First Full Day in Grand Paris

Another long, full day! Left the flat by 9am and walked over to the Louvre. Spent about two hours visiting, mostly in the Denon wing, enjoying sculpture (Greek, Roman & Egyptian) and Italian paintings, including Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa of course. They've made the latter harder to see with a bellied wood railing and then a roped off area, which I understand, but is too bad. The kids seemed to enjoy much of it and we opted to keep it short and sweet and hope to come back to see more in the coming days.

Decided to trek out to the Arc de Triomphe via Metro, which I saw with Jess, but didn't climb. The rotary traffic is insane with 12 spokes and seeming free-for-all. The eternal flame and war memorials are quite poignant. Up the narrow, spiral staircase of the largest man-made arch in the world we went. A stunning sunny day meant we could see quite a ways. The kids were both very excited for their first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower - funny and cute because they wanted to make sure I saw it.

We had a casual lunch at an Italian bistro nearby, before strolling down the length of the Champs Élysée (kind of sad to see how many US brands have joined the fray...Foot Locker?!?) to the L'Orangerie museum to check out Monet's water lillies and fellow Impressionists. Fortunately, it is a relatively small museum as we started petering out. Grabbed the Metro back to our neighborhood, a light dinner, and reading.

Funny note - Logan's blue hair is getting many more stares here than it did in London (where it recieved a ton of compliments)! We've only seen one other person with colorful hair. Tom gets a kick out of watching people's reactions (I hardly notice his hair anymore.)Read more