Ah, Paris

Playing follow-the-leader
on the way to the train station

I was eager to get to Paris today.  Who knew what sort of strange diseases we might contract while on this vacation: I wanted to go while we all still had all our health and some energy.


Dennis braved the morning line at Starbucks, thick with people steeling themselves for a long day at the Disney parks.  But it was worth it: we were going to need American, supersized-caffeination if we were going to visit Paris with three kids. And I went to the train station to get day passes for the RER.  The train station is incredibly convenient, right next to the entrances of the Disneyland parks and Disney Village.  When Dennis and I noticed that yesterday, particularly after that long, complicated drive, we kicked ourselves a little for not taking the train.  But so it goes.

The reason I spent all day
brandishing hand sanitizer
and wet wipes.

Anyway, yesterday, on our way home from the park, we paused at the train station learned that multi-day RER passes were pretty reasonable, and I planned to pick up at least a two-day pass.  But I learned this morning that any multi-day passes need to be used on consecutive days, so I got a single-day pass instead.  I feared, as I was purchasing it, that I was there and then resigning myself to only one day in the city for our visit to the Paris region, but two consecutive days of tromping through Paris seemed like too much to ask of the kids.




Riding on the train to Paris made me appreciate just how pristine the Zürich trams and trains are.  I let the kids play on the iPhones for the entire 45-minute trip, more to keep them from touching other things than other reason.  All day long, though, Joey seemed to make a game of trying to thwart all of my attempts at hygiene. He touched everything he could, dragging his hands along the tiled walls of the Metropolitan stations, hugging street lamps, and insisting on crawling up the grimy subway stairs on his hands and knees, when I would have been so glad to be able to carry him.  But no, he told me "I do it!" And he would do it his way, too.

Our first glimpse of Paris, over the Seine.

I'd wanted to show the kids Notre Dame most of all, thinking that the stained glass and gargoyles would be the most interesting to them. But sitting on a train, playing DoodleJump for most of an hour had really taken a lot out of Alex: he was hungry and started begging for "schnitzel," which, for some reason, is what he always calls crêpes. 


When we entered the courtyard in front of Notre Dame, Dennis was ready to turn around and head for the nearest bistro for Alex: the line was at least an eighth of a mile long. Apparently, the word is out that Paris in the springtime is lovely, indeed. But I couldn't bear to have come all this way and not go inside, so dragged the family into the (mercifully fast-moving) line, including poor, weak, languishing Alex.

Ella, at least, agreed that the wait was worth it.  Or, at least, she realized it would be wise to humor me  say it was worth it. I think I managed to impress upon her how ridiculously impressive it was that this cathedral was made of stone chiseled by hand. Over a period of almost two hundred years. I promised her this was impressive.


Even I admitted that the second line to climb to the top of the cathedral was prohibitively long, so I granted reprieve after ten minutes inside the church, and we fled the crowds to a crêperie across the street, where the kids had cinnamon and sugar crêpes for their elevenses.  The food is part of the Paris experience as well, non?

Eager anticipation

After the crowds at Notre Dame, we thought it might be wise to go somewhere a little more open and kid-friendly.  We didn't think we had the stamina to visit the Eiffel Tour today, so we thought it might be nice to go to the Tuileries Garden, from which the kids would at least be able to see Paris's most famous landmark.  


There's a playground in the center of the Tuileries, not too far from one of the cafés.  We told the kids they could play there while Dennis and I got some lunch of our own.  Dennis seems to miss Zürich already: the only beer on the menu was panaché, or beer cut in half with lemonade. Insufficient!

I felt a strange kinship with the woman in
this statue.

At the playground, the kids made friends with some British and American tourists on the merry-go-round.  I'd told Ella I'd pay her (our standard 1 franc per hour rate) to babysit her baby brother.  Joey wanted to spin, so Ella, who takes her work seriously, endured a dizzying half-hour on the merry-go-round.  And Alex joined them, totally in his element, and showed off his moves, running, pushing, leaping on and off with ease. One of the big boys told Ella he thought Alex looked "cool," and so Alex went up quite a bit in Ella's estimation today.


While the kids played and got hot and dusty, I took a few minutes to myself, walking around the gardens.  


When we left the gardens, exiting toward L'Arc de Triumph, we were able to show the kids the Luxor Obelisk and, there, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower.  


I hadn't counted on Ella being so enamored of the Eiffel Tower, but she started mounting her campaign to go closer, to maybe go inside.  You see, for the last two days, she's gazed longingly at rhinestone-studded, keychain miniatures of the tower, sold in our hotel lobby: "She wants to get you a little jewel-encrusted Eifel Tower for Mother's Day," Dennis whispered to me. "She thinks she'll be able to find an inexpensive one if we go closer to the tower." Ah.  As we'd been walking through Paris, Dennis tried pointing out other options to Ella: a knobby pair of mittens, a pretty scarf, some nice postcards.  But they're not the same to Ella.

As luck would have it, there was was a little kiosk in the entrance of the Metropolitan that sold tiny Eiffel Towers for a euro each.  Dennis took Ella aside and secretively pointed them out to her, with Ella anxiously looking over her shoulder at me.  She decided I knew too much, I obviously was on to their plan, and so those Eiffel Towers just wouldn't do. Unless I made a solemn promise that I would forget her purchase before Mother's Day: done.  And because they were such a hot deal, Ella got a little souvenir for herself as well, as did Alex.


All this time, as we'd been walking around, I'd been keeping my eye peeled for an open bakery.  All I wanted out of this trip to Paris was a really good chocolate chip Viennoise baguette.  Dennis and I had subsisted on them when we visited Paris in our twenties. But we'd evidentially gotten to Paris too late in the day: no luck.


The Tuileries were a little hot and dusty: we thought we'd beat a retreat to the shadier Luxembourg Gardens for a little while before we went home.  I vaguely remembered that they had an even better play area for children there. 

My turtle-loving daughter, forming ideas.

Playing crossword in the Metro station

As far as family-friendliness is concerned, the Luxembourg Gardens beats the Tuileries soundly.  The grounds are covered with leafy shade trees, and in the center is one of the largest play areas we'd ever seen.  Before we let the kids loose inside, we stuffed them with another round of crêpes and watched the old men play boules.

Next to the boules court, waiting for our snack

Ella ate her crêpe in about three bites, so eager was she to get to that playground, and she skinned her knee (and barely paused for a bandaid) in her rush to get there.  But she quickly returned, wringing her hands. It cost two and a half euros per kid to get into the fenced play area, an astronomical sum to an eight-year-old.  So she couldn't play, right? Resigned, Ella waited to hear the verdict.


Well, somewhere between boules and the playground, Joey had drifted off to sleep, cutting our entrance price considerably.  And, well, it was vacation.  We could splurge.  Okay, Ella, Alex: you may play.


Ella couldn't believe this unexpected turn of events. "Really? Really? Oh, Mom, Dad, thank you!" And that was the last we saw of her for another hour.  Dennis and I rested a little, and then I took a second stroll around this garden, walking to the large fountain, with children pushing little wooden boats around, and then to some flower beds, rimmed with adults sitting back, reading, enjoying the peace of the warm day.


Most of the gardens were fenced off, and setting foot on the grass was expressly interdite. People were confined to the exceedingly dusty, pebbled paths. But there was one little strip of grass where sitting on the grass was allowed, and this, humorously, was covered with people, cheek-to-jowl.


Meanwhile, the kids were having an absolute blast.  Whenever Ella visits a new playground, she runs of to "conquer" it: as she dashed off to this one, she admitted "this park is going to take some effort to conquer." My favorite feature was a circular zipline that wove around in turns and swoops: the line was long, but Alex waited twice to go on.


And Dennis, while I walked, reflected.  He knew I'd enjoy seeing the Eiffel Tower, and that it would surely make an impression on the kids as well.  And, didn't it seem a little silly to travel all the way to Paris and spend most our time in playgrounds?  


So we braced ourselves for one final stop.  The Eiffel Tower isn't particularly close to any of the Metro stops, so we took a bus as close as we could and grabbed some bread for our hungry and rapidly tiring kids before walking (and carrying them) the few blocks to the tower.

Trudging to the Eiffel Tower: this can count as Dennis's
Crossfit workout for today.

If you approach the Eiffel Tower from the southern side, it's completely obscured by buildings until, suddenly, it isn't, and you're there in the park, with an incredible, iconic structure towering over you.  The crowd under the tower made the one we saw at Notre Dame seem laughable. The lines to enter the tower snaked from each of the legs, but we barely glanced at them. Seeing it from the ground was enough for us all.


The kids looked up, and up, but they were most impressed, I think, by the dozens of vendors, each walking around with huge racks of Eiffel Tower models, dazzling, in every imaginable color and size.  But they were identical to the ones they'd bought in the Metro stop, so, mercifully, we avoided the begging and pleading that might have been.

Although the posed pictures are nice,
but this one is my favorite.

Suddenly even more deflated after the initial euphoria of seeing the tower, the kids dutifully posed for several pictures with me, and then Dennis and I scratched our heads, trying to figure out how we were going to get this exhausted crew home.  Dennis started lugging them again, but then inspiration struck, and I promised to pay anyone who could walk the whole way to the Metro without being carried a whole euro.



Even with that princely sum possible, Alex still almost buckled, but they both made it, and now have riches galore. And, with some bananas and apples grabbed from the Metro stop, we fortified ourselves for the long (but triumphant) ride home.


As much as you can in a single day with three kids in tow...cherie, we've done Paris.