The first challenge of the day was getting onto a Metro and off to City Island, home of Notre Dame. This Metro isn't quite as user friendly at first pass. I'm hoping to make peace with it on subsequent trips. Long story short: it took about an hour to get tickets and onto a train.
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| Just Hanging Out |
After hauling up the Heaviest Stroller on Earth two flights of stairs at the Hotel de Ville stop, I looked around and without much to guide me, started walking in a direction that looked interesting and was hopefully toward Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. I was wrong, of course, but didn't figure that out for about an hour. On the brightside, we found another playground. So, while I studied the map and reoriented myself, the kids played and bullied French kids.
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| Not Exactly the 1st Picture of Notre Dame |
Notre Dame sure is something!! What I like best about it is that it's surrounded by other equally old and beautiful buildings. Not like in NY where St. Paul's Cathedral (for example) is next to a windowed high-rise and a department store. Everything in this neighborhood matched. I gawked for awhile, while Alice shooed pigeons and Leah had a minor meltdown. Good times.
We hit a souvenir shop then walked to a corner take-away place for lunch. Hot dog and frites. (Because in France, it would be redundant to call them French fries. Har har!) We found a bench with a view of the Conciergerie, with its beautiful golden gate, for our lunch a la fresco. Everyone was much happier after a meal.
Then I decided, as I usually do in a city, that I needed to walk, so we spent about the next hour on the road from Ile de la Cite to the Musee d'Orsay. It was a lovely stroll on the river overlooking ornate building after ornate building. Catching all the detail on the buildings is almost tiring.
The Musee d'Orsay is one of my top places to visit, but it was getting late so I had to resign myself to looking at it from the outside and changing Alice's diaper in an inconspicuous spot. (Maybe I shouldn't have confessed that.)
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| Look! A Paris Leaf! |
Then, back down the stairs hauling the World's Heaviest Stroller, onto a train and back to the hotel where, in route, we found yet another playground. More playing, a little less bullying -- clearly, they were losing steam.
Realization For the Day: Must return to this Paris without kids (or when kids are older) so I can actually enter a building.
Motto For the Day: Think of how big my arms will be from hauling the World's Heaviest Stroller up and down Metro stairs!
worlds heaviest stroller? i thought you got that european one that is super skinny and light. we brought them to the market that one saturday?? it looked light. is this a different stroller that i am thinking of? i think it was red. kisses to the peanuts!
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