Notre Dame Cathedral and the Pont de l'Archeveche Bridge

     You know the phrase commonly misattributed to Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake"? Well when in France . . . I decided to eat cake for breakfast. And it was delicious! (The macaroons were for later. I bought them to bring home to my girls and mistakenly left them in my checked baggage. So we enjoyed macaroon crumbles when I arrived home.) The cake was called Mi-cuit au chocolat and it was chocolate cake with a dense chocolate center. I might have also eaten a macaroon for breakfast that day... making up for the first day...

     We spent our last morning in Paris visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral. I promised my daughter that I would climb to the bell tower and say hello to the gargoyles for her. She was disappointed when I told her that I doubted that I would see the Hunchback and the gypsy Esmerelda, but I can't win all of the contests for being a cool mom. 

    The line to climb the bell towers was quite long and slow moving but it was worth the wait. I hadn't seen an ariel view of Paris by day yet and really the view was breath-taking. Another one of those surreal moments. The stairs were quite narrow and steep, and seemed to endlessly twist up, and after eating cake for breakfast I may have felt a few times like I was going to die, but SO WORTH IT! Funny story on the way down, I was following a ten year-old British girl and her father. She was worrying the whole way down, and at one point I heard her tell her dad that she never ever wanted to do that again. Her dad's response was: "What if your husband wants to take you there on your honeymoon?" Without skipping a beat his daughter responded: "If he makes me climb it again, I'll push him off the top when we get up there." I couldn't stop myself from cracking up! 

 But back to the views, they really were incredible.

     Afterward we went to the Pont de l'Archeveche Bridge, Love Lock Bridge, to place a lock. It's a totally trendy thing to do but it was still fun. I put one on for my daughters. They requested pink and sparkly, which wasn't really all that unique when I noticed all of the pink sparkly locks on the bridge.

"A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life." - Thomas Jefferson

     I used a quote from Thomas Jefferson for the title of this post because I believe his words capture the essence of Paris beautifully. It really is a lovely city! Before I went several people told me that Paris was dirty and that I would see a lot of dog poop, and that the city kind of smells. To be honest though, I really thought Paris was really quite clean compared to some of the places that I have visited. And I didn't smell anything foul, although I don't exactly have the strongest sense of smell. All together I found Paris to be a very beautiful and magical place. 

     When we returned from Versailles on Sunday afternoon I really wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower again so that I could see it in the daylight so that is where we headed first. We also attempted to see the Paris Statue of Liberty but the area along the river was starting to look a little sketchy and we remembered our huger and experience with waiting on food from the day before. I had done a little research about good places to eat prior to coming on the trip, and one of those places was right next to the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre so we headed there. It being a weekend and early evening we didn't have a lot of luck with those places but we were able to find a restaurant a few blocks down the street. I had a Croque Madame and french fries and the food was delicious. We also shared a crepe which really didn't taste any different to me than any other crepe I have had. I was a little shocked when I found out that the water we had requested cost 8 Euros. 

Below  (right side) is the outside of the Air B&B we stayed in.

     

While I'm sad that I didn't get to visit any museums while in Paris, I am putting my faith in what I read in the Rick Steve's book when he says assume you'll be back. He said that the number one mistake most Americans make when visiting Paris is trying to do to many things in too little time. So going into this trip I tried to realistically plan and I felt like I did a great job accomplishing all of the things I set out to do in Paris. 

Our final destination of the evening was the Arc de Triomphe and walking the Champs Elysees. When we came out of the nearest metro station we were delighted by the beautiful sight awaiting us. The coolest part was that we were able to see the Luxor Obelisk and the Place de la Concorde (the square where many, including Marie Antoinette were guillotined during the French Revolution).

And here are a few photos my sister took on her phone.

She took the Cinderella picture for my daughter.

A very fancy metro station called Franklin Delano Roosevelt.