Category — Paris

I love Paris.  Period.  But in my many past visits to this wonderful city, none have been in the summer, and none have been ten days before the Tour de France wraps up in the streets of Paris.

Still, despite the crowds and scaffolding blocking off various parks, metro stations, etc., in preparation for the race, we had a wonderful, albeit exhausting day touring Paris.  Tomorrow, in anticipation of rain, we will visit the museums – hopefully hitting both the Louvre and my personal favorite, the Impressionist exhibit at the Musee D’Orsay.

Just to warm their mother’s heart, the children have been working hard on their French, determined to practice what they have learned while here.  So far they have mastered “hello” (bonjour), “goodbye” (au revoir), “please” (s’il vous plait), “why” (pourquoi), and the all important “yes ma’am” (oui madame ou oui mama):).  Amidst these lessons and determined not to lose our children in the endless crowds, I learned that they respond better to “stop,” “wait,” “let’s go” and “hurry up” in French, than they do in English.  Hmmm, I wonder if i try that when we get home if it will still work as effectively as it did today???

In one afternoon, we visited the Eiffel Tower (though the lines were too long to wait for tickets to go up), the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees, Sacre Coeur and Montmatre, lunch at Rue Cler, Notre Dame, and my favorite bookstore in the world, Shakespeare and Company.  Whew!  After a slower-paced day tomorrow taking in great art, I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we cannot wait to move on to Provence where we can unpack for a while and just relax in the gorgeous countryside of France…

See our Paris pictures here.