It's taking me so long to finish my Paris post! I blame working. I used to be able to blog when the kiddos went to bed but now since I can't work out most days during the day (I sometimes squeeze in a lunch workout), I have been doing 8pm workouts.
Day 3 (Wednesday) we tied to make plans not so crazy since we were walking 30,000 steps each day so the plan was to do a river cruise and then that night we had moulin rouge booked at 11pm so supper beforehand.
We thought we'd find a river cruise pretty fast but that didn't happen. I was a good 12,000 steps in before we came across a cruise! We did get to eat lunch along this pretty river though (we grabbed lunch from our favourite bakery on our street) and walked pretty much the entirety of it.
But the nice part was once we did find our river cruise, we got to have a beer on dock while waiting for the boat to come back and then we could buy take away beer for the boat! All the kronenbourg!
So many views of the eiffel tower, this one from the river. It was interesting to see all the monuments and buildings of Paris with commentary. So interesting that the eiffel tower was a gift for the world fair and the Parisians hated it because they thought it was ugly.
We definitely didn't think it was ugly and got excited every time we saw it!
It was so interesting that after the huge fire that happened in April that knocked out most of Notre Dame, that it wasn't mentioned at all in the commentary. They talked about Notre Dame like nothing had happened...
You can see from the scaffolding that the whole back was gone.
Ok, this wasn't part of the river cruise tour, but was way too cool! This guy was pulling things out of the river with what looked like a fish hook and picked up multiple bikes and electric scooters (which are everywhere there)!
We made it out for supper! This was the first real sit down meal we had (the meal we had in versailles only half counts because we didnt order full entrees!). This restaurant was right on the street our hotel was. It wasn't the frenchest food but that pizza was delish. And the wine is good no matter what.
We had our supper and then headed to the subway toward the district where moulin rouge is (which was closer to the montmartre area). We got there early around 9:30-10pm and found that the area where Moulin Rouge is was not the nicest and we ended up at a weird bar to have a beer before the show.
But we made it inside for the 11pm show, complete with champagne! The show was so well done... sexy yet tasteful. And equally for women as men!
Moulin rouge is beautiful... and the surrounding it is weird sex shops, spin off moulin rouge shows and just dingy shops.
We got out just as they were closing down the subway station and we had no idea they closed at 1am! We asked the first cab we saw how much it would be to get to the arc de triumphe and they said 40 euros. I said I would walk (google said it was a 40 min walk) and then by chance we asked another cab who said it was 10 euros max and got in that one. Clearly there are some scammer cabs out there! Just like our Vegas scammer cab.. I learned my lesson!
And on the way back to the hotel, we grabbed some street food. Crepes obviously... with the signature french shredded cheese (it doesnt sound or look the best but is so good!).
Day 4 (Thursday)... stopping by our favourite bakery on our street. We went here every day at least once. She was the best. On this day, we grabbed some quick breakfast (pastry plus cappuccino) before heading to Montmartre!
We had seen so many pictures of this well known cafe before our trip so we knew we wanted to stop here for lunch. I thought it would be much busier, but we were able to get a pretty good spot. The way to eat at restaurants in Paris is outside and facing out.
A traditional ham and cheese sandwich done france style with the cheese broiled on top.
And walking around Montmartre we found lock bridge 2.0. I guess people in France put their love locks everywhere.
The views from the church were amazing since they are right on the hill.
After going through the church oddly through the middle of a mass, we decided it would be worth the 7 euros to go up to the top of the church for the view. It was so worth it! It was a crazy workout having to go up hundreds of stairs but you could see the condensed huge city with the oldest buildings and the eiffel tower there in the horizon.
After montmartre and lunch, we grabbed a subway and train all the way over to the Saint Denis Primark for shopping. We fell in love with Primark in Glasgow so decided it was worth it to go out of our way for shopping specifically at this store. It wasn't as great for us as we remember but we both got a few things. But we got lots of kids things! We thought it looked like a rough neighbourhood (the glass from broken car windows on the road gave it away!) and after the fact read that it wasn't the safest of neighbourhoods... oops.
And Thursday night was another Eiffel tower night complete with wine, baguette, jam and cheese.
We changed up the view this night and went to the closer park right in front of the tower so we had to look way up for our view this night! The "beer, wine, beer, wine" vendors were there too... and rats. But we were prepared for both... avoiding the rats in the bushes and loaded with extra wine in our backpack!
This was out spot. So close to the tower and obviously wine in hand.
Both nights we went to the Eiffel tower, we sat for hours and watched it like a fire. But what we noticed the more common thing was to take staged pictures... and a million of them and then once you get the right shot, you leave.
This is a very nice girlfriend right beside us taking the perfect shot of her boyfriend... he also had a bag from some expensive store to really make his Instagram picture impressive. They took these pictures and then left. I don't think they saw the tower from their own eyes... just the camera.
Our hotel! The arc d'elysee! It was small, but clean and modern and in the perfect spot for everything.
The kiddos clothing haul from Primark. So many cute things for cheap.
Friday morning was our last day in Paris. We only had breakfast which we got from our bakery and then ate on the champ elysees before heading to the airport by subway and train. The train to the airport was nutty and I hardly got myself and my luggage on at one of the stops. It was so congested and people just pile on top of each other pretty much. But we made it home for Friday evening... even if we didn't get to sit together on the plane. That was the first time in all our travels that we didn't get seats together.
