Paris

We only spent a couple days in Paris, but we enjoyed every minute of it.  We especially enjoyed eating at any bakery we could find, and trying as many crepes as we could.  Our first half day there we went out to look at the Eiffel Tower, and then took a boat tour and the river.  It was really fun.  We only had one other full day in Paris, and we tried to cram a lot into it.  We went to Notre Dame (though we didn't go in because the line was so long!) we walked from there to the Louvre and then from the Louvre to the Eiffel tower.  The line at the Louvre was also incredibly long.  We saw a sign at the end of the line that said wait time to enter the museum was going to be 2 hours!  Marcus saw it and asked someone working there, "wait is this right, it's going to be 2 hours until we can get inside the museum?!"  She said it was going to be at least two hours, and Marc said, there's no way we can do it then.  She turned and looked at me and the girls, and then said, "Oh wait your pregnant, you don't need to stand in line, just go up to the handicap entrance and they'll let you in."  This moment changed the rest of our vacation.  We walked up to the handicap entrance and sure enough they let us right in.  I felt a little bad and sheepish about it at first, but by the end of our vacation I was feeling kind of entitled to this perk.  We skipped hours worth of lines in Paris and Rome after this because I was pregnant.  It was an amazing perk, and made this European vacation with little children much more bearable!

 City boat tours are our new favorite European vacation activity.  The kids enjoy the boat ride, and we enjoy taking in the views and the information.  And in a city like Paris where arguably not a whole lot of things are kid friendly, this was an easy and fun way to spend an evening.

 Notre Dame is really beautiful, and what could be better than finding a playground right on the grounds.  While Marc and I listened to a pod cast about it, and scoped out the exterior the girls enjoyed playing on a playground for the first time in a while.  They were beyond thrilled!

Despite the fact that we skipped the two hour line, we made our trip to the Louvre pretty short and sweet.  We did have the girls pose for this picture in front of a painting of Joan of Arc, and then saw some exhibits on our way to the Mona Lisa, but that was basically it.  The Louvre is HUGE, we saw a super small portion of it, but it was much more interesting to me this time because the museum itself is the old Royal Palace of Paris.  I don't know how I never realized that before, but it made exploring the building itself that much more interesting.  I'm glad we went, and SO glad that sweet girl told us we could skip the line!

Paris really is an incredible city.  Incredible food, incredible charm, and incredible sites.  We really enjoyed our short time there.