Paris, Day 5
Today for our last day of our trip we wanted to take a train ride to Luxemburg City so we could visit the country of Luxemburg. However, it was going to cost almost $600 in train tickets for a day trip there and back! So instead we spent one more day in Paris. It was a chilly and rainy day and we planned on taking a walking tour of the Montmartre area. Unfortunately, we were halfway there on the metro when the train suddenly stopped and we sat for about 10 minutes. Then there was a notification that the train had shut down and everyone would have to get off. Well, we had no idea now how to get to Montmartre, but a nice young man helped me figure out which metro line would take us closest to Montmartre. We got off the metro and saw these really cool window displays. We let the kids stop and watch the displays, and Willow absolutely loved it. We had about a 20 minute walk to get to the start of the tour, but by the time we got there we were almost 40 minutes late due to all the delays. It was sprinkling, and we stood under an awning while I looked up some self-guided walking tours so we could do the tour ourselves.
Our first stop was the Moulin Rouge, which was right beside the meeting place for the original tour. I would have loved to go in, but tickets for the show are about $100 and not suitable for children, so it wasn’t going to happen this trip. Still, it was super awesome to see the actual buiding.
Next on the walking tour we went to the home of Theo Van Gogh, which is where Van Gogh’s studio was set up for the two years he was in Paris (the blue door). Then we walked to Le Moulin de la Galette, which is where Renoir painted his famous painting that we saw the other day in the D’Orsay.
Like most of the days we have been exploring, we let the kids bring two toys each to play with. Here they found a pole with a rooster on it and began playing with their toys riding on the rooster. In the Place Emile Goudeau is the Bateau Lavoir which is where Picasso lived and where a bunch of the impressionist and post-impressionist artists hung out.
The Love Wall has a list of ways to say ‘I Love You’ in over 250 languages. I told the kids “Act like you love each other!” when I went to get a picture of them in front of the Love Wall. Then of course they needed to get a picture of us with a smoochy kiss. Next we walked up a million steps to the Salvador Dali museum and then around the corner to the Place du Tertre, a square where artists sell their work. The waitlist to get a spot to sell in the square is about 10 years!
We went by La Maison Rose, which is a pretty pink building that was once a brothel (where Van Gogh is said to have contracted syphilis!). There was a pretty vineyard across the street, which was bare right now but I can imagine it being full and lush in the summertime. The path by the vineyard led us to Au Lapin Agile, a cabaret that was once called the Cabaret des Assassins and a favorite of artists. The Musee do Montmartre is a museum about the neighborhood, but we did not go in.
We finished our walk at the Sacré-Coeur basilica, which is huge. The basilica looks out over the city of Paris and has steps that go down, down, down. I couldn’t help taking a bunch of pictures on our journey down the stairs with the different views of the basilica. It looks very majestic, particularly from the bottom of all the stairs.
The inside of the basilica is very dark and very quiet. There were some nice stained glass and a model of the basilica. There was also a guy on the speaker saying ‘silence, s'il vous plaît’ and ‘shhhhhhh’ to keep everyone quiet. Honestly he was louder than the actual chatter in the basilica!
From Montmartre we walked to Merik’s dad’s apartment, where the kids played some more games and did some more dancing. We just relaxed with the adults for a little bit. The walk there was really long and through an area that wasn’t very nice, so I told the kids we would have to keep walking and not stop. Zoey, Ronin, and JonPaul even saw a large rat run across the street and inside a bakery! Merik and her family were going to see The Lion King musical (so jealous!), so we left when they did and rode the metro with them. The kids were super sad to leave each other, but hopefully we will see them next year when they are going to come to the United States to visit.
We took the metro back to the Champs Elysses and took pictures of the Dior building and the big gorilla and bear statues.
Zoey had already worn out one pair of shoes on our trip, and we had to say goodbye to a second pair today. We had already bought some glue to reattach the sole of the other shoe, and now this show completely fell apart. Luckily my mom had brought two pairs of shoes and Zoey could wear one of them. That’s the bonus of having a kid that wears the same size as you…I just never thought it would be when she was only nine years old!
We had asked Merik where we could get macaroon, since of course we had to have authentic macaroons in Paris. She told us we had to go to Laudree, which is the most famous of all Paris macaroon shops. The restaurant was beautiful, but we stood in the take away line. The macaroons were pretty expensive, so we let everyone pick out one each.
The displays were pretty and colorful. The woman getting our order together gave each of the kids one free macaroon to each while they waited for our order to be ready, which was so nice of her. Everyone absolutely loved the macaroons, even Willow who never tries anything outside of her comfort zone. It was a perfect treat for our last evening in Paris.
The next morning we got up and ate breakfast at the hotel and then took the train to the airport. On our way to the train we saw a beautiful rainbow. What a perfect end to a wonderful trip!
