From Church to Church

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Wednesday 7 July

Two busy days in Paris have flown by! It’s now 9.30 pm and it is still light outside. So much for the after-dark activities we had planned - seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up by its 336 floodlights, Sacre Cour at sunset, the fountains lit up at the Jardines du Trocadero... Instead we have spent a lot of time waiting in lines and in getting from place to place...

Yesterday morning we got going a little later than we had hoped, and instead of arriving at the Eiffel Tower before its 9 am opening, we got there at about 9.10 am. There were of course already queues at the ticket offices! We joined the line at the North pylon and for thirty minutes we slowly wended our way to the booth. There was a bag search while in the queue and a metal detector and another bag search before entry. I had foolishly brought a metal knife with a sharpish point with, to cut the rolls we had bought to eat with cheese for breakfast while we were waiting in the line, so we hid it in the basket of the pram so as not to be detected! We then had to queue for the lift up to the second level, where we had to exit and queue for another lift to go to the summit. Finally we were at the top of the Eiffel Tower! There are two levels at the top, one that is enclosed with windows, which are not very clear and don’t give the best of views. Up a short stairway is the open-air upper level, enclosed with wire fencing, that provides a far superior outlook. It is incredibly high up top, and everything down on the ground appears minute, or as Dean says, ‘they look like ants, mommy!’ Of course we all took turns with the cameras and hence have lots of photos.

When we descended we stopped at levels two and one, where we admired the views from a different angle, had an overpriced (but convenient) lunch of baguettes and chips on the terrace, watched the movie on the large double screen in the Cineiffel, and where Ryan followed the kids’ trail and learned lots of interesting facts about the Eiffel Tower, the most interesting of which, he says, is that it was meant to be destroyed after twenty years, but Gustave Eiffel was forward thinking and used the top as a transmission base for the new radio technology, which made it indispensable to the city of Paris.

After eventually making our way down to ground level, we walked to the Champs de Mars RER station and caught the train to St Michel near Ile de la Cite, and walked to Notre Dame. We waited outside for a few minutes while waiting to meet up with Ryan’s friend Jake, his mum, Jackie, and his brother, Ellis, who came into the city from Reims where they are staying with friends for five days.

After the hellos and photos, we walked through the cathedral and admired magnificent stained glass windows and wall paintings. The boys all walked ahead while us adults caught up on news of our respective trips and Jackie filled us in about Jake’s barmitzvah, which we had missed. The boys wanted to go up the 387 steps of the north tower, but the queue was much too long, so we walked to the Ile St-Louis for Berthillon ice-creams. En route we witnessed an amazing display of jets, propeller planes and even helicopters flying overhead in various formations, which continued for about 15 minutes. Everyone in the vicinity was standing with faces turned up to the sky! We popped into St-Louis-en-I’lle, a Baroque church, where we heard the organ playing and thought (mistakenly) that perhaps we’d stumbled in on a funeral!

As our friends had booked to leave Paris on a 7.30 pm train, we decided to continue with our church theme and go to Sacre-Coeur before having dinner together in Montmartre. We took the Metro to Barbes Rochechouart and instead of changing to Anvers or Pigalle, we walked from there, through what turned out to be the seediest part of Paris that we had seen, and probably the busiest, the streets bustling with people of every colour and shape imaginable. I don’t imagine that this was the recommended route for tourists! Fortunately for us, Jackie, who had been to Montmartre previously, had a general idea where to go and directed us with the aid of a street directory. We arrived at Anvers and the five of us took the funicular up the hill, while the three of them walked! At the top we took photos of the panoramic views - it was a long way off sunset, but stunning never-the-less - before entering the magnificent church of the Sacred Heart. A quick look around and then it was off to find a restaurant that would suit the requirements of our various offspring. We settled one that was very well-located in the middle of the square, surrounded by artists painting portraits of tourists. We had onion soup, amongst other things, this being the only French dish I’ve actually eaten in France, but as the area is essentially a tourist trap, it was more memorable for the setting than the food. At 7 pm our friends rushed off after a quick goodbye, and we took a more leisurely stroll down the hill to Abbesses, which was far more relaxing that our route up. We arrived home pretty late, with a couple of exhausted children, after a hectic but amazing day in Paris.

I must get to bed now, Paris is exhausting! I will catch up on the rest of our Paris adventures on the Eurostar trip back to London on Friday. Goodnight from a very hot and sticky Paris...

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