Anderson Family Blog: Paris, Day 3

Our last day in Paris was a Sunday, so we decided to attend church at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints right near the Pompidou Centre. They have so many visitors here on a regular basis, that no one minded we were in jeans, they had translation to English set up, and we sat in the overflow area with about 40 other people from "out of town." We did our best to stumble through the hymns in French.

Then we went to the Picasso Museum for our daily dose of art.

Since the titles of the artwork were written in French, Rob decided it would be a fun game to have the kids guess what the subject of the painting was, and then he'd tell us if we were right. Sometimes we got an element or two- guitar, woman- and sometimes we were totally wrong. I liked emphasizing the evolution of Picasso's work and his total originality.

Two still lifes.

Both by Picasso, both in the same color scheme... totally different and awesome.

The building wasn't too shabby either. Because two floors were closed for renovation, the museum was very uncrowded and our tickets were discounted.

Just around the corner from the Picasso Museum we saw a very fancy chocolate shop. One of the things I love about Rob is that he also loves chocolate (though maybe not as much as I do.) We went inside and bought a small box of chocolates, including several salted caramels called "Amelies," and some handmade lollipops.

The sign on this jar of caramels says, "Please, don't help yourself." So perfectly posh Paris.

We stopped for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Lebanese restaurant also in the Marais neighborhood, and had excellent falafel, before taking the metro to Sacre Couer.

Sacre Couer is relatively new, as far as Paris churches go, being just over 100 years old. We told the kids that if they climbed all the steps and toured around without any fussing, that we would get crepes of their choice when we came back down.

The inside isn't all that impressive, but we always walk around the whole church to admire the different angles and the little park that is up there.

Food is an excellent motivator.

We enjoyed our crepes at a playground at the bottom of the hill (just across the street from the metro) and then took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe for our Paris finale.

Yay for Paris!

Ten years ago.

And in 2019.

I don't think we've changed that much.

Someone had brought sidewalk chalk, and shared it around, so the kids liked each getting to make their (temporary) mark on Paris.

And then we decided to go ahead and climb the stairs to the top of the Arc. Neither Rob nor I had ever done this, and we were all tired, but there was no line and we decided to do it anyway. This is the view down from the top of the staircase. I don't love heights, but the kids were unfazed.

Amelie was particularly happy about this trip as she has wanted to visit Paris for most of her little life. It's pretty cool when you can help your kids make their dreams a reality.

After the Arc de Triomphe, we stumbled back to our hotel with VERY tired feet. We weren't very hungry as we'd had a big lunch and crepes already, so we stopped in a grocery store and bought some cheese and crackers, and drinks, and had another hotel picnic followed by those amazing chocolates from the Meert shop.

In the morning we checked out and moseyed to a bakery for breakfast. I had asked Toby to help me out with holding a bag of small souvenirs, and he accidentally left it in the bakery. We didn't realize until we were at the airport and had some very sad kiddos. They didn't lose all of their little souvenirs though, and they soon recovered. Poor Toby, he felt so bad.

We had a good amount of time to get to the airport before our flight, and that was a very good thing. Our RER train stopped 5 stops early due to "sick passengers" and we all had to get off and wait for another train. That one only took us to terminal 1 at the airport so we had to get off and wait for a THIRD train to get to terminal 2. It was ridiculous, and time consuming, and Rob and I couldn't wait to leave Paris by the time we got to the airport.