Paris! (Part 1)

The kids had the week off of school, so we drove to Paris for holiday (i.e. vacation). We left right after lunch on Saturday and came home late Friday.

Below I’ll talk about our trip in detail, but here’s the summary of what we liked most (the whole family voted):

• Favorite places: LDS Temple and Monet’s Gardens
• Runner-up: Eiffel Tower
• Contenders: Toot Bus tour of Paris and Palace of Versailles
• Overrated (and wouldn’t go back to): The Louvre

Day 1: Sunday

We took the day slow. We walked to church in the morning and then watched some church shows from the hotel in the afternoon. Linda packed some food so that we didn’t have to go to a restaurant that day (other than the free hotel breakfast in the morning).

Church in French was fun. We didn’t understand much, but we felt the spirit!

Day 2: Bus Tour and the Louvre

We took the subway to downtown Paris. It was (1) fast, (2) easy to navigate, and (3) inexpensive! Much better than the Dutch train system on all 3 dimensions (sorry Netherlands).

Linda bought tickets for the Toot Bus tour (like Hop On, Hop Off, but different brand). It was great! I know it’s super touristy, but it was great to see a lot of the city at once and get a feel for everything. They gave out headphones when we got on, so it was pretty easy to understand. Plus, they had a separate audiotrack for kids that kept Henry engaged.

We got off at the Louvre. We had to wait a long time before we could get in. Tickets were free for kids and it wasn’t very expensive for adults.

However, it was crowded and unorganized. We got the audiotour, which was awful. It was on a Nintendo 3DS, which was cool in theory, but in practice it meant a very high learning curve. We got two audiotours, but we ended up each taking a turn trying to figure out how to use it and eventually just giving up.

We wandered for a while, eventually made it to the Mona Lisa (which had a separate line), and then wandered our way out of the building.

Linda and Adelaide stayed inside for a bit longer while the boys and I went outside. Honestly, the best part about the Louvre was that time outside. There was a lady making tons of bubbles for kids to play with and pop. Henry loved it. When we ended up voting on everyone’s favorite place in Paris, Henry was the only person who voted the Louvre in his top 3 places, and that was only because of the bubbles.

Day 3: Temple and Versailles

We drove to the LDS temple today. JJ and I did baptisms for the dead while the rest of the family looked at the visitors center. We returned in the late afternoon so Linda could do initiatories.

After baptisms we went to Versailles. We first walked down a local street looking for somewhere to eat lunch. We tried several restaurants but they turned us away because our party of 6 was too big for them. Apparently Paris is made for couples, not families.

Eventually we found a little bakery that sold us stuff to go. We then went to Versailles and ate by the gardens.

Linda had bought tickets for the palace in advance, which was good because apparently they sold out. Overall, the palace was nice. I overheard a random stranger sum it up nicely, “We get it already, they were really rich.”

Linda and I would have liked to spend longer exploring the palace and gardens, but the kids got worn out pretty quickly. We took Linda back to the temple and then I took the kids to McDonald’s for dinner (side note, McDonald’s Paris has a McBaguette, which is a baguette with two hamburger patties on it. Pretty good!). Henry volunteered to carry the diaper bag, which turned out to be a mistake, because he got tired and just set it down somewhere. Luckily we were able to find it before we went back to pick up Linda.