Paris has been beckoning us for years. How did we ever manage 2.5 years in Edinburgh without visiting 'her' (Paris is definitely a 'she' - so ornate are the buildings, crowned in gold figurines and trimmed with lacy balconies)?
So finally we all took off on a Thursday for a long weekend to explore the magnificent city. En-route we made a last minute decision to drop in on some Aussie friends in Bonn, however, our brief morning tea visit turned into a 4 hour adventure, including 1.5 hours at the local hospital! Stephanie and Mia had a minor collision on the trampoline, in which Mia embedded her teeth into Steph's scalp. So some love, disinfectant, glue, pain killers and a lot of patience were required before we could head onwards again.
We wound our way down the picturesque Moselle Valley, flanked by almost vertical vineyards growing only white wine grapes (... Napoleon ripped out all the red grapes, so France wouldn't have to compete!). Essential historical excursions included the Cochem Reichburg (a beautifully restored medieval castle perched on a hill overlooking the river)and the Porta Nigra (2000yo Roman gate to the city of Trier). A local wine called Federweisser (an actively fermenting slightly sweet bubbly wine) was fondly remembered on a previous visit to the region, alas it's only available in September...
Eventually we made it to Paris - a colossal city of over 3 million residents, all packed into a 5 storey sandwich of buildings, sprawling out from the Seine. Napoleon III can apparently be thanked for most of the overall appearance of Paris. He demolished the medieval, random meandering of streets and tiny lanes, and replaced it with the elegant boulevards lined with neat houses. The new wider streets could not be blockaded like the narrow lanes and therefore rebellions were more easily suppressed and Paris became significantly more peaceful.
Steph and Mia loved the Eiffel Tower. They somehow managed to climb the equivalent of 46 floors without stopping - in fact they powered past the average European with a penchant for cigarettes!! Afterwards a street artist captured the girl's zeal with a few strokes of his charcoal stick.
Half a day of waiting in queues was enough to drive us to the local parks - in the hope of escaping the damn tourists! One day we explored the beautifully manicured Jardin du Luxembourg, watched the local enfants push wooden sailing boats around a small lake, had pony rides and indulged in some artisan ice-creams. A minor distraction to the pleasures of a park stroll were the outrageous costs associated with a bit of frivolous fun... the kids playground in Jardin du Luxembourg cost $4.50/child and if you wanted to assist your enfant each adult had to pay $3.00. We chose to stay outside and watch as other fee-paying adults assisted our children hop onto and off play equipment. Mon dieu! Another day we explored Jardin d'Acclimitation - beautiful and filled with irresistible children's activities (also at some cost!).
After feeling moderately recovered from the trampling tourists, we ventured into the Louvre on our last morning...we have never seen so many people swallowed up by one large palace. Of course when we did stumble over the Mona Lisa, we had to battle for 20min just for a front row viewing. Hubertus hired an audio guide for our visit, but was so disheveled by the crowd he couldn't extract his glasses to read the microscopic number by the painting, for a bit of background info ... c'est la vie! The girls were quite awed by the power of such a famous painting... the smallest painting surrounded by the largest crowd...
Food - we're totally ashamed to admit that we dined in 3 different Italian restaurants each evening. Somehow, on the point of exhaustion with children screaming out for food, we always fell into the safe hands of an Italian ristorante.. Perhaps I overdid my vivid stories about snails and frogs legs to Mia before we left for France (she initially refused to eat even chocolate croissants, worried that they may contain a snail or two), but we never ventured into anything truly French apart from the irresistible Boulangerie (mmm the snail-free croissant, fig pastries, pain au cocolat etc etc).
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