My sister’s family is on a European vacation, so we decided to head to Paris to meet them there. We planned our trip for a few extra days so we could enjoy Paris with four kids at a leisurely pace. The first day we woke up super early to catch our flight, but the kids surprised us by being super happy and upbeat. They were all so excited to fly to Paris.
Baby Mickey and Dirty Teddy came along for the ride, and the flight passed out coloring books and colored pencils. Elora seems like a flying pro. She gets out the in-flight magazines and hangs out with a book the entire flight. James sweetly made sure that Baby Mickey was enjoying the flight by tucking him in, taking pictures with him, and laying on his head when he got tired.
When we arrived in Paris it was too early to check -in to our apartment. Luckily there was a beautiful park just around the corner. It was the grounds of what used to be a hospital of some kind and now there is a lovely playground, a vegetable garden, and amazing fruit trees everywhere. It was such a peaceful, happy place with kids coloring with chalk and playing on the grass. Elora spent some time drawing the garden while the younger kids played in the sandbox area. They all loved climbing the fruit trees. I would love to have a nice garden like this to hang out in every day!
After dropping off our stuff at our apartment, we realized it still hadn’t been cleaned. Instead of the nice naps we were planning on, we headed back out with the kids and found a fantastic bakery nearby, another playground, and enjoyed watching the kids act crazy and run around while eating bread and pastries.
We decided to walk over to the Eiffel Tower. It was a bit of a long walk, but the kids were really excited to go see it. On the way James got really sad and grumpy, and as soon as I picked him up he fell asleep in my arms. Meaning I was super tired by the time we got to the Eiffel Tower, but I do love the sweet sleeping snuggles. He woke up when we got there, just in time to play at yet another playground! This one had a super cute castle and Cinderella carriage that the kids really enjoyed. At this point the kids all begged to go to the top of the tower. We didn’t know if it was even possible to get tickets this late in the day, but we went ahead and walked over to see what we could do.
As it turns out, it was really easy to get tickets up the Eiffel Tower if you are willing to take the stairs. There was a bit of a line at security where a ton of people cut in front of us (grr…), and a short wait at the ticket counter. We purchased tickets to walk up to the second level and from there take an elevator to the top. As we started walking up we wondered if there would be a long line for the elevator and thought maybe we had made a mistake with the combo ticket. The kids did really well climbing the tower. There are numbers for every ten steps and the kids LOVED being able to see how many stairs they had climbed. We took a few breaks for the little kids and carried James a bit, but mostly the kids did great and really enjoyed walking up. James thought it was fun to stand on the glass floor of the first level. The other kids were not brave enough. Marion is a little scared of heights, but the stairs were quite enclosed so she was fine on the stairs.
The view was AMAZING. And it turns out we got the best ticket. There is a huge line on the second level to buy tickets for the elevator, but there was no line at all to get on the elevator. Once we figured out we didn’t need to wait in the line because we already had tickets for the elevator, we just had to navigate through a few crowds and walk right on our own private elevator to the top. It was super scary. The elevator is not very fast and I seriously thought I would faint by the time I got to the top. I am glad we went though. It was a fun adventure and the kids LOVED the Eiffel Tower. It was one of their favorite parts of the trip.
We took two elevators to get down, bought some cheap Eiffel Tower keychains for the kids from a guy selling on the street, and decided it was time for dinner and sleep. As it turns out the dinner part was a little tricky, because in July/August a lot of the locals are gone and many local restaurants are closed while the owners are on vacation. Our apartment was in a less touristy part of the city, and most of the restaurants around our apartment close between 3-7:00pm. For people with kids who want to eat at 6:00pm, that means we had to walk to a more touristy part of town to find a place to eat.
The kids were super excited when we found an Italian place. The servers were very friendly and the food was really yummy. The kids really liked doing “Cheers” with the glasses. Dessert, however, was terrible. Don’t even ask Chris about it, he is still mad. It was a sad way to end a great meal when you get frozen profiteroles that were reheated and burnt on the top.
Due to our poor dessert, we found a great bakery and bought some proper pastries to end the day. You can’t end your first day in Paris on a bad dessert! These desserts were much better. SO BEAUTIFUL AND TASTY!!!! I love French bakeries. Day one of trip to Paris was a huge success and the kids were so exhausted they all went right to sleep.
