After a summer of news stories about travelers (including people we know) losing luggage - especially through European hubs - I laid down the law with my family that we were going to pack for our 10 day trip in carry-on bags only. John proposed a compromise that we should check one, mostly empty, large bag of things that could get lost / were easily replaced and carry-on everything else so that we could have a bag to put the dirty clothes before laundry day, and to have room to carry home any new purchases. Sold! (And, the bag arrived at CDG very timely and didn't delay us at all....and we were very glad to have the laundry bag during the trip/souvenir bag for the return trip.)
First snack of the trip was a vending machine cupcake at O'Hare. Last snack of the trip was vending machine random candies from CDG. Pretty good coverage in between with everything else!
We departed on Saturday evening after William's cross country meet, and arrived in Paris on Sunday morning, October 2. Since it was the first Sunday of the month, many museums were free admission, and after taxiing to the city and dropping our bags at our hotel, we went out to explore a few while we tried to adjust to the time change and lack of sleep.
First glimpse of the Eiffel Tower from the taxi en route to the hotel. Our hotel was a small, boutique hotel called Hotel de Latour Maubourg and was located in the 7th arrondissement. I found it online looking for places that were walkable to the sites we most wanted to see as well as the metro. This was also the way we had a separate space for William plus a king bed for us.
The hotel was across the street from Les Invalides which house the Museum of the Army, where we would spend an entire day touring! It was another 5 minutes to the Rodin museum, which was free for that Sunday, so we did a walk through the sculpture garden. The gold dome visible from the garden is the The Dome church, which is the building where Napoleon's tomb is located at Les Invalides.
Eiffel Tower peeking through in the background middle of this picture! And then when we headed back toward our hotel and we could see the Eiffel Tower better. I really liked their picture! :-) Ours was also nice.
From there we walked out to the Seine River and headed toward L'Orangerie. I thought we would have more time for seeing the outsides of Musee d'Orsay or the Louvre or Notre Dame but my geography and scale were a bit off. And we had a timed (free) admission to the art museum so only made it that far for the day. After a quick lunch. We were quite hangry by this point. We should have eaten more at the Rodin gift shop but my master planning / clock management / food coordinator skills were a little off from the travel and I also underestimated how hard it would be to find street food. Seriously....where was a cart with some cheese baguettes!
But alas, tucked into a spot in the gardens was a creperie! We were able to have a bite to eat and a sit down and all was well again.
L'Orangerie is famous for its oval rooms of Monet's Water Lily paintings. I took video instead of still photo of it, so have nothing to post. It was really neat. It was also very crowded. I really enjoyed exploring the other floors for the Matisse and Cezanne. This museum was a great size to say we saw some art in Paris but could otherwise focus on military history!
When we were finished, our room was ready for check in. Thank goodness, because it was raining and we were tired. Naps in the rain were next on the list. We had the Chagall Room which was the 3rd floor dormer. It was fine for three people 5'6'' and shorter! The bathroom was big with a large closet, two sinks a soaking tub (for my hand washing laundry, mostly!) and a shower stall. The toilet, or WC as you'd say, was a separate room on the other side of the room. William's half of the room had a couch that pulled out into a sleeper. And he had room for all of his stuff separate from ours - including the off-brand Legos he bought as souvenirs.
We got our exercise every day in Paris with all of our walking and then the three (short) flights of stairs to get up to our room. There was a tiny elevator that we used the first day to take up our luggage, but we carried to down upon departure. In advance, I had scoped out a pizza place to try at some point during our stay. We ended going the first night when realizing it was at the end of the block. Afterwards we walked the 10 more minutes to the Eiffel Tower. It was neat to see the lights in the sky as we approached. After seeing the "front" and "back" sides of the Eiffel, I definitely preferred the quieter, neighborhood approach.
I was hoping we could walk fully under the Eiffel Tower but it was barricaded off. We never did go up or see it (at the site) in full daylight. We stopped at a restaurant for a bathroom, so had a drink and dessert. William didn't offer us a bite of this profiterole. That's fine; I didn't offer him a sip of my champagne either! (I may have had a bite of the dessert anyway....)
