Paris, Wednesday, July 7, 2010

View of Eiffel Tower from Notre Dame

Yesterday, I half-jokingly suggested to Maddie that she and I get up early to go climb the tower of Notre Dame, and surprisingly, she said, “Sure!” So she and I got up early to get in line by 9:45 am before the tower opened at 10. Well, it being summer and all, we of course weren’t the only ones who had this idea. We were disappointed to find many people already in line, but we just joined in. Then I left Maddie in line while I walked to the front to make sure we were actually in the right line. That’s when I saw a sign that said, “exact change only.” Of course I didn’t have exact change, so I went to buy a post card. That store owner said he had no coins, so he lost my business to a street vendor and a Coca Cola.

After about a 45-minute wait, we finally got inside, and went up a short flight of spiral stairs…to the gift shop. We were cordoned off there for a few minutes before we climbed the next set of spiral stairs to some incredible views of Paris and some face- to-face views of the gargoyles that grace the exterior of Notre Dame. Then up another set of stairs for more views, then a final set of stairs to see one of the church bells.

Sheesh, more stairs

Maddie on the way up to the top of Notre Dame

Maddie atop Notre Dame

Notre Dame

The most famous gargoyle of Notre Dame

More gargoyles

And even more gargoyles

That is a big bell

Viewing Paris from Notre Dame

Viewing Paris from Notre Dame

By the time we got back to the apartment, it was almost noon. We headed over to the Louvre because Maddie wanted to at least see it from the outside. She sort of wanted to go in, but because of the lines (and because McIntyre would have cared about the Mona Lisa about as much as he cares about politics), we just contented ourselves with hanging out in the courtyard area.

Hanging around the fountain at the Louvre

Lots of people also went to the Louvre that day

Ferris wheel

Louvre courtyard fountain

Afterward, we went to the Pompidou Center, where Jim and I remembered (from our Paris visit in 1999) that there was a funky fountain area and lots of street performers that might entertain the kids. We found the fountain, but fun street performers were in short supply. Or were they?

As we were walking toward a restaurant to get some lunch, a woman leaning over the fountain had apparently dropped her cell phone in the fountain. We commented on how awful that would be (not only because dropping your phone in water stinks, but also because the fountain frankly looked stagnant and nasty). Then we went to sit down at the restaurant we had chosen, a creperie right next to the fountain. There was also a large plaza area next to the fountain where a couple of kids were playing soccer. McIntyre asked if he could go play with them, so we told him he could.

Pompidou Center

Pompidou Center

Bubbles outside the Pompidou Center

Street performer outside the Pompidou Center

Another cool fountain

Fountain outside the Pompidou Center

Finally we use that stroller we have hauled all over Europe

Fountain outside the Pompidou Center

Mac playing futbol

At some point, I walked back over to the area where the woman had dropped her cell phone in the fountain, and she appeared to have dropped it in again. Performance art, I suppose. Jim said he was a little suspicious the first time (I wasn’t at all), but regardless, apparently there were some street performers after all. Another odd thing was that there were several women who approached us and others walking by, very assertively, with paper and pen as if asking us to sign a petition. After witnessing the cell phone lady, we decided the petition people must have been performance artists of some kind as well. They never said anything, just put the paper in front of us. One of them even blew me a kiss, which seemed very odd until we sort of figured it out.

We were going to skip the interior of the Pompidou Center for the same reasons we didn’t go inside the Louvre, but we decided to at least try to check out the gift shop to see if it offered any cool souvenirs. We were able to cruise in the main entrance for free, so we checked out the gift shop (cool stuff, but expensive) and then visited an exhibit geared toward children. It was rather unusual….all corrugated cardboard. From the floor to the “ceiling,” everything was made of plain cardboard.

After this, we reached what was apparently the real entrance (where we had to pay). We were all pretty tired by this point, so we just decided to head back to the apartment after a long day. We were toying with the idea of going to the Eiffel tower this night, since our Rick Steves book recommended going late to avoid the lines and see the city as the sun goes down and the lights come on. But since we were all pretty tired and we did the boat ride last night, we decided to save the Eiffel tower for tomorrow and opted to hang out in the apartment watching World Cup.

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.