Now on to the trip...we drove down there early Saturday morning and it rained almost the entire way. There really wasn't much to look at along the way either...I felt kinda like we were driving through Missouri...mostly cows and corn fields. We arrived at our hotel, the Novotel around lunch time and checked in to our lovely little room. We ate some lunch we had packed from home and headed straight to the eiffel tower. It was about a mile and half walk from our hotel and I got more and more excited every time I caught a glimpse! We kind of came in from the back so there weren't many people around...and I was like "this is crazy, where are all the people"...but once we made it to the main area...we found them!! Tons and tons of people! The place was swarming with tourists...AND beggars....AND relentless vendors...with huge rings strung with cheap metal eiffel towers...it was kind of annoying. Jacob finally told me to just not even look at them and to pretend you don't hear them and that worked pretty well...better then the word no...that didn't seem to work at all because they just kept pressing! It was fun to watch the cops chase them away though...it was kind like a game of cat and mouse. We wandered around for hours...up and down the river banks, visited the Paris "Statue of Liberty" (Jacob knew about it from the movie National Treasure) and just took it all in. Then we headed back to our hotel for some dinner...Pizza Hut! Haha...I know it sounds terrible, but it was right across the street and we had brought some food from home for Autumn because I'm always so scared to eat out with her allergies...so we just had pizza hut picnics in our room...both nights. Hey, it was cheap too!!
After we finally got Autumn to sleep for the night (as an aside, I don't know what we're going to do, but the girl was totally freaked out by sleeping in a hotel room...she was screaming at the top of her lungs every time we tried to put her in her bed...and she normally goes right down...not good if we're going to be spending a lot of time in them the next few years) we snuck up to the roof top restaurant and took a few pictures of the eiffel tower all lit up. It was awesome...and right at 11 o'clock it started to sparkle like it was covered in the most brilliant diamonds...it literally was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I've seen video of this before, but in person it is spectacular!!
The next morning Autumn was up screaming at the crack of dawn (I'm sure our neighbors loved us :o) so we headed down for our free breakfast buffet....it was SOOO good...I was quite impressed. They even had dried apricots...one of Autumn's favorites. So after a good meal and a morning nap (thank goodness) we were ready to head out again. This time we set off for the louvre. It was a bit further...somewhere between 2 and 3 miles, but a decent walk. We wanted to go in and see the famous Mona Lisa (it only costs 6 euros each for the main part...which I think is a bargain), but the line was so long...so we decided the outside was good enough for this visit. After a quick lunch and a wardrobe change...Autumn had totally exploded out of her diaper and all over her clothes...luckily we were able to strip her down without getting poop all over her! She was wrapped in my scarf for a bit while we searched for her nice eiffel tower onsie...haha! What a mess!
Next we headed off on a boat cruise on the Seine River through Paris. It was a lot of fun and we got to see the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and many other icons of the city! It was nice hearing some of the background too from our tour guide. The greatest line was "the French did not like the eiffel tower when it was first constructed...they thought it was ugly and was going to fall down on them" Ha...it cracked me up for some reason! The best part of the cruise though was watching Autumn interact with everyone...the girl is so friendly and people just love her! I don't know where her outgoing personality came from, but I hope it continues!
And one other tidbit from the cruise that I thought was interesting was on one of the bridges, "lovers" come from all over to lock a padlock on it and then they throw the key into the river and it's supposed to symbolize eternal love (unfortunately she said the paris police cut all the locks off every year and throw them away), but still the idea is a cute one. Here is a shot of the locks...
That night after pizza and getting Autumn bathed and in her pj's...we all walked back to the eiffel tower to watch the lights come on and to see the sparkling show one last time. It was so much fun...the place was packed! People were having picnics all over the lawn and just having a grand time! We headed across the street and scoped out our spot by the fountains and waited for the show. It was a great night and I got some great pictures...including one of the bride and groom that came up for a photo shoot right in front of us (I thought for sure they were going to fall in the fountain as the photographer had them spinning around, dancing, etc right on the edge). But everyone stayed dry and we enjoyed our evening in this beautiful city!
The next morning we were up for breakfast and then back on the road. It was hard to leave...especially as it was an absolutely beautiful day...not a cloud in the sky! But I know I'll be back and will have another chance to enjoy this magical place!
Those photos are absolutely beautiful!!! So awesome you got to experience this and are taking plenty of photos to show Autumn all about her life adventures when she is old enough to remember! :-)
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