Paris: Day 3

Today we took the bus instead of the Metro, and well, we will never again ride the Metro in Paris!  Why would you want to climb down underneath this beautiful city to zip along crammed with thousands of people when you can be chauffeured through it in comfort with big beautiful windows?  Our bus took us up the beautiful Boulevard Saint-Germain, along the Seine, and then dropped us off at the Place de la Concorde.  There were no guillotines today, but it's pretty much jaw-dropping in every direction.

The Luxor Obelisk. It is 3,300 years old and was originally located at the Luxor Temple in Egypt. 

From there we walked into the Jardin des Tuileries, looked behind us up the Champs-Élysées at the Arc de Triomphe. We made our way over to the the Musée de l'Orangerie, one of few places we regretted not seeing our last trip to Paris. The Orangerie is an impressionist and post impressionist art museum, home to Claude Monet's Water Lilies. The Water Lilies depict Monet's flower garden at his home at different times of the day and were the focus of his career for the last 30 years of his life. The paintings are huge murals, displayed four per room. They were mesmerizing. We gazed over each one up close and from afar and tried to choose our favorite. Each painting looks so splotchy and unorganized up close, but perfectly clear from afar. We admired each set as long as we could before heading downstairs to check out the rest of the museum. We saw paintings by Renoir, Degas, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Modigliani, and our old pal, Cézanne. We all like Monet's best. It's hard to choose a runner up, but Monseiur Bacon and the boys chose Cézanne, Madame Salade chose Degas. We also saw a sculpture by Rodin:

By this point, the kids were unbearable. Time to find some lunch. Luckily, the Tuileries had a few options nearby. We chose a cute diner-like café, called Café Renard. The food was fine and the prices reasonable. It was a great place to take a break.

After lunch, the kids had a wonderful time playing in the gardens. We heard them exclaim things like, "Let's go play in the dirt!!!!". We eventually ended up sitting in chairs next to the fountain. I imagine it would be a really peaceful place to sit and think, but I have no idea. I was too busy being annoyed by our kids fighting over who gets which chair. *sigh*

We headed home because obviously our kids needed a break. Naps followed by "Linnea's Garden" on Netflix was just what everyone needed. "Linnea's Garden" is a sweet film which follows a little girl on her trip to Paris and to Monet's Garden. Our kids have seen it several times and love that they can now relate to the film. One told me, "They stayed at the Esmeralda Hotel by Notre Dame, and we walked right by it!!". That we did!

Something Madame Salade wanted to do was to watch the Eiffel Tower light up after sunset. So, after dinner we walked over to a tower in our neighborhood, the Tour Montparnasse. It was the tallest skyscraper in Paris until 2011 and offers an amazing panoramic view of Paris. There was a bit of a line to get in, but not too bad. We took the elevator up to the 56th floor (holy popping ears, Batman!), where there are windows all around with unbelievable views of the city and a restaurant/bar in the center. Mom and Dad grabbed a couple French Bud Lights (Heineken) and attempted to keep sane with our kids as it got dark. The tower also allows visitors to go up to the roof where it is open air (another 6 flights of stairs up), but we did not feel comfortable doing that with the kids. We were just fine with the views we had:

Once the Eiffel Tower is lit up, it sparkles every hour, on the hour. Sunset was a bit after 9:00 p.m., so after watching the the Eiffel Tower and parts of the city light up, we headed back down the elevator and back towards our apartment. We stopped on a street with a view of the Eiffel Tower and sat down on the sidewalk. The kids were loopy and crazy and ready for bed, but we persevered. Here it is sparkling:

We thought that was the end of our night, but no. On the way home, we saw this:

Apparently our neighborhood is the starting point for the "Pari Roller" where up to 35,000 people get together to rollerblade around Paris under police escort. Mostly we saw lots of skaters, but we also saw a few costumes and a rolling DJ with speakers all over his body. They get together every Friday from 10:00 p.m-1 a.m. to skate the streets of Paris. The skate is open to anyone with enough skill. Crazy-fun!