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Published: June 26th 2019
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After two days of hoofing it for many, many hours, we opted to take a double decker bus tour of the city so we could get a feel for the different sites and neighborhoods without exhausting ourselves in the heat. Almost everyone we met commented on the unusual heat wave timed perfectly with our stay. Lovely.
The bus tour was fun, and we hopped off spontaneously at the Paris Opera House - a grandiose building definitely suited for kings and princesses, including Todd and Maggie! It was fun to imagine high society and royalty dressed in their finest garb roaming the grand staircases, marble foyers and gilded ballroom. We were surprised by how small the actual theatre seating area was, but every part of the opera house was so luxurious what it lacked in size it more than made up for in beauty. A stark contrast to the style of DC's Kennedy Center to be sure.
We hopped back on the tour bus to make our way toward the Louvre, stopping for a "quick" bite at another cafe on the left bank first. One thing we've learned, is that the French are not quick with their food. While tasty,
the 2+ hour lunch was more frustrating than fulfilling, as we had hoped to stroll through Luxembourg gardens before heading to the museum, but simply ran out of time. We had purchased afternoon-only tickets to the Louvre, with an entrance time 2 hours prior to closing, so we could do a surgical strike to see the Mona Lisa. We finally stumbled upon the hidden entrance and made our way with a virtual ocean of like-minded visitors who all seemed to be heading to the exact same painting!
We passed the Winged Victory statue on the way, and wound our way through a fairly quick moving crowd of people to the room displaying a sole painting - the Mona Lisa. The boys and I were hard pressed to decide which was more impressive - da Vinci's painting, or the frenetic crowds of people jockeying to get the best position from which to snap a quick photo of one of the world's most recognized faces. Todd and Maggie braved the mob, however, and managed to get pretty close before being ushered along by museum staff. We managed to see several other paintings and statues as we moseyed our way out of
the museum during the last hour before it closed. We know most would not consider our short visit sufficient, but for us, we checked off the Louvre on our long list of must-sees in Paris.
After leaving the museum, we had time to kill before heading to a restaurant recommended by the pastry chef we would meet tomorrow, so we sat in a delightful park beside the Louvre, in the shade, and relaxed while watching the people go by. It also happened to be near a traveling amusement park, so after a delicious sushi dinner at Matsuda, we all enjoyed the ferris wheel, Todd and Billy braved a crazy ride that scared Marcia half to death, especially when the operator strolled across the way to chat with his friend at a nearby gaming booth WHILE THEY WERE RIDING, and all 4 kids romped and splashed in blown up hamster balls floating in water, which was more fun than we can convey to watch in real time. Sean won for being able to stay upright the longest! It was a delightful evening, and a fun way to end a good day.
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Kate
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Great Posts!
Thanks for sharing the blog posts so we can follow along your adventures! Seems like a very busy and fun trip so far. Great pictures, thanks for sharing. Good luck with the heat wave ... it's making international news!