Sunday, June 8, 2008

May 26, 2008, Day 4




Finally we get ourselves up early! I think we are used to the time change, now. We get to the Eiffel Tower via subway before it opens, not too bad of a line, and we ride to the top. What a view...and something you must do if you are in Paris. We subway'd much more today than any other day, discovering the city. After the Eiffel Tower we headed off to the Louvre, in awe of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. The Mona Lisa is of course the most well known of it all, it seems.


Then off to the Montmartre - very rainy afternoon. We wandered the very hilly streets in the rain, discovered an amazing artistic part of town, visited the Basilique Sacré-Coeur, Madeline found her special French purchase that we had talked about - a most beautiful french doll she named quickly 'Jolene'. Jolene joined us for much of the rest of our trip. A lovely dinner in the Montmartre, many cool art shops and artists hanging in the (wet) square. I think exploring the different districts was my favorite part.


After Versailles






After a long day at Versailles, we hopped a riverboat and cruised the Seine for an hour. The sights were amazing. From the river you saw the bridges up close, even the undersides of the bridges are amazing. It was also cool to see the banks of the rivers, as well as another view of the amazing city.

May 25, Paris continues



May 25, Sunday, and we take a tour of Versailles. Our first subway trip (note the acordian player on the subway! very fun. suddenly it is a party and all are smiling and laughing!) and very crowded but lovely Versailles. Madeline was spectacular as we dragged her through the gardens - the golden fountains, amazing grounds. 2 hours in a huge crowd learning about the kings and queens, I can't even begin to repeat. Madeline did love the 1st and 2nd bedrooms of both the king and queen - the 1st where they would have the grumpy disheveled wake up, then the 2nd room where the "wakeup" was beautiful and made up - where they could 'receive' people and continue the facade that they were always perfect.

Day 2 in Paris - May 24, 2008
























the Brocks have been remiss - got so busy that we didn't write every day, and then we left Paris for Rome - no internet. Then to Tuscany, internet didn't work. SO -- going back is today's task.



As mentioned earlier - Day 2 we ended up waking up late and went to Luxembourg Gardens - just a great area with carousels, a puppet show in a theater that had been active for 50 or more years with the same puppets and run by the same family. We rented an old wooden toy boat and Madeline raced it in the lake with the other kids. It really was a lovely day.

From there we made our way to the Church of Madeline - a must see considering our smallest member. Another amazing, beautiful structure.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Day 2 Paris



Today was our second day and we intended to hit the Eiffel Tour first thing before the lines developed and then use the second day of our open air tour bus pass. Problem was that we woke up middle of the night thinking that wouldn't get back to sleep and the next thing we knew, it was almost noon! This jet lag thing is a real bugger. We changed our plans and headed to the famous Luxembourg Gardens to relax and play. Madeline sailed a boat on the man-made lake, played with the Parisian children in the child's playground area, rode a carousel and saw a puppet show (all in French of course, but as we discovered in the morning, much like the Pink Panther, it didn't matter because you could tell what was going on). While we were at the Gardens, it clouded up and began to spit a little rain. People were running for cover and putting up their umbrellas and we were thinking that they were all wimps until the sky opened up on us. It was still warm -so wasn't so bad. We used the second day of our pass and rode the open air bus in the rain to the Madeline Church where we went in and were in awe of the massive structure and beautiful artwork. We stopped for a little espresso across the street to wait out the deluge that had developed and then hopped on the bus to head back to our Parisian home. We grabbed a french pannini and a baguette on the way back to eat with cheese we bought the day before and some wine we bought at the market right next to our apartment. The wine was chosen blindly off the shelf and wasn't very expensive - but it was very very nice! Denise is putting Madeline to sleep now and I'm going to wrap up this message. Tomorrow we will explore Versailles, take a boat tour of the Seine, walk through the Marais district and get some world famous ice cream at Berthillon Glacier. Monday and Tuesday are museum passes to hit the Louvre, de Orsay, Rodin, Arc de Triomphe andNotre Dame. Finally on Wednesday, we'll pack our bags, leave them here and explore the Montmartre and then head to the airport to move on to Italy.