Day 11: No worry, this is not vodka…..it’s water!

The whole family welcomed a morning to ‘sleep in’. On this vacation, that means up before 9am, but hey, we’ll take it!

First stop today was lunch. We found another out-of-the way place that was (once again), delicious! Could it be that you can’t find bad food in France?  Nah, that can’t be it. One note if you’re planning a trip here – TripAdvisor is used a whole lot more than Yelp is over here. Anyway, back to lunch – the waiter started out by serving us vodka in a water bottle. Or was it water in a vodka bottle? I should probably remember. And, I should probably do a better job watching the girls if I can’t remember…. No one got too drunk, so it was likely water in the vodka bottle. Ah, yes, the waiter even said, ‘no worry, this is not vodka! It is water!’  For grins I Googled the drinking age in Paris, and it’s 16. 16!  Anyway, back to the restaurant – they make their own ketchup here and although we stuck with some American fare – burgers and fish & chips – it was really very good.  We haven’t done a good job trying some of the local food that we've never had before, but we’re also traveling with three teenagers and have some very long days. The last thing we want is to try some escargot, get someone sick or leave them hungry, and be out of commission for our rigorous schedule!  Hey, maybe that’s why someone ordered the escargot….. ?

Lunch beer. Of course. No food pics today - we forgot!

Wait, is that really vodka??

After lunch, we headed to Saint Chappelle. This chapel was consecrated in 1248. 1248!!! I'm using a lot of exclamation marks in this post because.... well...1248! That’s almost 800 years ago! It was built to house Louis IX’s collection of relics. Can you imagine? “People, people....I have far too much stuff…..please build me a chapel to house my priceless relics!” The collection that Louis had was quite impressive, too. It actually cost him more than the chapel. Christ’s Crown of Thorns was part of the collection and used to be in this chapel, but was eventually moved to Notre Dame (and it survived the fire!). The chapel also has one of the most extensive collection of 13^th century stained glass in the world. When you first enter the chapel, it’s pretty underwhelming. But Sherri told us to hold off on our opinions for just a little bit. Turns out, it’s truly a stunning place….as can be audibly witnessed when one turns the corner of the stairs and enters the chapel. It’s breathtaking! We were fortunate to have a sunny day where the light was pouring in through the stained glass. It was a beautiful, serene moment that we were very fortunate to experience.

After taking in the beauty (no, this is not a story about when I got married), we took a short walk over to see Notre Dame. We knew we wouldn’t be able to get very close, but we wanted to see it anyway.  Although we could not go inside, you can tell from the outside just how spectacular the inside must be. Looks like we will have to make another trip back here!

For our next stop, we have to thank our amazing trip planner (Sherri, of course…), as she found an awesome bookstore called Shakespeare and Company right across the Seine from Notre Dame. Funny, when you cross the river, the water makes absolutely no noise. I guess it is because it is Seine and not heard. (Poor daughters have to deal with the Dad jokes this whole sabbatical). Anyway, back to the bookstore….Haley and I are massive bookstore aficionados. We could’ve spent all day in this place. It was opened in 1951 (on the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday!) as a tribute to Sylvia Beach, who established the original Shakespeare and Company bookstore at a different location, where writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway used to hang out! It’s a really neat place.

Sometimes our Travel Planner™ hits the mark, and sometimes she doesn’t. Our next stop was an ‘eh’.  Galeries Lafayette, which has 6 floors of very upscale shopping – Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Prada, etc, etc…). It was full of a ton of people shopping, which was pretty surprising because one of the scarves that Sherri saw that she liked was $300. $300! (uh, no, we didn’t get it). So, why was this an ‘eh’? Now, I like shopping as much as the next guy who doesn't like shopping, but our daughters....well, they are not shoppers. They had virtually no interest in being there, and Ashley (who calculates things in ‘drones’ – as in, “hey, that costs 4 drones!” – it’s like her own currency) even said, “even if this stuff was free I wouldn’t want it.” Ha! My wallet (and my engineering side) was pretty happy, but Sherri was hoping to get them a nice dress for our next stop – the ballet. She has fond memories of coming to Europe with her parents and getting something special that she has kept for so many years. But, with shopping a bust (and my bank account intact, thankfully!), we headed to the super-posh bathrooms, pulled out our nice clothes that we packed in our backpacks and changed for the ballet.

The ballet we saw was by Mats Ek, and it was at Palais Garnier. Yet again, another amazing building! Mosaic floors everywhere, mosaic ceilings, beautiful grand chandeliers, an amazing staircase, and a completely off-the-wall carte blanche art commission of two golden tires (tyres, here in Paris) to make you go “wha???”  Aside from the tires (tyres), it truly is beautiful and grand and over-the-top.  There were three parts to the ballet and all of them were quite different. We really enjoyed the performance…such amazingly talented dancers and musicians.

With another fun and busy day under our belts, we took the Metro back to the apartment and crashed.

Day 10: Louvring every minute of it!

Surprise, surprise…..another early morning! We pre-purchased tickets to the Louvre and wanted to make sure we got in line early in order to see the Mona Lisa. Even the pre-purchased ticket line wasn’t short!  Sherri admonished us before the doors opened: “no taking pictures along the way, no getting distracted, we’re heading straight to the Mona Lisa before the crowds get there!”  The rest of us nervously nodded our heads; the mood of the day hanging in the balance. However, we’re really glad we did that, as our near sprint up the stairs to the room with the Mona Lisa in it meant we got quite a bit of time to view the most famous painting in the world. Just don’t tell Sherri that I said she was right….I’ll never hear the end of it!

After seeing the Mona Lisa, we Romed (whoops, wrong city) around the Louvre looking at all of the fantastic art. We saw Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Liberty Leading the People, to name just a few. The Winged Victory was interesting to me, as it was sculpted to be viewed from a specific angle. As such, it’s not nearly as detailed or finished on the other side. I guess all of us want to be viewed from our good side, but like the Winged Victory, it’s possible for folks to see the bad side of us, so we should strive to make that at least halfway presentable. (end of philosophy musings)  The museum is gorgeous; it’s really hard to believe that some of these pieces were created hundreds of years ago and made their way into these museums. We were in awe of the quality of art, the quantity of art (over 300,000 pieces in this museum alone!), and the history behind all of these pieces.

Liberty Leading the People

Winged Victory (the good side)

Winged Victory (the other side)

Venus de Milo

After an inspiring walk through the Louvre, we headed to lunch. I’m responsible for choosing all of the eating venues (no pressure), so I was a bit nervous that the place I chose had no people in it at 12:30pm! However, I tend to choose places that are off the beaten path so that we can hopefully find some hidden gems and at the same time avoid the other tourists. This place turned out to be really good! Yummy pizza, great pasta, and the best olive oil we’ve ever had. It was super spicy!

N'oubliez pas que vous devez boire de la bière avec votre déjeuner!

After lunch we headed to Musee d’Orsay. This is a really cool museum because it’s housed in what was once a railway station. However, the trains got too long for the short station so it became unusable as a station and became a mail center in WWII. It wasn’t turned into the museum it is today until 1986! Looking at the building now, it’s hard to believe they used to make railway stations so beautiful ‘back in the day’.  In fact, all of these buildings we’ve been experiencing….they really took a lot of time and effort and put a lot of thought into the design of them. It’s truly inspiring and amazing to see. The Musee d’Orsay is also awesome because it’s home to many originals by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, and Van Gogh (who, I believe was a story teller, and would talk your ear off or something like that…I wasn’t really paying attention in art class). These paintings by the masters were truly a gift to see in person….the talent (backed by a lot of hard work – Monet had something like 500 works to his name!) is amazing.

"Lend me your ear..."

Once we finished with the museum, we headed out in search of a tasty treat. I found a place that was tucked back away from the main road. It is called Pierre Hermé. Turns out there are several of these and they are pretty popular. We got the most amazing macarons and chocolate desert. The girls had an a very tasty tea with rose petals wrapped around the straws. We sat on the patio with the afternoon sun casting late shadows and the smells of fresh flowers and coffee filling our noses. It was a very relaxing and fun dessert. We tried many of the macarons: caramel, dark chocolate, Madagascar vanilla, jasmine, lemon and raspberry, passion fruit and peach, and chocolate with passion fruit. Really yummy, and walking distance from the museum!

We’ve been here for two and a half days and Sherri is already talking about getting an apartment here. I told her she’d be terribly lonely. That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. I was supposed to say, “that would be so romantic!”  I have written this down in my “Proper Responses Book” and will know better next time.

We took the Metro back (we’re getting good at riding the Metro!) to our neighborhood, grabbed some groceries on the way back to our apartment, and turned in for the night. Another day of 20k+ steps!