Maxfield Adventures - Living life to the Max: Paris

Eiffel Tower * Musee d'Army * The hunt for backpacks * Sewer Tour * Notre Dame * Louvre

A record 26,173 ft (11.25 miles)

We set a new trip record today with walking 11.25 miles (more than 26,000 steps). It required a mid-day nap - everyone participated. The kids really wanted to try again to get up the Eiffel Tower so we left the house by 7:45 to get in line early. By 9:30 we were on the top of the tower. It was actually fun to climb up through the skeleton of the tower. We concluded that the kids had never been on a taller structure - they thought that was neat.

After the Eiffel Tower Lara took Maren and Emma to buy backpacks. The older girls only brought a purse with them and we are tired of carrying around their water bottles and jackets. We had to walk 25 minutes to a store we knew sold the specific style of backpack they wanted - a back pack for Sweden. So, our big shopping experience in Paris was at a Swede store. While we shopped Eric took Charlie and Sydney to look at the Army Museum, they loved everything boys would love at that kind of a museum (guns, uniforms, etc, etc).

We met up again at the Paris Sewers tour and plugged our noses as we walked around the Paris Sewers for 30 minutes thinking of Jean Valjean carrying Maurice on his shoulders to escape from certain death. Apparently Victor Hugo had a friend that worked for the sewer and helped him write an accurate description of them. It was definitely a unique thing to do.

Before we went back to our apartment for our nap, we went to a very fancy chocolate shop and bought everyone a very small piece of very expensive, very good chocolate (I had dark chocolate with a lemon basil fondant in the middle). Afterwards we went inside Notre-Dame. We pass Notre-Dame every time we leave our apartment. I love seeing it from every possible angle and hearing the bells ring throughout the day.

We had an evening visit to the Louvre and missed all the crowds. We walked right in (absolutely no line) and enjoyed ourselves completely. Thanks to Maren's AP Art History cards we played a game looking for famous pieces of art - the reward being a Macaron cookie (limit 2). I've never seen such an engaged 9 year old in a museum. I REALLY liked the Louvre, it's a beautiful building, the art is wonderfully displayed and organized. Even the famous pieces (Mona Lisa) managed to be enjoyable without large crowds.

To cap off our day we had a gelato, Paris style, fastidiously made into a lovely flower, and tasting wonderful. I love all the attention to detail in the Parisian sweets.