Paris

Caught the Eurostar train from Kings Cross station. On board at 9am and in Paris two hours later at Gard du Nord (lost an hour due to time differences). Arrived at the hotel and shucked our bags down the street and around the corner..





Smack into the Arc de Triomphe. Walked under the street and all around. Everywhere there are signs warning about pick pockets. Dennis untucked his shirt and put everything in his front pockets. I had my money belt and €20 in my purse. Off we trekked.

We had a mission: to see the Eiffel Tower. O when she was three made Dennis "pinky swear" that he would one day take her to see it. After getting our bearings off we peeled down the street complete with the P's sound track of "it's hot" follow by "how much further" and my personal favorite "WHEN ARE WE GOING TO BE THERE". Put those with a wicked back beat and you have the Jeske traveling sound track. .

We were almost there when we were side tracked by a fantastic street market that I made everyone march through. Cheese, fish, dresses, table clothes.. Fabulous smells and sights. I could have stayed all day but they were closing up shop.








We passed over the pedestrian bridge with an amazing view. Ten minutes later we'd arrived at the tower.

But first we had to have lunch. P can now decipher the word "crepe" and there was no stopping her. We had crepes with cheese and one with nutella. Can you guess which one they ate? Fortified we ventured to the base.





Thirty minutes later (we're a little slow on the uptake) we were in line. Purchased tickets to the top. Didn't realize how far up that sucker goes. One elevator up to the second observation balcony. The onward all the way up. I'm not a fan of heights, nor old elevators. Plus the crush of humanity and the only way I'm up there is because Dennis shamed me with "its for your kids".

Top was nice, terra firma was much better. We stopped to buy Eiffel Tower key chains that light up for the girls back packs. There are signs all around and street vendors selling all sorts of souvineers -the police bike through chasing them off like pigeons, but they seem to move ten feet and flock somewhere else.

We've had fantastic luck with boat cruises all this trip and the girls are always in favor of them so we headed for a Seine cruise. Great weather, good sights and beautiful bridges. Not half as pretty as an Amsterdam cruise but still lovely.

We cabbed home to the hotel to check in; it was already eight and we thought about room service, but 20€ a cheese pizza, we thought again. Headed out with a list of local eateries that don't shun kids. Found a spot at a local place called Clementine.





Paper hats, Pasta with butter, apple juice - can you say "happy children". We had a delicious meal with fried goat cheese and salad, ham and mashed potatoes. A couple of beers and "happy parents" as well.








Did I mention the chocolate cake? Apparently you have to make crazy eyes after you try it. It was 9:30 by the time we got out of there. The manager followed the kids out to hand the Candy Apples. As if they hadn't just consumed enough chocolate crack cake. The girls are 5' away as I type. The hotel left tiny bears on their beds. Tucked in they chorus like crickets "I can't sleep.. I can't sleep.." zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Goodnight from Paris.

Sarah