Clearly we are the world’s worst parents as I took this picture directly after driving my children to another state to go to an amusement park, take them on rides, feed them ice cream and have the nerve to ask for one picture in front of the pretty flowers. Celia is actually frowning, I don’t think I’ve ever caught this expression before. This was the best photo of the set, she scowled for all of them.
On Tuesday we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam. Packing up in Paris was a breeze since we didn’t have many things. One thing I took advantage of and enjoyed greatly in both our apartments was having some beautiful fresh flowers. At home, the cats eat them and vomit, so we don’t have flowers. In Paris I got some lovely yellow ones and some purple tulips in Amsterdam. In Paris I think we actually saw these same flowers in fields as we were landing on the plane, they had huge squares that were really this solid fluorescent yellow!
Back to our trip, lugging all our stuff we went on one bus and then one subway to the Gare du Nord train station. We had some food with us, and picked up some more at the station for Jordi, a little candy for Josie, and Celia fell asleep on my back. Our train was finally listed and we went for the long brisk walk down to our car. It had started to rain but we just tried to dodge it as much as we could. We got settled down and the train left very soon after. I managed to transfer Celia on top of me and she stayed sleeping.
Josie spent a little time looking out the window, lots more playing with the wiki stix I brought, and a good amount of time eating as well. It was so fantastic to see the lovely countryside going by outside.
We arrived in Amsterdam in late afternoon. We went directly to the tourist office and bought seven-day unlimited tram cards and tickets to the Van Gogh museum. We managed to find the right tram and get on it. Traffic in Amsterdam is hectic, but it’s not the cars. It’s the bikes and trams plus the cars, all on their own lane, different traffic lights and different lines. The bike lanes are just a different color from the sidewalk, not separated by anything and so keeping wandering children on the right spot is tough. We took the tram out to our apartment just outside the city-center. But unfortunately trying to get off the tram was trouble. It was rush hour and we did not get to the door in time and so we missed our stop even though we (and others) were yelling to open the door. That’s how they get the trains on time! They close the doors fast and furious. I actually had them close the door on my arm once with Josie on the inside and me on the outside, I did not let go and they thankfully did open the door again.
After walking back one stop to our apartment we found the place and it was great. A bit bigger, and one long room which made it easy for us to see what the kids were up to. One of their favorite things was the bathtub which was huge! We did many baths and they just had fun playing too. The dining room table was large and wooden so we could use our clamp on high chair too.
After we unpacked a little and rearranged the beds as we always do (this time Josie slept in a small mattress on the floor in the room with me and Celia). We wandered around for a restaurant to eat at. We found a middle eastern place with falafel and ordered a few platters to go. The falafel was good, but the french fries were divine! In one of Josie’s favorite books, Knuffle Bunny Free, a little girl takes a trip to Holland and eats french fries on the street. So Josie had been anticipating that for weeks. When she realized our meal had french fries she immediately wanted to go outside to eat them ‘on the street’. She was really upset when we told her that we were eating this meal inside and so Jordi agreed to have one french fry with her outside. They started eating it on the sidewalk and Josie was confused. “We’re not on the street,” she said. She was taking it so literally that she expected to be eating the fries where the cars drive, not the sidewalk.
After all the new stuff and stress of traveling we were pretty tired and went to bed without too much fanfare. The grocery store was nearby and I must have gone, even though at this point I can’t remember exactly when I went the first time. Unlike in Paris, all the food in Amsterdam was labeled only in dutch, whereas in Paris it was in at least three languages, none of them English, but it helped still. Everyone there speaks English though so I just had to be bold and ask random strangers if I was buying the right thing. Many things are obvious, like fruits and vegetables, but not so much for the milk and cheese variations. Turns out they don’t sell all different kinds of cheese (Kaas) in the ‘non-specialty’ case like we have here (mozzarella, mexican mix, etc). They have ‘new’ cheese and ‘old’ cheese depending on how aged it was. Either way it was good! They also had an interesting specialty which is basically chocolate shavings and sprinkles. We saw it pictured on toast and enjoyed it ourselves too. Plus we learned about stroopwaffles which were yummy as well!
By Monday morning we had gotten into a good routine and were actually up and out the door at a more normal hour. We first headed over to the Place de la Concorde, the largest public square in Paris. Not tons there, just a fountain and the obelisk. Way to the east was the Louvre, and to the west the Arc de Triomphe way in the distance.
By the end of this trip even Celia knew to holler for a coin to throw in every fountain we saw. Celia isn’t in most of these pictures because she’s hanging out on my back and fell asleep. After the plaza, we headed over into the Tuileries to the Orangerie museum. We had bought a joint ticket with the Orsay museum.
In the Orangerie museum are Monet’s water lillies. Some of his last works in a giant scale hung in rooms specifically designed to hold them and surround you with his art in several pieces. The waterlilies are painted at different times of day and wrap around two oval rooms. Then there was more impressionist art downstairs as well. We moved quickly as we knew Celia would be waking up and she has almost no tolerance for these museums. Luckily it was pretty small and we got to see most of it in the hour we were there.
Outside of the museum we had a snack and played with one of Rodin’s sculptures called “The Kiss”.
Rodin has his sculptures all over town as he could make multiple copies of them from the same mold.
We finished our snack and decided we’d better head out to find some lunch as these things tend to take time. We walked back through the Tuileries to the east and north of them to try to find a cafe or takeout shop for lunch. We seemed to find a fairly pricy touristy area with a lot of non-food shops, and then a more business area. We continued to amble on our way to try to find something, eventually found a bakery but the line was horridly long, and only got shorter when people ahead of us jumped out of line. On our previous trip to Europe Jordi and I were horrid about wandering the streets trying to find a great place to eat, we knew with the kids we wouldn’t have this kind of leisurely time afforded to us so we were all about meeting the bare minimum needs. Thankfully we found a small grocery store and picked up a few items for a picnic. I also stopped by a super-expensive chocolate shop and picked up some yummy things that I did not share with my children. Jordi got some chocolate covered peanut type thing too.
We then wandered back to the Tuileries and sat down for lunch amongst the business folk on the many chairs and picniced in the glorious sunshine. By that point we had walked almost the entire length of the garden and were just a small bit away from the Louvre. While we had no intentions of going inside, we wanted to show Josie the palace and the glass pyramid entryway that she had pictured in her book. Oh yes we had bought her a ‘where’s waldo’ type book of locations in Paris, except it wasn’t Waldo it was some other guy, and his dog, and a balloon and such to find. It was great way to give her something to do while waiting and bring home some of sights we saw.
At the Louvre we played in the garden a bit, looked at the big horse statues before we headed back to hop on a bus to bring us back to the Eiffel tower.
We were headed for a river boat cruise on the Siene as the girls needed a low key afternoon activity. The boat was loaded with student groups but there were plenty of seats and the girls enjoyed listening to and playing with the speakers with the tour information on it.
The glass topped ship made it almost greenhouse-like inside and kept us a little warm but we got to go around and see the sights from the river. I liked the stories and information but it didn’t wow us too much, we’d be around so much on foot already and some of the sights were very hard to see from down below in the river. I imagine it would be a very neat thing to do at night with the lights on the bridges. After the ride we got some ice cream, walked under the tower one more time, and headed for home to pack up for our trip to Amsterdam and eat the leftovers in the fridge.
After the morning set of pictures, we headed out for Luxembourg garden. I had seen video and photos of the Luxenbourg garden in french class in high school from a set of videos called “French In Action.” Can’t say they looked much the same or different as the videos were in such small sections of the park and we didn’t explore the whole thing either. Anyone else subjected to those stories?
We started off at our biggest attraction which was the sail boats. For 2 euros you can rent a wooden toy sailboat for 30 minutes to float around in the fountain. A few grown-ups brought their own serious remote control ones, but mostly it’s these wooden boats, getting caught in the wind and being pushed away from the side by children running and then shoving with sticks.
Jordi has the stick in the above picture. Every time the boat gets near the wall you give it a shove with the rubber tipped end. Then the wind takes it around the fountain. That means of course that you’re running around trying to get to the thing and guess where it will go. In half an hour we probably only pushed on it about six times as it got stuck circling the middle where there’s a little house for ducks for a while. One other time another kid pushed on our boat, which left Josie livid. It was a great use of 2 euro and half an hour though.
Celia pretty much just played with the rocks on the ground and tried to throw them into the pond which we were not supposed to do.
After the sailboats we headed up deeper into the park to find the infamous ‘best playground in Paris’. First we found the swings. We hadn’t found any other swings here in Paris. They were 2 euro for a whopping 5 minutes on the swing. We were on vacation so we went for it, and so did a lot of other french parents that we saw. They were two seater swings each in their own tiny fenced in area, metal with metal rods hanging down so they went back and forth precisely in those fences. Josie liked it but Celia refused to try.
After the swing we went on to find the playground which was also for a fee, about 5 euro for the family I think which wasn’t too bad. It had a huge sand pit, zip line, climbing structures and rocking elements. Still no swings. But the structures were huge and they were challenging. Josie actually slipped on one of the rope bridges and scared herself for a while, but she eventually made it back on and slid down a 15 ft slide. They had really tried to make the structure good for older kids, not masterable by a 4 year old. The other cool thing they had is a basic kind of circular zip line. Josie was brave enough to jump on it and did a great job hanging on all the way around. It was a great example of the bigger kids helping the smaller ones too getting the lines around the circuit and back up to the launch area.
Celia spent more of her time in the sand box and was eventually persuaded to do a little climbing. They had toilets available which was helpful as public toilets are few and far between in Paris and they even had a kid sized one. After the playground it was time for our daily trip around the carousel. The one in this park though does not have a floor and the animals do not go up and down. It was old! They had one cart that they tied Celia into so she could ride and not fall off since we couldn’t stand next to her or ride with her and that worked out ok. For the experienced kids, i.e. not Josie who refused, they had a game that each kid was given a short sword like thing and the man running the machine held up a device that held rings that could be pulled out. So as the child went around, they were to aim their sword at a ring and yank it off and see how many they could collect. It was a nice touch and some of the kids were really good at it.
After the merry-go-round we headed over to the park cafe for lunch. We had made up cards that said we were ovo-lacto-vegetarians, but with more explaining words and tried to give it to these people to ask what we could have. They sent us around to the restaurant, clearly having not read it. Eventually we got some cheese sandwiches and french fries (meal of champions of course). During lunch Josie had seen the pony rides going by and wanted to go on one. Celia was really exhausted and losing it at this point so I walked along with her in the stroller behind Josie on the pony ride. This was probably one of the biggest smile-producing events for Josie on the trip. She’s always looking around and thinking about three things and sometimes has a hard time staying in the moment (perhaps like her mother?) but she greatly enjoyed the ponies and managed to finagle two rides out of us on the biggest and smallest ponies.
After the pony rides we walked around to explore the park some more, admire the square trees and the lovely pathways. We found where they play boule, a game like bocce. I particularly liked their neat picking up the ball magnetic devices on cords to prevent them from having to bend down and pick up the balls.
Jordi and Josie had some ice cream-like-stuff, a crepe for me, and we headed back home for some more Italian takeout dinner relaxing at home.
Sunday was mother’s day, at least in the US. I looked it up before we went and the french have their own day which isn’t the same as ours. But to us it was mothers day. I got a little time to sleep in, and the girls gave me a very nice card that they had made. I also requested time to take pictures, because that’s what I like to do! I got some cooperation, especially from Josie.
I learned how people love to take pictures of people on beds with big white blankets. Great natural reflector of light, people are comfortable and can move around a lot.
Boy some day I cannot wait to have a gigantic bed and get a big white cover for it, to only be used for photoshoots, because we have cats that puke on the beds regularly.
And then we headed out for some family time doing family things. We were in Paris, I was with our little family, what a great mother’s day present. To be continued…
On Saturday we headed for Notre Dame after our usual breakfast, but with croissants from Rue Cler. That was definitely the best bakery in the area, even though they actually specialize in breads, not pastries. The little bakery downstairs was closed on the weekends. Things were closed all sorts of odd times and hours, including the grocery stores so we had to try to be careful to plan ahead a bit.
We took the bus as we found it an awesome way for our family to get around. No stairs, the stroller fits in without folding it and you get to sight see along the way. We stopped at an excellent bakery as we walked through the Latin Quarter, got some hot chocolate and a snack before walking by the Palais de Justice and the huge lines. We toured through the squares, visited the Cite metro stop which has some neat lights and stair gothic decorations, through the garden shops and over to the plaza in front of Notre Dame like all the other throngs of tourists.
I practiced with some more family shots. Cutting off my own feet. This was before I figured out to strap the camera to the stroller straps so I didn’t feel so nervous about getting some distance between us and the camera to make an opportunity for thieves. There were a TON of people on the square and the line was long.
Thankfully the line moved really fast to get inside. The girls enjoyed playing around with the stroller where they learned they could both sit in it, taking turns in one another’s lap. Otherwise they enjoyed the freedom to run around in the open space.
Inside Notre Dame, Celia was not pleased. She had napped earlier already and wanted nothing to do with the dark quiet place inside. So we basically power-walked through it as she got upset anytime we tried to stop. Good thing we visited last time we were there. Josie learned to notice all the different rose windows and see how they looked different from the inside and outside. She also grabbed a postcard for herself of one later on as we walked home.
After our quick exit from the church we went back behind it to look at the flying buttresses and enjoy the garden. The girls sat down and enjoyed yet another snack. I tried to take pictures of the lovely place and they were just not in the mood.
It was a tough combination of not knowing when they’d be hungry since our timing was all off schedule plus it turned out they were both on a major growth spurt which was very noticeable once we got home and tried on some other clothes. We were eating all the time. Plus the food was good!
After the garden we watched some street performers as we made our way to Ile St Louis for a picnic lunch. We stopped at a local creperie for some more egg and cheese crepes plus some sandwiches from a grocery down the block. Jordi took Celia with him to get the sandwich and on the way out, we think Celia said ‘aqua’, but the clientele thought she had said ‘au revior!’ (goodbye in french) and were thoroughly charmed by her waving. Celia’s current stranger anxiety had not kicked in yet. We made our way to the western most tip of the island with a nice little open space and no one else around.
Right behind the wall we were in front of was a huge drop down to the river Siene. Right next to the river was a pathway where lots of other people without small children were having picnics and generally enjoying themselves. I didn’t realize there was anything but the river and so I tossed a piece of food Celia had dropped on the ground over the wall, doesn’t seem like I hit anyone thankfully.
After our picnic we walked back over through the Latin Quarter back to the bus. Josie picked up some nice cheap postcards in this area. Some earlier ones we had bought were 1 euro a piece, here they were 5 for a euro, and definitely the same cards. Josie got very excited by the idea of sending more postcards and got a whole big pile, so we wrote to a bunch of her friends. Back on the bus we hopped off at a park and department store we had noticed passing in the morning. We tried again to find more clothes for the girls, were again thwarted by high prices, for-profit bathrooms and prominent toy departments. Back out to the park the girls enjoyed a spin around the merry go round and some fun playtime at the sand pit and climbing structures. Here we had a bit of trouble when some other kids apparently wanted the bouncy thing Josie was riding on. Obviously they’re speaking french to her and she hasn’t a clue what they’re saying. So they (like normal small children) are getting annoyed and start to get a bit aggressive with surrounding her and trying to take the rocker by force. Thankfully Jordi was nearby and remedied the situation.
We asked a local for some ice cream recommendations and had a yummy snack before we returned home on the bus and grabbed some takeout for dinner and continued to work on our yummy bottle of wine.
Friday was predicted to be rainy, and it was indeed cloudy, so we headed to the Orsay Museum first thing. Jordi and I had never been there before. Celia fell asleep on the way over on my back. Apparently in France they are very kind to people with small impatient children, because we got in a long line to get in, and the person behind us told us that we don’t have to wait in line, we can just go in the ‘handicapped, pregnant, and small children’ line. Which was no line, and indeed they let us right into the museum to buy tickets. So we came with VIPs! Very Impatient People, and it worked out.
Inside the museum we saw the Degas Nudes exhibit which was interesting but dark and crowded. When we got home we found out the same exhibit had been here in Boston before! Well we missed that one, so no biggie. We then went upstairs to go see the impressionists. Celia woke up just as we got behind the big clock on the top floor and she and Josie ran around a little playing there. It had some nice views of the river if you could get up close. Then we walked through the impressionist art work, which Josie was somewhat familiar with because of a series of books she likes to read, one of which is Katie and the Spanish Princess. She spent the exhibit looking for paintings she had seen in the books. We tried to keep Celia from screaming and touching things. So it was a quick trip through. We tried to find food in the museum but both the cafe and restaurant were packed with long lines even though it was after 2 and so we headed out of the museum and got some sandwiches on the street. We ate them on the steps of the museum and enjoyed a little picnic.
Afterwards we headed over to the river Seine and looked at the clock tower from down on the ground. We headed over towards the Tuileries, a garden between the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre. We crossed the river and went down along it’s banks to explore just a bit.
Celia demonstrating above how she takes off her shoes in protest at being in the stroller. She does not like being confined, but I did not want to go swimming in the river and this pathway was small with a sharp drop. We only got a little walk down the path when it started to rain quickly and hard. So we hustled back to the bridge and hid under the walkway under the road while the storm passed. Lucky for us there was a musician playing a violin and the girls were enchanted with her and watching all the people going by.
Thankfully the storm passed us by quickly and we were able to ascend the steps into the garden. I found some lovely light and the Louvre museum way in the background and tried to get some nice shots of the girls. I got this of Josie.
We’ll have to call that the Josie the hunchback of Notre Dame pose, not that she knows what Notre Dame is yet. And I also get a picture in the series I like to call “trying to take a picture of Josie, but Celia jumps in and does something funny”.
So I switch over to the child who is actually interested in me taking her picture and get a few sweet shots where I’ve actually got the framing close to where I wanted it.
After a mid-garden diaper change, we continued on our way across the park and found the obligatory carousel where the girls went for a spin with Jordi.
Right next to the merry-go-round was the playground which we also spent some good time at. We found another American family there with two kids and Josie enjoyed getting to play on the see-saw with their daughter. Then she took Celia around for a few spins on the spinney circle thing (I can’t remember what they’re called) and climbed up this big huge climbing structure.
This was about 15 feet off the ground, a rope net tunnel that led to a slide on the other side. Josie went up after considering a few times and only fell through the net with her leg once, but boy did that surprise her. She carried on though through to the other side and down the slide. This was the first of her adventuresome climbing activities in Europe, she was very nervous to start with but got more bold throughout the trip.
After the playground, we decided to walk to a department store to buy some clothes for the girls and maybe Jordi for fun. Somehow the map was misleading and we ended up walking a further distance than we imagined, but it worked out. We saw the opera house and eventually got to the store. Our guidebook had said that this was a ‘lower-priced’ department store, but I guess that means more like shopping at Macy’s downtown instead of Bloomingdales, it wasn’t cheap and they had the childrens department set up with the toys by the elevator and the clothes further on just to sabotage you. I tried to shop quickly but couldn’t stomach paying $50 for a shirt, not even and entire outfit.
We left to find the bathroom and upon getting there, found that it cost 1,5 euros to use it. Well with small children we have gotten better about just rolling with it, so it was a new first for us. Paying for a toilet in a store. They clean it between people supposedly, but it wasn’t super impressive, it got the job done. We then headed up to the roof and had a small snack at the rooftop cafe and enjoyed the views of Paris.
I love all the little chimneys and identical balconies. Our condo’s don’t have quite the same charm. After our snack we headed for the subway back to our apartment for dinner. We grabbed some wine at the grocery store and enjoyed it with a simple homemade pasta dinner for a relaxing evening at home before we all went to bed, still a bit jetlagged but at least tired enough to go to bed.
Thursday was our first full day in Paris. We all woke up around 10:30, I went downstairs to the bakery that was almost directly below us and bought a few croissants to enjoy as breakfast with eggs and fruit. The plain ones were divine, the chocolate left us wanting the ones from Quebrada. By the time we actually got out of the house it was past noon and we headed out walking over towards the Rodin museum. On the way, we stopped at the back of Invalides. It is a museum and a hospital and retirement home for veterans all in one. Surrounded of course by lovely gardens and stone walkways. Since museums, especially military ones, are not the girls main interest or forte we just looked around a bit, snapped a few photos and continued on. We went in last time Jordi and I came to visit.
We walked around a few more blocks and into the Rodin museum. I know I just said museums are not the girls main interest, but the Rodin museum is very different as it has two parts. The outside garden is just a beautiful garden full of Rodin’s bronze sculptures, and then his old house is full of more stuff but it’s small and it was very skippable for us. The garden is a wonderful place as it is outside with lots of room to run and move with a few neat statues along the way. Celia had fallen asleep on the way over and so we sat down to lunch once we got inside the garden in the little cafe. The french make such fantastic salads, I don’t know why they taste so much better than mine. Eventually Celia woke up and we went to explore the garden some more.
The photo above is from the back of the garden looking at the mansion. The girls were sitting separately and then I asked them to move closer and for Josie to hug Celia. She tried, and half a second after I managed to snap this, they were more wrestling than hugging. But the moment got an audible ‘awwwwwwwwwww’ from the many multicultural tourists standing around behind me, who also snapped some pictures. We had an odd experience of people taking pictures of our children. Not that the girls happened to be in the shot, but people actually taking their picture on purpose. Tourists are strange.
The statue in the middle of the pond above is of a man being forced to resort to cannibalism of his dead children because of extreme hunger. We did not explain, they did not ask. Rodin was a strange guy, he was definitely looking to evoke emotion with his art. He also makes the hands and feet on his statues enormous.
I snapped some more pictures too. Lots of backlit ones with the beautiful sun.
And the obligatory family shot so that I remember that I was there too!
Look at the straight, square trees, very typical french garden! We started to play games with the statues, trying to pretend that Josie was holding their hands or getting pet on the head. It kept her interested as we looked around. Mostly Celia just wanted to do this…
Josie humored me with a lot of portrait taking in some nicely lit places.
After the garden, Josie was losing it so we walked back toward the Eiffel tower. Josie fell asleep in the stroller, being majorly jetlagged and all, while Jordi carried Celia.
Along the way for a snack we stopped for some ice cream. Jordi got a kind of lemon/lime, I got caramel. It was hot and Celia actually agreed to take a taste. And this is when she learned about ice cream. I guess everything does taste better in Paris because once she finally tried the ice cream she loved it and kept going back for more, learning to say the word ‘cream’ as well! We headed over towards the Eiffel tower for some outdoor playtime. We found a playground along the big park in front of the tower and they both enjoyed getting to play on new equipment.
We also got our first introduction to french playground etiquette. Sand toys are all brought from home, sharing is not particularly encouraged, there is nothing just laying around for public use. There are no swings. Lots of nannies in this area, some of whom smoke while attending to their small children. They did have a smaller child and a larger child area which were nicely separated and a ton of public ping pong tables.
After playtime we headed to see the eiffel tower closer up. It always impresses! Unfortunately we also learned that only one elevator was working currently and reservations must be made 2 months in advance. The lines were very long and we pretty much gave up on that idea. It also stays light out very late this time of year in Paris, and so we still did not get to see the tower twinkling as it wasn’t dark yet. But we got the girls on the two-floor carousel, a very Paris tradition that the girls loved.
After some playtime, we attempted to get closer to standard dinner times. We headed back to Rue Cler and went to an italian restaurant. No high chairs but Celia did pretty well with sitting in a regular chair, although it may have gotten some pasta sauce smooshed into some crevices. It was a great first day in Paris.
Upon arrival in Paris, we went to our apartment. We stayed in the Rue Cler/Ecole Militaire area of Paris (the 7th). We stayed in the area the last time we went to Paris and we really enjoyed it. We rented a little 50 square meter 1 bedroom apartment. The neighbors were friendly always saying hi to us and cooing over Celia. That night we were all jetlagged, it was already bed time pretty much at 7:30 by the time we even got into the apartment. Then we went out hunting for dinner and cash. All our apartments were paid for in cash so we arrived with a lot in hand and needed more for Amsterdam too. We went right to Rue Cler which is a pedestrian market street, with open markets on the weekend and lots of regular stores throughout the other days. The buildings are classic french architecture with the beautiful light repetitive buildings and balconies. We went to a creperie and put back at least 4 crepes between the 4 of us including one yummy chocolate one and some egg and cheese crepes.
Then the girls and I played in the street a little bit, exploring and walking around. They sort of just looked intoxicated because of jet-lag.
We’re all sort of off-kilter, unsure of how we’re supposed to feel (hungry? tired?). At 9pm and we thought we’d walk over to the Eiffel tower to see it shine, but the kids just lost it on the walk over so we headed back to the apartment. By 10 it was finally dark, it stays light really late comparatively to here in Boston! We tried to put the kids to bed and Josie went to sleep, but Celia went into total meltdown mode and screamed for an hour in bed while we tried to comfort her and then she too gave in. We all slept till 10:30am (4:30am Boston time) before we started our first full day in Paris. Being in bed almost 12 hours gave Jordi and I a really great start, even though the kids were still really short on sleep.
We did a lot of planning for our trip trying to make it as successful as we could. Here are the things we found important for our family, cause I know other families read this and might get some ideas:
All in all we got a lot of great family time. Enough adult-mental-stimulation time. Lots of exercise and tons of memories and photographs. I’ll keep writing more about the details too… but I wanted to pull this information out separately.
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