Next adventure...Paris Day 1

Well, life goes on, and so does the adventure...

Right after I returned from Utah, Kyle and I, the kids, and Don and Carolyn (Kyle's parents) left for Europe. We were gone for just over a week, and we spent four days in France and four in Germany (two days in Paris, two at Disneyland Paris, and then four driving the "Romantic Road," or Romantische Strasse, between Frankfurt and Munich and visiting towns along the way. Since we were so close to Austria, we even took a short drive over the border into Austria just to do it (and to buy cheaper gas).

Just for the record, it was one fantastic trip!!!

Day 1: Paris

There are several different ways to get to Paris from here--train, ferry, eurostar/chunnel--it turned out to be most cost effective for the nine of us to fly into Paris and then rent small cars to "motor" through Germany. So, cost always being an issue with a family our size, that's what we did. We left London via Heathrow airport, which is easily accessible by the underground from our house, and flew straight into Charles De Gaulle aiport. We then struggled through the language barrier to find the rental car area and then make sure that we weren't signing away any of the children. Since we still have them all and we haven't had any massive charges on our credit card, it went alright! We then decided, so as not to waste valuable daylight sightseeing hours, to drive straight into the city.

Driving in Paris is an experience, to say the least! And I thought London was crazy!!! With Kyle doing a great job navigating the sea of driving insanity and the help of "Jane" our gps, we eventually arrived at the Louvre. We were pleased to actually find parking, figure out what to do with our garage ticket, and begin our quest to see the Mona Lisa before the museum closed for the day--each a feat in and of itself. We spent the next few hours searching for the most famous works of art in the museum (Venus de Milo, Psyche and Cupid, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, etc.), and we even eventually found the Mona Lisa. After fighting your way upstream through the mass of other tourists to get a glimpse, she looks just like you'd expect her to: 15 or so feet away and behind tons of bullet-proof glass. Joking aside, it was pretty cool to actually see the painting in person and to see the rest of the cool things we saw (and I actually recognized some of them from pictures in humanities books--look who didn't sleep through EVERY humanities 101 lecture...big grin). The children's favorites were a little less traditional: a baseball-playing Greek god sculpture (sporting a club that looks like a baseball bat), a sculpture of a Greek lady on a couch that looked real, a painting of a man with a face on the back of his head, and two paintings that show a front and back perspective of the same two guys fighting to the apparent death. Go figure. After our whirlwind museum experience, at 6:30 the museum unceremoniously kicked us out into the very cold rain (for which we were sadly unprepared), but even the rain couldn't make the outside of the Louvre and the iconic pyramids any less interesting.

After both our Louvre experience and our experience at the Vatican museum last month, I'm going to choose to believe the following: cultural experiences do somehow seep into children's head even while they chant the "what's so great about that," "when do we get to see something interesting," and "are we done yet" chorus. Please indulge my fantasy.

We then went in search of food, eating dinner in a small cafe that actually had an English menu and very nice staff. After such a long day, our crepes and sandwiches were a welcome feast. The only real glitch came when it was time to pay for our parking. The automated machine wouldn't read our card, and I had to try to communicate the problem to the attendant. Since she spoke no English and I don't speak French, resolving the issue was pretty challenging, but I can honestly say that all of those Monday night games of charades have finally proven useful.

Louvre coolometer rating: 9 (because we really needed more time than we had and it was a rush sightsee)

Renting the cars made it so that we weren't forced to stay on Disney property, which is even more expensive during spring break than it usually is; instead we stayed at a very nice bed and breakfast about six miles from the park and simply drove into the Paris both days we went in. The cars ended up both being small Mercedes, and they got between 34 and 40 miles per gallon the whole trip (almost makes you want to spend the extra to get the impressive gas mileage!).


The B & B (a nice country property with quaint and nicely-renovated cottages and barns) was called the Domain De Bellevue, and we stayed there quite comfortably for four nights. Being Europe-unsavvy Americans, we didn't think to bring little incidentals like soap and shampoo, but we were able to find a small grocery store in the nearby town where we could buy those things and pack ourselves quite a tasty daily picnic for lunch. Lack of toiletries aside, it was a very nice few days and the most comfortable of all our trip accommodations.