Our Day in Paree

Day 2: Destination L'Orangerie and La Tour Eiffel

Barb and I were both pretty determined to see the Orangerie, home of Monet's huge water lillies paintings. That worked out pretty well. Though again we didn't quite make the opening hour, but the line was reasonable. They are all lit only by natural light and they surround a viewer in either of the two rooms where they reside. We took lots of pictures. One of the ways we kept the girls busy was to ask them each to find their favorite flower or tree and photograph it or take their picture with it. I finished early-ish as I knew I'd spend more time in the book store than the kids could tolerate. On my way there though, I learned that there was an Impressionist exhibit downstairs. So I did a quick run through there too, and glad I did. I didn't spend as much time as I might have liked, but I was so happy to see it and my museum tolerance du jour was just about spent anyway.


Bruce got out of line at the Eiffel Tower and joined us at the Orangerie. After the Orangerie, the kids were expecting a late-ish lunch--which I'd more or less promised them when I tried to lay out the day's schedule in the morning. But no--my bad--next on the agenda was a puppet show. This was probably the best timing to squeeze that in, if only we could find one. Barb said there's one on Champs Elysees, so we ought to be able to find that. I agreed to give it a shot for a few minutes, I can't remember if it was 5 or 15, but I didn't think we were going to find it. It definitely took longer than the time we allocated, but Barb asked someplace and we went right to it.



The puppet show charged a fare and Bruce and I were more interested in a bar, so Barb and the girls saw French puppets while Bruce and I had drinks. We all went to the bathroom at the bar before we left the neighborhood. The kids still hadn't officially had lunch. I was eager to get back to the Eiffel Tower line and see if we could get in while it was still light.



We went via the Trocadero Metro stop to the Eiffel Tower. I was not prepared for the number of people present in that neighborhood. There were white tents up all over the Trocadero and several street shows happening, live music, belly dancing, break dancing, and soccer-style juggling. When I saw the giant rugby ball between the 1st and 2nd levels of the Eiffel Tower (or the 2nd and 3rd floors, depending how you count floors), it all made sense. We were out there on a Saturday, and it was Rugby World Cup. For food we grabbed crepes at a stand just outside the metro--more sugar than you can shake a stick at, not a great lunch.



Bruce and I waited in line for the tower while Barb and the girls went to look for souvenirs. The line was REALLY LONG but it moved faster than we thought it would. There were signs up that there was "risk of overcrowding" at the top of the tower. We opted to get out of line and come back in the morning instead. We took this picture (maybe for my sake, Julia and I did the same 4 years ago) of all 6 of our sets of feet under the Eiffel Tower.

Au-dessous de La Tour Eiffel

We'd done a little reading on restaurants that accept kids, so today we would be better prepared with a plan for dinner. In the book we found a place that sounded perfect just west of the Latin Quarter, just north of the Luxemburg Gardens. It didn't open until 7, so we decided to go to Luxemburg Gardens first, an extra hop on the metro, kill an extra 15 minutes to half hour, then we'd arrive safely after opening hour. Well, we got to Luxemburg Gardens right at 7 and it was just closing. We gazed in through the bars a bit and got a picture of the girls hanging from the fence. We were about 7 blocks from our restaurant. We walked straight to it. Bruce and I went in the door to ask about seating. The gal was ready to seat us, then I said we were six and she simply sent us away. They were PACKED. It was sorta beer garden or cafeteria style seating where a party would be seated next to other parties at the same table. It was supposed to be good for accomodating whole families, but I guess you gotta be there early. Another couple--half of a party of 4--showed up the same time as we did. They had been there at opening but the host would not seat them with a partial party. Now they couldn't be seated as a party of 4 and when they asked how long the wait might be, they said 10 pm. Oy!

7:30 pm, kids are hungry. We had a short list, we tried for something close. There's one in the 5th arrondissement, roughly twice the walk away that we'd just made from les jardins. Somehow, that took forever. When we got to that place we learned that kids were welcome, but they didn't have a kids' menu so they'd just be 50 bucks a pop. We decided against it.

8pm at least. What's next? The Hippopotamus. It's was in the "chains" section of the "food"
section of the What To Do With Kids In Paris--or whatever it's called--book. We were sort of avoiding it. I was picturing something like, oh what's that hot dog chain with yellow and orange uniforms with beenies and stuff? Anyway, I was picturing that. Barb pictured Red Robin, and at this point, that was okay. In fact, that would be FABULOUS. So, again, it's another 20 minute walk. But we got there, and they'd seat us in 10 minutes. The kids, thank heaven, seemed to be satisfied with this circumstance. There was no whining--that I recall--they were happy to know we were going to eat, where we were going to eat, and when. So we were seated sometime before 9. We met some nice fellas from Boston during our wait. I say "we" but really it was Bruce who had a beer with them. Olivia wrote a postcard to Lara and Kimmo. And Barb and I began to study the "cartes" posted in the window.

It was jut fine. The kids had burgers and chicken strips with salads and fries. We had wine with dinner--and it was good, the house red. We all ordered menus that included dessert. Sophia and Olivia both fell asleep before their entree plates were taken away. Olivia was able to revive herself for dessert, not so with Sophia. Miranda finished her book while we waited to order dessert... It took a while. Creme Brulee, Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Fondant Cake were great. Olivia and Sophia had ice cream push pops with smarties in the handle. It was a trick to get those out. Miranda finally helped Olivia with hers. We took Sophia's to go--she continued to try to wake up--and I think hers ultimately got spilled on the ground. It was a LONG DAY.