Paris

I’m still woefully behind on getting trip posts up, so once again I’m going to rely on Kyle’s photos to fill in the blanks, better than any words I would write could.

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We were pretty late arriving to our Airbnb in the 18eme arrondissement, not far from the apartment we had lived in almost exactly three years earlier. Our host, Agathe, was waiting in the entry, which was fortunate, because we were about to try to enter the wrong building. The apartment, on the fifth floor, was small but cozy, as was the elevator (Kyle might call the elevator more claustrophobic than cozy).

I love Paris, and especially “our” neighborhood, so I could barely wait to get out the next morning and walk around. The boys wanted to revisit their favorite park, Martin Luther King, in the 17th, so we walked there. Along the way there was a lot of exclaiming, “I remember this!”

We were all especially delighted to find that the free sparkling water dispenser was still there.

 

We were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Anna, Jorge, Santiago, Océane, and Bianca, and tried to get schoolwork and some more trip planning out of the way before they arrived.

An essential stop – the local Amorino. I think Henry knows the flavors by heart.

We visited the Luxembourg Gardens and picnicked along with all the students on their lunch break.

 

I wanted to stop at Shakespeare and Co., since in all his trips to Paris, Kyle had never been. I’m not entirely sure how he managed to get photos, since it’s expressly forbidden and they’re pretty rigid about that…

We visited Notre Dame, never imagining that the cathedral would suffer a terrible fire just two weeks later.

Your guess is as good as mine.

That night, we met up with the Robert crew for a fun dinner and the next morning headed to the Louvre with them for a few hours.

Starting to lose steam, but we made it to the Mona Lisa!

Afterwards, Anna and I took the kids for burgers (of course) at Big Fernand, while Kyle and Jorge spent a little more time at the Louvre without the clamor of five kids all asking “can we be done now?”. They met up with us after a bit and we all headed to a playground in the Tuileries where the kids managed to break all the rules of safe use of playground equipment. As usual.

Saturday morning, Kyle and I left the kids sleeping and took an early walk through the Montmartre Cemetery.

No walk in Paris is complete without a bakery stop, and we made many during our visit. I think Henry and Max could eat pain au chocolate every day for the rest of their lives and not get tired of it.

We dragged the boys out to the flea market, and had fun wondering “who buys this?” at each little shop.

 

In the afternoon we headed to Parc de la Villette, another favorite spot that brought exclamations of fond memories from the boys.

It was a gorgeous, warm day and it seemed all of Paris was out along the Canal St. Martin.

On Sunday we met up with our friends again for a visit to the Musée d’Orsay and a walk along the Seine.

The weather was perfect for lots of walking, brisk and bright, but the kids aren’t quite the fans of long walks that I am, so we made good use of the metro and only took one trip in the wrong direction.

Our last night in Paris we had another great dinner with the Roberts, plus their friends Hector & Gilda, and their two boys. We had fun popping in to the local vendors on the Rue Lepic to grab bread, charcuterie, cheese, and some amazing tomatoes to put together a tapas-style meal. Jorge by then had made fast friends with the local wine merchant, so we got to try a number of delicious French varietals, none of which I can remember now.

The next morning, we picked up our rental car and headed southeast to spend a few quiet days in the tiny village of Meuilley.