Experiencing Parisian Culture

We began our morning in the Montmarte area where we had scheduled a food tour as a late Mothers/Fathers Day gift. Our guide was brilliant in starting us at a chocolatier to win our hearts and sweet tooth! We learned what to look for when desiring traditional French food, how to properly hold a baguette under our arm, and many details of what the French look for in everything from cheeses to meats. We had no idea that in France, which is slightly smaller than the size of Texas, there are so many different regions that specialize in their own homeade delicacies, that wrapping our minds around the uniqueness of just several of these specialties was a chore. However, the best part of the tour was the sampling! While we walked around visiting the individual specialized stores, we sampled chocolates, macarons, chouquettes, and pork products. We wrapped up our tour in a dining area where we sipped on French wines as our guide explained the history and differences in the baguettes, cheeses, meats and eclairs that she purchased along our walk. We were amazed at the French salted butter which was outstanding, and learned of brilliant savorin a la truffe, a truffled goat cheese which we would hunt down throughout the rest of our stay in France.

Look for these words above this blue, white and red line to symbolize that the store is top notch.

We walked by The Sacre Cour Basilica

Selecting beautiful sweet & chewy French macarons

There are many kinds of baguettes - just be careful to place them the proper way on the
table or you might be next in line for the guilatoine!

Look at the many locally made selections at the fromagerie

Eagerly anticipating our scrumptious French delicacies!

Papa wasn't so excited about the gelled fruit, pickles, pork tongue,
pork cheeks & pig keratin that were combined in that bite! But it still might have
been better than the pork intestine some of us sampled earlier!

With full stomachs we headed for an afternoon at Musee d'Orsay. Here there are many famous works of art housed inside an old train station, so the building itself was amazing to explore. Nana even remembered having her photo her many years ago with her dad when it was a working train station. We enjoyed viewing the impressionist paintings and wandering around. The city of Paris has many museums, and we we've tried to mix up our days to involve fun alongside museums to keep the kids engaged. An insightful impression of Monet viewed through the eyes of a 10 year old, "I'm not even sure how I know that's a reflection on the water, it's like he's communicating with my brain but not my eyes," has Mom excited about what kids of this age are taking away from this experience.

G in front of Monet's painting of waterlilies and bridge, similar to the one
he created several years back in our home art class.

Practicing her ballet stance along with Degas' dancer!

Boys in front Starry Night, Van Gogh's original Starry Night painting before his more famous one housed in New York

The beautiful architecture of this train station turned museum lends to the experience

Afterwards we needed some fresh air, so headed across one of the bridges with zillions of "love" padlocks to the ferris wheel. Our daughter has talked about riding on a ferris wheel our whole trip, so she was thrilled to get to experience this. Meanwhile, G spotted the obelisk that we'd learned about in Luxor, Egypt that had been sent to France!

Padlocks of love locked to a bridge crossing the Seine River

View from the ferris wheel with the Eiffel Tower in the background

The massive Louvre complex viewed from the ferris wheel.

G excited to find the Egyptian obelisk of Ramses II brought to Paris in 1833

We had a bit of time to kill before our evening boat ride on the Seine River, so we walked around a bit. As we walked, our youngest excitedly exclaimed, "There it is - the statue from the movie 'Home' that tilts when they are in Paris." Sure enough, we all learned that this was Joan of Arc from one of our daughter's favorite movies on this trip. Love when history mixes with modern day kid's movies so that our kids can teach us!

G in front of the Joan of Arc statue from the movies 'Home'

We stopped for dinner and our oldest continued his card trick fascination and even won himself a free dessert from our waiter! Then we stopped for the famous rose shaped gelato at Amarino, across from the Pompidou Center, which is a building with many of the typical interior aspects on the exterior - such as the electrical works, plumbing, and escalators.

We wrapped up our day of experiencing the "city of love" with a sunset boat ride along the Seine River. Our ride began with us having to cross the locks into the Seine, which was a fascinating education observing all that happens to make this activity work. As the sun set, we watched Paris come alive on the banks of the river, learned the history of places we passed, with the highlight being that we arrived at the Eiffel Tower right as the lights began sparkling!