Last April when Bryan & I were on our anniversary trip, we had time to talk about the next year & what trips we wanted to go on & we decided it was finally time to take the girls on their first European vacation. We gave them a few choices (after we found some incredible flights!) and they chose Paris! We usually do the beach in the summer & ski over spring break, so we decided to skip skiing this year & travel internationally instead. We booked the direct red eye flight last Sunday night that got us there Monday morning:
I tried to prepare the girls by telling them that they will feed us dinner, turn off the lights, give us blankets & pillows & then we will sleep most of the flight since it is overnight. Don't let this picture fool you - Sadie did nap a few times off & on but Sophie never slept much either way. Even with the blanket over her head:
Somehow, they still landed rested & ready to go as soon as we got to our hotel:
Our hotel was amazing! Bryan always books our hotels & our flights and every time he surprises me with how great they are. This time it was a small, boutique hotel in the Latin District, very close to Notre Dame. The rooms were so small, we had to book 2 connecting but I loved the set up. We entered a small hallway that had 2 doors to our 2 separate rooms, they technically only connected via the hallway, but it was a locked hallway, so we felt safe & we had room to store our luggage in the hallway since our rooms were small. And we both had our own bathrooms & privacy, which I think we all appreciate since the girls are older now:
They surprised us with welcome gifts & you I know I love the attention to detail:
As soon as we dropped off our luggage, changed clothes & freshened up, we headed out. Our first stop was a gluten free bakery on our way to the Louvre:
It was super crowded, but the weather was perfect! This was the one tour I hired a private guide because it is so big & so crowded, you could get lost trying to find your way around. I found someone who gave us a 2 hour highlight & just showed us a few of the more popular pieces. Since Bryan & I were just here less than 2 years ago, I didn't take a lot of pictures of everything, however, I don't remember spending much time in Egypt last time & I really liked learning about the Sphynx:
The girls had their first exposure to a lot of nude statues. Ha! You don't see that much in America so I took their picture with Cupid:
And let's just say this is how our trip started. The girls were not really into the Louvre, or museums in general:
But they did get excited when we finally saw the Mona Lisa:
This was our tour guide, Tania, and we thought she did a pretty good job. The girls liked her, even if they did get a little bored:
Their favorite part of the Louvre was when we were outside playing around:
After we left the Louvre, we walked back to our hotel & found a gf crepe restaurant for dinner. Both restaurants this day we ate at last time & knew they were gluten free. We shared savory crepes for dinner & sweet crepes for dessert. And Sadie might have fallen asleep at dinner:
We went back to our hotel early that night to settle in & catch up on our sleep for the week bur first, we headed upstairs to the rooftop bar to see the city. We had a beautiful view of the city with the Eiffel Tower on one side & Montmartre on the other:
We woke up ready to go the next day & started our morning at Notre Dame. Last time we were here, it wasn't open, so I was really excited to go inside this time:
I made reservations before we went so we got in right away, but it was SO crowded you could hardly walk though. They said they have 10,000 - 15,000 visitors per day!
My pictures hardly do it justice since we were being shuffled though with the crowd. Side note, there is still a lot of construction going on towards the back, so they are not completely finished with the renovation yet:
From here we walked across the street to:
Sadie was really excited to come here since we bought her a book last time:
One of our favorite things we did last time was the dinner cruise. However, last time we visited in the summer the sun stayed up until 10:00 & it was warm. This time, it got dark closer to 6:00 & it was cold, so I didn't think the dinner cruise would be as fun, so we booked a lunch cruise instead. I really wanted to do this at the beginning of the trip so the girls could see all of the landmarks from the water before we really explored the city:
They even surprised me & had them celebrate my birthday while we were there:
We lucked out & had perfect weather for the cruise & when we got off the boat, it was directly in front of the Eiffel Tower so that was our next tourist stop:
And look what we found?! What a fun surprise:
I did not plan reservations to go up inside the Eiffel Tower because I didn't know if they wanted to, but what was I thinking - of course they did! The wait was an hour to take the elevator from the bottom to the top but you could buy cheaper tickets and then climb the stairs to the second platform & take the elevator from there. Thankfully we are in good shape because it was 327steps to the first floor, we got off took a break & then climbed an additional 347 steps to the second floor where thankfully the elevator ride wasn't as long:
It was really cold & windy up there so I didn't take many pictures, but the girls had fun looking through all of the telescopes:
Fun side note, they actually had plumbing that ran all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower, so the girls thought it was funny that they went to the bathroom up there. While we were up there, we showed the girls the Arc de Triomphe because you could see the traffic & we told them that's where all of the shopping was at Champs de Elysee so of course we headed there next:
The girls thought it was fun seeing the fancy stores, but they couldn't believe we had to wait in line outside to get in! But they had fun looking at bags & getting drinks while mom shopped. Ha!
Sophie was living her best European life inside Louis Vuitton!
And that wraps up our first few days. It was a busy trip so I will post a few more posts with all of our Parisienne excursions. It was definitely a great time away & I have a feeling it was the gateway for more European trips to come!
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