An almost Birthday in Paris

If only you could hear the symphony in my mind as I write…

Almost a birthday as most venues are closed in Paris on Tuesdays, my actual birthday.

I'd been putting off Paris for a year and I must apologize to "her".  I had no idea I would enjoy this city so much!  I guess I was worried it would be too expensive, or too crowded, or  I wouldn't know where to start or how best to get there.

I stumbled upon really cheap last minute ICE tickets and decided to "just do it."  We were on the train early in the morning and in Paris in under 2.5 hours!  Our first stop:  Ecole Militaire.  WHERE?  The boys were really wondering where the heck I was taking them until….
we rounded the corner by the park and there she was.

The Eiffel Tower veiled with a misty cloud, proudly standing in the chilly morning air.

Our walk thru the Champ des Mars gave us ample opportunity to marvel at the iron lady.
It was so much more massive in size that I ever imagined!

Throw back to 2009 with Alex's favorite Christmas gift -Lego Eiffel Tower--which made the journey to Germany!

We decided getting lift tickets to the top would be a bad idea given the clouds, so opted instead for the super cheap stairs.  Yup.  Climbed something like 600 steps, reading little tidbits (in English, thankfully as my French is nicht sehr gut) along the way and enjoying the panorama of Paris below.

At the end of this park is Ecole Militaire, where we first started our walk to Eiffel.

Looking down!  Zach & I think we've taken about a million stair steps since moving overseas!

It was rather cold in the tower, so we stopped for a rather non-descript lunch--wishing I had researched a better place, but, the coffee was hot, the ambience nice.  Our next stop was the Place du Concorde to walk the Tuileries Gardens to the Louvre Museum.  

As we popped out of the metro in the Place de la Concorde, I was peppered with questions from our inquisitive 9 yr old.  I just picked that spot so we could have a view of the Arc du Triomphe to the west and the Louvre to the east.  The Place marks the area where the beheading of the nobility took place during the French Revolution in the 1790s.  My limited knowledge of this area did not satisfy him.  WHY would they chop off the heads of the nobles?  WHY didn't anyone stop them?…and on and on the questions came.  There is an Egyptian obelisk in the center of the Place, but no information in English.   Luckily, a Ferrari for hire was parked nearby which gave us the perfect change in conversation!

Luxor Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde; a gift from the Egyptians to France.  The markings on the side explain how they transported/erected such an enormous object in 1829.  There was only one pavement marker that mentioned Marie Antoinette and her fateful demise in this very place.  

The photo-shopped version of Zach's interpretation of a nice afternoon:  sitting in a lounge chair by the pond in the Tuileries Garden.  Alex, however was anxious to move on to the museum, so his rest was only for a moment.  Next trip, this is our picnic spot!

Outside the Pyramid and Zach on the inside holding it up!

After we finished our token photos by the pyramid, we found the underground entrance and only had to wait a few moments to get thru the security line.  Alex found the map, I purchased a ticket (students are free, thanks Museum folks!) and we were off to explore!  There were only a couple things I really felt we "needed" to see, otherwise it was just an easy "walk around and take it all in" kind of afternoon.  The cool part was listening to Alex recall things he learned in history classes over the years and finding artifacts he'd only ever seen in books!  Can you believe we walked right thru the Venus de Milo room and didn't see it?!!!!  Yet another reason to return….

Alex discovers Hammurabi's Code and makes his former 6th grade teacher proud.  Zach finds really big feet...

I enjoyed finding a real mummy and reading about this ancient Egyptian.
Thankfully everyone slept in their own beds after this day!

I got the double pleasure of art museum plus palace all in one place!  Seeing the Mona Lisa in person, about 8 feet away from it was really cool.  It was bigger than I expected and although it was crowded in this gallery, it wasn't hard to get a front row view.  

A full day of sightseeing, we found a lovely bakery to take sandwiches and desserts to go on the train and were home by 8pm.  Can't wait to plan the next excursion…I'd really like to try a shopping day next--I'll bet the 2nd hand and vintage shops are awesome!


Ciao!
Linda