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.