Americans in Paris

We made it to Paris yesterday morning and have already made a full two days of it! Flying overnight to Europe puts you in a crazy time warp where no one really has a grasp of what day it is or what time it is or anything! Everyone was very excited to travel and we had a smooth time of it Sunday into Monday...

After checking into the hotel and dropping our bags off, we wandered over to the Seine River and took the Batobus (hop-on, hop-off boat) down the river to the Eiffel Tower and wandered around that area for awhile...

After our wandering, we were finally able to get into our room for a short rest before venturing out again. Everyone was ready for a nap after sleeping a total of 2 hours during our travels! The hotel is lovely and in a very good location.

After our naps, we headed out on the Batobus once more to see the other part of the Seine that we didn't see before. We explored the outside of Notre Dame and Ile de la Cite and headed to a cafe for dinner. Everyone raves about the cafes here and I can see why. On a beautiful day, you can just sit outside and slowly enjoy your meal/coffee/wine and people watch!

Notre Dame was always on my "to see" list, ever since I took French in school and we studied about the landmarks of Paris. Obviously since the fire in May it has been closed but it was still very cool to see it from the outside!

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel where everyone proceeded to sleep for over 12 hours, which was lovely. We woke up and it was 8:30! (J slept even longer than that). Good thing too because we did a lot of traveling around the city today! After this yummy breakfast...

... we set off by Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. I love that our boys see riding the subway as exciting as seeing this major Parisian landmark!

These boys were troopers because you have to climb all (however many--hundreds?) of steps to get to the top of the Arc. Everyone definitely got their leg workouts in today! After visiting the Arc, we wandered down the Champs Elysees and stopped for a cafe lunch along the way. The boys got their wish--Nutella crepes for lunch!

We walked the full length of the Champs Elysees and ended up at the Place de la Concorde (site of many executions during the French Revolution) where we then boarded the subway for our next destination...

Our next stop of the day was the Musee de l'Armee which is also the site of Napoleon's tomb. Brian did an independent study about Napoleon in college so he found this spot particularly interesting! In addition to the tomb, we saw some cool exhibits about the French army's uniforms, weapons, and other tools through the years...

It was time to head back to the hotel via subway and unfortunately, we got caught in a little rain so we came back soaked. But it was definitely an adventure! Good thing for hairdryers and towel drying racks! Here are a couple more Metro pictures because, despite the fact that we are seeing some of the most iconic landmarks in the world, the subway is still the coolest thing to these boys...