Paris, Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Looking up the staircase in the apartment

After yesterday’s exhausting experience, we all slept in.  Once we arose, Jim walked around the corner and came back with some delicious pastries and crepes for breakfast (he’s an excellent hunter/gatherer!).  Our first task was to contact the rental company to resolve the issue of how to get in and out of our apartment without having to knock on Clarence’s (the nice ground floor renter) window.  I called soon after we awoke using Skype, explained the dilemma and was told they would send someone by to help sort things out.  But they couldn’t give me a time frame, and I couldn’t leave a number for them to call me back because we didn’t want them calling our cell phone.  Taking the phone out of airplane mode to even make a call was a little risky, as text messages that we had received popped in and we were afraid the data charges would be horrendous.  Anyway, when I hadn’t heard back by the time we had all showered, I called them back and reached a different person.  He apologized that the letter had told us the metal gate would open along with the exterior door, and said one of the keys we had been given should open the gate.  Jim had tried both keys yesterday, but this guy said the key should work if we reached through the gate and opened it from the opposite side.  This did indeed do the trick, so our access problems were solved.

Next we traveled back to the rental office to pay the rest of the rent (we had wired the first half from the US) and to pay our damage deposit.  Although the rental company seemed like an above-board operation and we knew another family who had rented through them, they had some pretty stiff policies.  We had to wire the first half of our apartment rent into the apartment owner’s bank account, then pay the other half upon arrival in cash.  The damage deposit of 450 Euros also had to be paid in cash.  They would have accepted US cash or Euros, but since you can’t exactly get US dollars from a foreign ATM, we paid in Euros.  This wasn’t that big a problem, but since Paris was our last stop, that meant we would go home with a lot of Euros that we would need to change back into US dollars and pay the corresponding fee. 

So, we traveled by Metro back to the area where the rental office was located, and while Jim went to the rental office, I took the kids and went to an optical shop to try to buy some contact lens solution.  Cost for an approximately  12-oz. bottle of Optifree:  26 Euros or about $32.  You can get that in the US for about $7-8, so it was hard to cough up that much money when we were so close to the end of our trip.  But we were basically out of solution.  It was around about this time that Maddie told me she had a bottle of contact lens solution with her.  So, problem solved! 

Playground near our apartment

Rental bikes were available all over Paris

Waiting for the Metro

St. Germain

Notre Dame

Next up was a visit to the Jardin du Luxembourg, a huge park in the left bank area near the Latin Quarter, to give McIntyre some time to play.  You actually have to pay to go into the large play area, but it was only a couple of euros, so we sent Maddie in with McIntyre, while we watched from outside the fence.  It wasn’t long before everyone was hungry, so we ate PB&J sandwiches we had made that morning, then McIntyre rode a carousel nearby.  Then back into the play area, although by this time Maddie was pretty uninterested in continuing to watch McIntyre.  There is much more to see at Luxembourg Garden, but by this time everyone was hungry again (those PB&Js didn’t exactly fill us up).  So we walked past Luxembourg Palace (beautiful!) on our way out and headed toward Rue Mouffetard, which our book recommended as having some inexpensive places to eat. 

Hanging out in Luxembourg Garden

Nice playground in Luxembourg Garden

Look another statue!

Maddie and Mac in front of Luxembourg Palace 

Look another cool fountain!

Look another cool building!

Stop guy with an attitude!

Mac trying to hide

Turns out, Rue Mouffetard was a little farther away than we realized and our map was a little confusing, so it took us a while to get there.  We saw part of Rue Mouffetard, although I don’t think we really ended up on the main part of it.  But we just started looking for a place to eat.  Finding vegetarian fare,  food the kids will eat, and food that isn’t crazy expensive is somewhat challenging in Paris, but we finally settled on an Italian place.  Unfortunately for us, we walked onto the patio and the proprietor told us they didn’t open until 7 p.m.  This is a big difference between Europe and the US, where most restaurants are open continuously from lunch time (or earlier) until closing.  So our search began anew and we ended up at a little tiny place that wasn’t much more than a take-out stall with a few tables on the sidewalk.  It was certainly cheap as Paris goes, but you get what you pay for.  Enough said. 

Finally we found somewhere to eat that was under $100

Then we went to a little crepe shop for some Nutella crepes for Jim and Maddie (I was too full, and McIntyre can’t eat Nutella) then we headed back to our apartment.  

Making the crepes

Mmmmmm, Nutella was a favorite

We researched boat tours on the Seine, threw some laundry in the washer in our apartment and set off in hopes of taking an 8:20 boat tour.  The boat tour departed from an area on the Seine right next to Notre Dame, but by the time we waited in a short line for tickets, we missed the 8:20 tour and had to buy tickets for the 9:40 tour.  This actually worked out perfectly because it gave us some time to walk across and see Notre Dame.  McIntyre had a grand time chasing pigeons in front of Notre Dame, while Maddie and I found Point Zero, a place marked by a bronze plaque that is considered the center of France (not geographically of course, but it’s the point from which all distances to/from France are measured).  Although the cathedral was not open when we arrived, it oddly opened while we were there, giving us a chance to go inside.  Notre Dame is beautiful and solemn and majestic…truly spectacular.  And all the more so when you read some of the history.  

Mac & Maddie on the Seine

Notre Dame

Mac sneaking up on a pidgeon

After viewing Notre Dame we walked back over for our boat tour, and by the time it started, we were approaching sunset.  This is what made missing the earlier boat tour such a good “mistake.”  The sunset made the sky and the lighting on the city beautiful.  Although we couldn’t hear much of the narration on the tour, Paris is astoundingly gorgeous viewed this way, and our Paris boat tour is one of my favorite things we did on our trip.  By the time we reached the Eiffel Tour (the turnaround point), the sky was beautiful and we got some great photos.  And by the time we ended our tour, the lights in Paris – the  City of Lights – were coming on. 

Reading on the Seine

The boat luckily missed

Crusing down the Seine

Sunset on the Seine

Sunset on the Seine

Family at the Eiffel Tower

Notre Dame at night

Our boat tour ended at 10:40 p.m. and it still wasn’t completely dark (summer  days are very long in this part of Europe).  This explains why it was usually at least 11 p.m. before McIntyre (much less the rest of us) got to bed during our trip.  It was a short walk back to our apartment on Ile Saint Louis (an amazing location for a Paris stay) and time for some shut eye.