Notre Dame

Again, no rush to get up, the kids have been quite tired so we’re trying to let them sleep in. Not surprising, because we’re doing a lot. On average, away for the house for 8 – 10 hours, involving lots of walking, trains, and looking at old stuff ;-)

Today was a public holiday, so we expected big crowds everywhere, but regardless, first stop Notre Dame to have a look inside. The queue was huge, but surprisingly only took 10 minutes to get in. Good luck, as a service was on, and what a fantastic experience. Notre Dame is HUGE, massive church, and with the candles and singing it was quiet something. Spent a good amount of time absorbing it all and looking around. Outside, a quick lunch on the run while we walked across to the Louvre again, Mamou and Mrs PS decided they too would like to have a look around and see Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo.

Again, pretty easy to see the Lady and we found Venus without too much difficulty, then with the kids in good form we looked through other parts of the gallery for another hour or so. Very impressive, and despite being a holiday, crowds were bearable.

Tired of galleries, we headed for the metro, off to Monmartre to look at an ancient part of the city and see Sacré-Cœur. Arriving around 4, we technically had a good couple of hours to look around, then make our way to a restaurant for dinner at 6.30 with Dave whom we met last night. Really interesting walk, but super busy and we had trouble finding a café to stop for a drink, who would guess. A quick drink, then off the quickly see Sacré-Cœur which was pretty impressive, down the funicular, then back onto the metro to get to Chartier, one of the “iconic” restaurants in Paris. Iconic not for its food, but for the experience. Amazing historic building, cheap but OK food, supposedly “rude” waiters, very busy, long waits …

Overall, we had a great night. Several bottles of wine, kids ate snails, decent food, and a pretty funny waiter. Loved it.

On the metro again, home late, one last full day left in Paris, so making the most of it!