Paris, France

Gertrude Stein once said “America is my country and Paris is my hometown.” I am not sure I would go that far, but the City of Light was a highlight of our European experience. 
First things first, we got to Paris, checked into our hotel and made our way to some gelato. 
The view out our hotel window. It was right by Notre Dame, which made it the perfect location. 

Fact: Pistachio gelato has pistachios in it. Fact: Luke is allergic to pistachios. So Luke + Pistachio gelato = A frantic search for a pharmacy and an enthusiastic game of charades with a French-speaking pharmacist. 

Once all allergic reactions were under control, we continued to explore the city. Below is the St. Michael Fountain.

And then of course a crepe from what became our favorite creperie. While many use nutella from a large vat for their "chocolate" crepes, this creperie uses real chocolate.

 

Then on to Luxenburg Gardens.

The next day we accidently took our kids to The Louvre. Now you might ask, how does one "accidently" take their kids to the Louvre. Well, the plan was for Rob to go by himself since I has already been, but since there was a huge line to even get into the door, we decided to wait with him for a while. After being in line about five minutes, a French Guard pulls our out of line, says something in French, and proceeds to bring us to the front of the line, in through side doors and down a star-wars looking elevator right into the Louvre. We felt too sheepish to then leave after he cut us in front of everyone, so we decided to go for it and bring the kids along for the cultural experience. They got bored towards the end, but they endured almost three hours of art appreciation.

On a side note, my camera ran out of batteries so we had to resort to our point-and-shoot until we could find an adaptor.

As you can see, Luke was ecstatic about seeing the Mona Lisa.

At one point we took a wrong turn and ended up in a closed, under-ground exhibit. All the lights were off and as we tried to find our way back to the open areas, it felt like we were in some action adventure movie. I totally thought  Indiana Jones or someone from National Treasure was going jump out in front of us. 

Next we had a quick lunch of baguettes and macaroons.

And then made the not-so-good decision to walk all the way to the Arc De Triomphe, which ended up being a really long ways away. Since the kids fell asleep, we were able to enjoy strolling up Champs Elysees.

After resting from our trek to and from the Arc and charging my camera, we ventured to Sacre-Coeur, but had to stop on the way to hit up this random merry-go-round.

After walking up many hills and carrying the stroller up too many flights of stairs, we made it to Sacre-Couer, which is one of my favorite churches in Europe. Sitting atop the city, it provides beautiful views of Paris and an array of steps and lawns to relax on.

Luke joined these guys in their street dancing. As you can see, everyone go a kick out of that.

On the way home, we happened by this classy joint.

The next morning Rob hit up Musee D'Orsay, while the kids and I played at Tuileries.

Then off to the Eiffel Tower for the afternoon.

Recouping at the hotel a spontaneous parade erupted on the streets below, which proved infuriating for the traffic, but entertaining for us since we could watch from our window. 

We wanted to go back to the Eiffel Tower that night to see it sparkle, so we stopped at Hotel des Invalides on our way. 


We waited a very long time on the lawn but the sunset and a pizza from a local pizzeria helped pass the time.

Some couldn't hack the late night.

Our last morning we strolled around the Pompidou Centre, ate some delicious Parisian pastries and visited Notre Dame one last time.