment was only about a 10 or 15 minute walk north of Sainte Chapelle, we eschewed the metro for a bit more scenery on the way back. Besides, Madeline was asleep in the stroller again, and we didn't want to wake her up to deal with all the stairs and crowding in the metro!

On Wednesday we went to Versailles. Unfortunately, it was a very rainy and rather cold day, so we didn't spend anywhere near as much time there as we'd expected. We pretty much just did the palace and spent only a few minutes out in the grounds, instead of the full day you easily could use on a nice day. The palace was almost overwhelmingly ornate over nearly every square inch. I was glad it existed for us to enjoy seeing and appreciating today as tourists, but I can definitely see how that kind of opulence would have contributed to fanning the revolution back in the day.


This is the King's bedroom.

And this is the Queen's.

The famous Hall of Mirrors--it's hard to get a picture that does it justice.





Since we got back so early from Versailles, we decided to stop by the Pompidou Centre before heading back to the apartment. None of us are particularly big fans of modern art, but the building in and of itself is kind of neat--they put all the pipes, duct work, escalators, etc. on the outside to maximize space on the inside. Plus it was only about five or ten minutes from our apartment.

We passed these on the way back. I wish we'd stopped...


That pretty much covers our five days in Paris. Thursday we got up and headed to Disney, which was what Madeline had been waiting for the whole time. We did that on purpose, since we figured if we did Disney first she'd never put up with Paris afterward! I'm going to do Disney in a separate post, since those of you who've read this far probably need a snack break before facing the second half!