Winding Down

Yes, our week in Paris is winding down.  Tomorrow we need to start thinking about packing and getting ready to head up to Amsterdam.

Today started a bit more kick back.  It seems like we're sleeping later and later every day we're here!  We had a leisurely breakfast, cleaned up some and then everyone kind of just felt ready to go, so we did (we had previously considered spending the whole morning "in").

The first stop of the day was Sacre Coeur.  That was interesting.  Cyndie and I had both remembered it having more of a plaza/park around it, but it's largely in the middle of the city.  It's at the top of Montmarte, a big hill in the northern part of Paris.  We also remembered there being a lot more street performers there.  Crazy.  The actual church is very impressive.  There was a service going on inside as we walked through.  Emma commented to me that she really liked the music (it was the normal, I don't even know what the correct term is, "Catholic" singing).

After that we wandered our way to the artist's square.  That too we remembered differently.  I thought it was much bigger.  There sure were a lot of people crammed in there!  We had lunch in the square, and then Cyndie had a drawing of Emma and Timmy done!  The next stop was a small Salvador Dali museum.  It didn't have any of his more famous works, but it was interesting to discuss Surrealism with the kids.

After Montmarte, we headed over to the Arc de Triumphe and jumped on the open top bus for a bit of a tour.  We took that down the Champs Elysees and then over by the Eiffel Tower.  There we jumped on a Seine river cruise which took us down and around the island on which Notre Dame rests.  It was neat to get another, different look at the many famous landmarks and buildings we'd already seen along the Seine.  It was also a very different perspective on Paris since, with both the open top bus and the boat, it was 100% tourists and we had previously spent a lot of time with more typical Parisians (on the metro especially).  We both decided we were glad that we didn't spend any "money" (because the bus and the boat were part of our Paris Pass) on the two tours.  They really were just not hands on enough and, frankly, a little boring.  The kids ended up spending most of the boat tour reading!

So that was our day in Paris.  Tomorrow we're probably going to hit the pool again and go just outside of Paris to a castle called Vincennes.  We may go to Notre Dame for an organ recital too.