Wednesday morning was early because we booked a photographer to have family pictures at the Eiffel Tower. They suggested we meet between 7:00 - 7:30 to have the best light & beat the crowd which we meant we had to get up even earlier to be ready for a photo shoot & take the 20-minute ride to get there Thankfully there was no traffic & the weather was beautiful! Don't get me wrong, it was cold, but the girls & I survived the quick shoot in our dresses. We have not gotten the pictures back yet, but we loved our photographer & would recommend working with her. I can't wait to see the edited pictures once they are done! Until then, here is the random selfie we took after we finished that morning:
Afterwards we went back to our hotel to change, eat breakfast & then we were ready to head out for the day. We bought out metro passes the night before & there was a stop right by our hotel, so we took our first ride & the girls loved it:
Our first stop of the day was the Catacombs. Again, we did this last time & I had a feeling the girls would like it. We did a self-guided audio tour, so they had fun wearing their listening devices & walking down the stairs & through the tunnels at their own pace:
I know it seems morbid, but there is also something sacred down there where everyone is in reverence for those that have passed. I mean it is literally millions of bones buried below the city. They were definitely more into this than they were the Louvre!
From here, we walked to a new GF bakery, Copain's, that we had not visited before:
I am also dairy free most of the time & the majority of their pastries were dairy free too, so I was in food heaven:
After we re-fueled, we walked to meet our next tour. I bought tickets for a small group tour, which included transportation to Versailles. This time we had a male tour guide & he was much more historical, so again, maybe a little boring for the girls, but Bryan & I enjoyed it & learned a few new things:
This time we were with a group of 8 so it was fun visiting with the other couples. I didn't take many pictures inside, just a few in the Hall of Mirrors:
We went to the gardens & the girls really wanted to take a golf cart or ride the train through the property, but this tour didn't allow us enough time, otherwise, I think they would have enjoyed it:
When we got back to Paris, we went to dinner at Tasca, which is 100% gluten free. We ate here last time & enjoyed another wonderful Italian meal with all of the gf pizza & pasta we could. Fun fact, we played Farkel most nights at dinner, like we always do when we travel:
On our walk home, I surprised the girls & took them to Grom. It is gelato, but again, 100% gf, including the waffle cones:
Most nights before we headed back to our room, we went up to the rooftop to enjoy the Eiffel Tower on the top of the hour when it lit up & sparkled. It literally never gets old seeing it twinkle:
And I couldn't help but catch this cute picture of our little Parisienne, Sophie. She hung her coat, her beret & her camera up right outside the door so she was ready to go in the morning:
The next morning was their favorite - how could we go to Paris & not visit Disneyland?! They have 2 parks so I had bought the park hopper & the premium access pass so we could do 2 parks in one day. We took the metro from out hotel & it was a 1-hour train ride directly to the park. We started with Walt Disney Studios because I heard it was smaller so we could get in & out before heading to the other:
With the premier access pass, we literally rode every ride there & never waited more than 15 minutes. Unfortunately, there was 1 ride in this park, the RC Coaster, that Sadie & I really wanted to do but it was 45 minutes long & did not take the pass, so we skipped it. But we even enjoyed the small rides like the Slinky Dog:
Sadie's favorite ride here was the Tower of Terror, which she got to ride twice with Dad:
My favorite was the Avengers, which used to be the Rock-N-Roller Coaster, so I rode that one twice with Sadie while Bryan & Sophie did Spiderman's webslinger again:
We had finished that park by lunchtime & then we walked next door to Disneyland:
It was beautiful & of course the weather was perfect:
You are never too old to walk down Main Street on your way to the castle:
We rode every ride you can think of from It's a Small World, to the Mad Hatter Teacups & Peter Pan:
We tried our best to get Sophie on some of the roller coasters, but she is just not ready for that yet. Instead, she likes to hold my purse & take pictures of us instead:
We had fun walking through the castle & the girls found the sword in the stone that somehow, they could not remove:
The parks are very similar to the parks in America, but it is definitely not the same customer service. They had a few rides that took pictures on them, but I never saw anyone walking around taking pictures. And the food is definitely not the same. They were not allergen friendly at all, so Sadie & I couldn't eat much at the park. We grabbed a snack & then kept on going. By that evening, we had done everything at least once, so we let the girls choose a few to go on again. Sadie & I rode Hyperion Space Mountain twice while Sophie drove the cars with Dad again:
She also wanted to ride the Parachute ride again at Walt Disney Studio, so we walked back over there:
The park closed at 9:30 and the nighttime parade/fireworks were at 9:00 and we had originally planned on staying until then, but since we had already ridden everything at least once, sometimes twice and we hadn't eaten much, we decided to leave around 8:30:
We took the 1-hour train ride back to the city & then we were starving so we hit up one of our favorite cafes for a late-night dinner. You should have seen how much food we consumed at 10:00 at night! Ha! It was a fun day & I am so glad we decided to do this with them. Sometimes trips like this can be a bit boring for children so this was definitely a day just for them & it doesn't matter how old you are, but Disney does a great job of making everyone feel like a kid again!
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