Monday we headed to the Tuilleries Garden and the Louvre after eating tons of breads and pastries from the nearby bakery.
I love French bakeries.
I love exploring all the beautiful parks and gardens in Paris. There was a cute little duck pond where we relaxed and watched the birds, a playground, trees, statues, fountains, and chairs everywhere for conversation or just lounging. This may have been my favorite moment of the day – relaxing in the beautiful weather while the kids checked out the pond and found baby ducks in the bushes.
There was a carnival set up in the gardens that the kids were super excited about. We let them each pick one ride to enjoy before heading to the museum for the day. Elora of course picked a water ride and Chris volunteered me to go with her so he could ride the super high swings with Oliver. Our water ride was actually really fun and I didn’t get too wet. The boys loved their ride on the swings and Chris even got a great picture of the view while I watched from below hoping he wouldn’t drop his phone. Marion and James picked a fun ride with motorcycles and the little girl next to Marion cheerfully showed Marion all the buttons she could push while riding. The kids would have gladly spent all day here, but it was pretty pricey for the rides. Off to the Louvre!
Okay, I have to admit it. I only agreed to go to the Louvre because I knew Elora would really want to go. I actually don’t like it. Correction – I would like it, but it is so crowded that I feel like you can’t really enjoy the artwork and that most people who go don’t really care about enjoying the artwork either, they just want to take pictures of themselves with famous pieces of art. But we went and it was crowded, and Elora still loved it. We went first to the Mona Lisa because Elora really wanted to go see it. Afterwards she said it was not worth it because she really didn’t enjoy trying to work through the crowd to the front to get a look. But she did really like the Winged Victory, which is my favorite piece in the museum.
We found another section where Elora could sit down and draw. What I really enjoyed was walking through the paintings and listening to the kids as they excitedly noticed paintings by artists they have seen at the museum here in Vienna. They were so excited to find the paintings by Guiseppe Arcimboldo and realize that they were new ones they had never seen before. They also loved finding new paintings by Raphael that look similar to paintings in the museum here. Marion found her favorite painting – one with lots of fire and lava. She stopped to look at the lava for a long time. One bonus to the Louvre being crowded and loud is that no one seemed to notice when the boys erupted into a spontaneous sword fight with their rolled up museum maps. We eventually worked our way down to the African art hoping it would be less crowded, and the kids enjoyed that section a lot.
I had read about and was very excited to find the Tactile Display, where you can go and touch casts of famous pieces in the museum. If you want to go there, it is marked on the map, but is hidden away in a far corner of the basement. We stopped to ask for directions a couple times. Marion was so excited because one of the statues in this section was a cast of a sculpture we had looked at earlier in the day. Elora enjoyed closing her eyes to touch pieces and try to figure out what they were just by touch. She also enjoyed telling Oliver to close his eyes so she could trick him into touching – ahem – some amusing parts of the sculptures. Classy Elora. As a whole, the trip to the Louvre made me appreciate our art museums here in Vienna where you can sit down, really enjoy and spend time drawing or sitting peacefully with the art. There are some spectacular pieces in the museum, of course, but it felt more like a crowded amusement park than a museum. On the way out Elora bought a book about the Louvre and is now enjoying learning about SO MUCH ARTWORK.
We headed across the street and got crepes. Then we hung out in the gardens a little more relaxing with our crepes until it was time to go meet my sister’s family that evening.
We met my sister’s family after they toured the Eiffel Tower and joined them for a little boat tour on the Seine. I didn’t end up hearing any of the commentary since we had seven children with us, but the boat ride was relaxing and gave me an hour to chat with my sister. The kids enjoyed playing with cousins and then we headed to dinner. We found a fondue and raclette place, which was fun since my sister had never had raclette before.
Mmmm… raclette. Gooey cheese to put on bread and potatoes. YUM. I have never seen it like this, a quarter wheel of cheese with an electric burner that slowly melts it while you eat. It was amazing.
I cannot even express how wonderful it was to see my sister’s family. We wish we could have spent more time together, but they were only in Paris a few days and then off to Spain. We loved seeing them and the kids had SO MUCH FUN seeing cousins. Cousins and siblings are the best kind of friends.
The next morning I woke up and mosquitoes had stung both of my eyelids. No, I am not kidding. We had left the windows open and my kids were covered in bites and my eyes were so swollen, one of them could barely open. It was also raining. Chris really wanted to check out Napolean’s Tomb since he has been to France a few times and never gone in, so we headed toward our favorite gold domed building.
James enjoyed sitting with me and drawing a picture while the other kids went with Chris to explore. Chris also got the kids an interactive IPad that they really enjoyed using as they walked around. Chris bought the 0 Euro bill souvenir because he thought it was amusing that Napolean is now featured on money that isn’t worth anything. Honestly, I didn’t feel very well this day so Chris should probably be writing this post. I enjoyed relaxing with James since he was not very interested in walking around. Later on we found the bunnies outside again! The kids managed to get really close to this one.
We also went inside the Military Museum. We walked through a section with the history of wars in France, which was pretty interesting, but I think the little two kids were not super excited about another museum. We went outside and the little ones played on the cannons some more while Chris took the older two into the section on historic armor and weapons, which from the pictures looks pretty fun. There is actually another museum there too, but Marion was about to rebel at this point if we made her go inside another museum…
Back to the real reason we visit France – THE FOOD. We wandered about some small streets and alleyways looking for bakeries. The kids loved this one bakery with large plastic macaroons and bread outside that they got to sit and play on. We eventually decided we should buy something there since our kids amused themselves out front for so long, so we bought a loaf of chocolate chip brioche which was pretty tasty.
More playgrounds while wandering = happier kids.
With the kids feeling pretty worn out, we decided to have an earlier dinner and get the kids home for a reasonable bedtime. We found a yummy little French cafe with a super friendly waiter. Earlier in the day while wandering about the city, Marion lost a tooth! At dinner, Marion was excited to smile at us and show off the gap from her missing teeth. She was so happy to put her tooth under her pillow that night for the tooth fairy. Just before bed we declared ourselves “The Bugbusters” and searched the apartment for mosquitoes to swat so we could hopefully have a mosquito bite free night of sleep!
