Tuesday: Giving Paris One Last Try

We left the house as soon as we had downed our waffles (I will miss French waffles). Since the portable GPS which we used the last time we drove to Paris was low on batteries, I gave the job to our built-in car GPS. I mean, what could go wrong?

Clearly the car GPS has a different idea of what the best route is. It not only took us a different way, it took us straight into miles of construction traffic. I’m usually not a big fan of construction traffic--you know, the endless miles of bumper to bumper madness in the middle of endless stretches of road--but it is compounded significantly when every minute wasted on the road is one less minute in Paris.

So I fired the car GPS and got back out the portable one and a cord to recharge it. I think car GPS will stay fired for a while--it seems to really like the scenic route. In the end, it delayed us almost an hour. But we eventually made it back to the parking garage we used last Saturday and got to the metro.

Paris has had one highlight for Andrew: the Eiffel Tower. The rest he could take or leave. So to make it more fun for him, I left him a note from his Angry Birds stuffed animals letting him know that they wanted to go to Paris with him. So to Paris they went. I’m not sure how much more fun it was for him, but I think it helped at least a little.

My kids loved the snack machines at every metro waiting platforms. So of course, the Angry Birds did as well.

We started back at Notre Dame, but actually went through the cathedral this time.

Then we gave Musee D’Orsay one more try. The lines were double what they were the last time (probably because the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays), and it was cold and a little rainy. So it was a no go. Again.

According to a map I had looked at, there was a metro stop nearby that we could walk to from there. It ended up being quite a bit further away, but it did lead us through the Jadin de Tuileries, which was a beautiful place to walk through to find a metro. With lots of statues of naked women--as my kids frequently pointed out. But most importantly, it had a functional bathroom--which neither Notre Dame or the Subway right across from Notre Dame where we ate lunch had.

It cost us almost $5 to use the bathroom, but the advice that we got from from some friends who had also gone to Europe with young kids (thank you Sam and Jolene) was that everything works best when people have full stomachs and empty bladders. It has proven very true.

We took the metro up to the Arc de Triomphe and conquered the spiral staircase that took us to the top. The view was great, but there was still a little rain and a lot of cold wind, so we didn’t last long.

For our last stop, we went up to Montmarte to the Sacre Couer cathedral. We rode the funicular up to the top, walked through the cathedral, and then back down the stairs. We fit in a carousel ride before heading back to the metro and then called it a day. The kids found little Eiffel tower keychains to give to their classmates, which they were thrilled about and Katie got a beret. Which she loves.

By the time we got back to the car, we were all pretty exhausted and looking forward to being warm and dry. The day didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but at least we gave it a good try and were somewhat successful. And when you’re taking four young kids around Paris on a cold, rainy day you have to have reasonable expectations, I guess. I think we will all have good memories of Paris, and I have lots of reasons to try to get back some day. But we’ll be leaving the kids at home for the next trip.

We leave for Luxembourg tomorrow, and will be there three nights before moving on to Switzerland. We have rented a house there for a month, and I’m looking forward to not moving around so much. And to having a house with normal internet that doesn’t require me to sit in a restaurant at 9:00 at night. Thanks to everyone for your comments on my various posts--I look forward to actually responding to people once we get a little more settled.