Destination: Paris, France

Transportation: Train; Vaihingen/Enz to Paris - 4 hour train ride

Accommodations : Apartment found on www.vacationinparis.com

Duration of Trip: 3 nights

Paris Pictures

Itinerary and Summary

Day 1: Train left at about 9am on Thursday morning from our train station. We were excited to just sit back and relax during our train ride. All went well. We arrived in Paris at 12:45 pm and made our way to the local Metro station to get closer to our apartment. French Metro's are run differently then the Germany Bahns so we had some issues getting our stroller throw the Metro gates. After arriving at our apartment we washed up and made our way to the Eiffel Tower. We stopped for food and had a small picnic in the Eiffel Tower's Garden. Took pictures then waited about 2 hours to get up the tower. We went to the playgrounds, walked around then had a sit down dinner. After dinner we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower to see the lights. We ended our day close to midnight with both girls falling asleep in the stroller.

Day 2: We got out of the apartment about 10am and needed to eat. We ate at Cafe de Flore where we ordered 2 club sandwiches and cheese eggs (for the girls to share) with drinks. Bill = 70 Euro or $105 if we were paying with US dollars. Crazy! I walked over to the Louis Vuitton Store - had to do it since we were in Paris. We then made our way to The Louvre. You can easily spend a week in the Louvre, we spent a couple of hours. We then walked down to the Arc de Triomphe - which is a HIKE and noticed all the bleachers were up for the Tour de France. John and I were wondering what day the Tour ended. We know it always ends in Paris but the dates of the Tour vary from year to year. Once at the Arc de Triomphe there were a group of Chinese women that could not get enough of Julia. They must have taken over 50 pictures of her - they gave her some toy then had our whole family get in the picture with them. We found it interesting - then a little frightening. We walked back to the apartment stopping first at the grocery store for frozen pizza, milk, yogurt, peanut butter and bread. No more 70 Euro meals for us! We also wanted to get to the apartment and watch CNN. Obama was in Paris while we were there and we watched the interview live. Real cool - it gave us a feel for how the French receive Obama and what the French think of the States. We ended our night early.

Day 3: Ate yogurt and toast for breakfast then walked to Notre Dame. Julia was dancing and singing outside of ND and all were loving it and taking pictures. We went inside and mass was being celebrated. We walked around carefully, lit a candle and said a prayer. We were there about 2 hours then made our way to Mussee D'Orsay. D'Orsay was great - the girls really like the artwork. Mackenzie took many of her own pictures. We were starving after the Mussee so we let the girls eat at one place (cheaper, with food they like) then we walked to a restaurant for us - it worked out much better this way. Afterward we spent sometime at a carnival and playgrounds. Once home we got settled turned the TV on and found out the Tour de France was ending in Paris the next day. Our plans were made for the next day - find the best spot we can for the Tour de France.

Day 4: So our train leaves at 5:20pm the Tour starts around 12 noon. The tricky part is the last day of the Tour the cyclist don't race, it's more of a celebratory ride. So they can ride as slowly as they want. We decide that we have to leave at 4:15pm in order to get to the closest Metro and to the TGV train. We find a great spot at the 1km (which is also the 20km spot because the cyclist do about 8 laps around the Arc de Triomphe). And wait. We eat hot dogs, cheese sandwiches and wait. John runs to the apartment, gets our backpacks and brings them to our waiting spot - and we wait. 4:15 comes and no cyclists are to be found and they are proably 30mins to 1 hour away. Oh well, we hope to see the Tour de France in the next couple of years. We made it to our train in time and were excited to be back home in our own beds. John had Monday off and we just caught up on house work.

Moscow, Russia is our next destination in September.