Paris Here We Come!
When we are done with our trip & back in the comfort of our own home & bedrooms we will be grateful for many things. One of these is not having to pack & unpack every other day! We have become quite efficient at packing, cleaning & loading in about an hour when we have to leave a house. So we ran through this process for the 2nd morning in a row, left Belgium & headed for Paris.
We left about 10:30 so we could get settled into our Paris loft apartment before traffic got too bad. We made it without stopping, 3 & 1/2 hours, just about 2pm. Similar to Rome, we parked the van in a garage & will use the subway while here. The apartment is a cool, artsy loft whose owners are a couple with 2 kids, she's a photographer & he's an architect. They have tons of books & boy toys since their oldest, luckily, is a boy. Cannon has been playing with his Legos for hours!
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| our charging station is usually a tangled mess |
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| playroom in Belgian house: Cannon with his war museum Legos |
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| now onto France |
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| finding our apartment in Paris |
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| waiting at the front door |
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| The kitchen area with plenty of reading material but no cookbooks |
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| Avery sleeps in the upper cubby hole |
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| Avery in front of the master bed-nook |
Arc de Triomphe
After a couple hours of rest we got outside to explore our last big city. The Belleville metro station is about a 5-6 minute walk from our place & has a direct line into downtown & another line across to the Arc de Triomphe which is where we headed first. The kids, at least Avery, now lead us through the tunnels finding the right subway connections. The Paris subway is massive! We emerged from the Charles de Gaulle Etoile station at the intersection where 12 streets converge on Napoleon's Arch. Stacia & the girls went up the 250 steps to the top (elevator is broken) while Cannon & I rested at the bottom while a band played at the tomb of the unknown soldier in the middle of the arch.
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| web pic of the 12 streets converging on the Arc de Triomphe |
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| web pic of the sunlight Arch |
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| our own pic from below the Arch |
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| the spiked fence on top of the Arch from so you don't jump off! |
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| skyscrapers were banned after one got too close to the old city |
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| it's not recommended to drive to the Arch! |
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| Kyra was squealing for a while about the view |
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| going down the stairs of the Arch |
The Eiffel Tower
We walked down Champs de Elysees, the street leading from the Arch towards the Louvre, but turned southward on George V Avenue toward the river as we planned to take a boat ride. After a few snack stops, including a McDonald's with the most security we've ever seen (even checked our bags), we stopped at the Pont de l'Alma with a good view of the Eiffel Tower. Our plans suddenly changed. We were drawn to it. We delayed our boat tour as we just wanted a closer glimpse of the Parisian icon.
A little farther walk than expected, we did make it to the park in front of the Tower & ended up sitting there for over 2 hours. We just sat & enjoyed the beautiful evening with the other groups gathered with the setting sun just beyond the Tower. Every hour, on the hour, the Tower sparkles for 5 minutes, starting at 10pm. We had to wait for it! This experience is reminiscent (for Staica & I) of the Mall in front of the Washington Monument waiting for the fireworks on the 4th of July. We took too many pictures & it'll take a while to sort through them all... The boat ride will have to wait for another day. (pics to come!) We didn't get home until after 11pm for midnight lights-out.
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| web pic of sparkling Eiffel Tower |
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| Champs Elysees Avenue sign |
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| energy for the evening |
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| pic at the Pont du l'Alma |
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| a workboat on the Seine River |
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| how far away is this thing? |
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| victory, we made it! |
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