Paris

Was it really 45 yesterday? Ocean pictures in a single day? Oh dear. Well, it just tells you how full my days have been! And of course, much of it is the fault of the month and the place: April in Paris. Everything screams beauty and color and tender growth. Paris is a big city and there are definitely parts to it that overwhelm me (as any city does these days). But I have found my neighborhoods and quiet corners and special places that wake me up to city life in good ways. And even though I know these blocks so well, I see them in new and brilliant ways every time I am here. Add to it the treat of having the young family with me and you're going to get... 45 pictures!

But that was yesterday.

Today is my last full day in Europe. It has been a long trip! I have a mess of stuff to pack even as I want to spend a good chunk of the day with the young family (they're also heading home). I can tell you one thing: it cannot be a 45-photo day. 

The first peek outside reveals sunshine. It wont last, but it's a pretty sight nonetheless.

This is our last breakfast together here, at the Pavillon. 

 

And then what? 

We left this day open. Depending. If the weather is good, maybe we should go to Versailles. If not, maybe a museum at the Georges Pompidou Center. There's not a shortage of possibilities.

Well, the weather gave us a morning treat of partly cloudy skies. We settled on an excursion to the 19th Arrondissement and the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. I've been there only once and it was a long time ago. Why? because it's a pain to get to: several metro connections and a walk. And yet, it is a lovely park and quite different from the others. It is just at the northeast corner of the city. Less visited by tourists, that's for sure. Less crowded period. And it is hilly. How so? Well, it was built on quarries and so it actually rises up high. Higher than other point sin the city. A walk through it puts you on hills.

We are off!

(energetic girsl ran this way and that within the first minutes of our adventure!)

To one subway...

 

And then another. 

We alight at a station to the west of it and head up the hill to a park entrance. It's a less familiar to me area of Paris, though I dare say, most younger than me people would say that the 11th and 19th districts (arrondissements) of Paris are more edgy, more hip and more likely to have young and ethnically diverse talent try its luck at cooking up innovative dishes in eateries.

Now the park:

What can I say, it's a really fine time to be here right now.

(playground!)

Everything is blooming, everything is fresh!

 

And yes, the views to the north are lovely.

 

Walking, riding, walking some more -- it stirs up the appetite. We come across an eatery in the park called Rosa Bonheur. Self service, actually. You go in, you order your food and when its ready, you bring it to one of the many tables outside. 

I stay with the kids while the parents attend to the food decisions. Some French speaking Italian kids come over and show off their loot. Primrose is always scrambling to figure out how much trust to put into such encounters, but Juniper plunges. 

 

And then the parents bring a couple of pizzas (so good!) and we concentrate on filling up on foods.

Our walk continues. (Same Japanese cherry as in the Jardin des Plantes!)

And when we do leave the park, we still continue with our adventure: to the Canal St.-Martin!

 

I suppose the one misadventure was the train stoppage: One of the lines (our line) had to close down because of some incident on the tracks and so we sat for a while in a very crowded metro car, trying to figure out our options.

 

Of course, there are many as there are many crisscrossing metro lines. We pivoted to another combination of metros.

And now it's definitely time for a Juniper nap. I grab a cup of coffee in my room...

 

Then I head out to pick up another tiny toy for the kids. It turns out that the one I'd purchased on our night together was especially popular, and I thought that perhaps for the long flight home, they should each have their own, rather than negotiating nonstop who should have how many minutes with the one they were to share.

When I came back, the young family was all ready to go down for a farewell drink at the hotel Bar James Joyce. I was invited!

At 6:30, we set out on the half hour trek across the Left Bank to the restaurant La Rotisserie. This is the lesser cousin to the renowned Tour d'Argent. Checkered table cloths, roasted chicken -- all very informal and yet extremely focused on good ingredients and great taste!

And this is when the rains start. We, of course, don't mind. Paris in the rain... Big deal?! I suppose the one who minds most is Juniper. In the stoller, her legs get wet and pretty quickly she is in parental arms as we pick up the pace on our walk.

We're here! And it is delightful! The kids love their chicken, we play around with other traditionally French bistro fare.

Our walk back is going to be wet of course. No one could possibly mind, given all the sunshine we've had all week.

(photo by Primrose)

Despite the rain, the kids begged, begged for a repeat of the ice cream treat they'd been having here after dinner: two flavors on a cone, with a macaron stuck on top. Not possible to deny them this in their last hours of our glorious trip!

(the giggles start right here!)

There is no final line to this story. Not even to this day, let alone this week, or my three weeks. If I like to review events, words, sweet moments in my head, well I sure have a lot to work with. All with one huge happy smile of contentment. A week in Paris with these guys was of course what mattered most. I'm so thrilled that Paris gave us all these fabulous memories.

And so much love....

Paris

Every string of beautiful, sun drenched days comes to an end. Today I revel in a very long string indeed! (Tomorrow we may have rain.)

I'm with my two grandgirls in Paris. Parents went off for a 24 hour escape. I'm filling in.

 

(a different view -- out their window this morning)

 

If you bring two sweet kids to a city where few speak their language and habits and demands are new and not always easy to adapt to, and if parents leave for a while, then of course, you have to expect to make adjustments. The absolutely best way to keep them excited and happy is to cut them some slack, all the while keeping in mind that they are little ambassadors, so good behavior is a priority.

 

(cutting some slack for Juniper means allowing her to have fruit before, during and after breakfast)

(Oh! Is that a mirror?)

Staying local, to our neighborhood, would be the easy way to go about it this morning. But I don't want easy. I want them to have some excitement and an adventure.  I take out the stroller and we walk over to the bus stop. 

(The number 63 has arrived! Let's get on!)

Everything is so much simpler these days with google maps giving you details of which bus to take in how many minutes. But where are we headed?

To the Jardin des Plantes (yep, the garden of plants) over on the east end of Paris. 

(Oh, the fragrance of spring! Heady blossoms, honey scented chestnuts...)

But of course, I can't just get them excited by another garden (even though I can certainly get myself excited by this one). Within the gates of this one, there is the Menagerie -- the small city zoo that is forever immortalized in the Madeline books (to the tiger in the zoo, Madeline said poo poo!).

I've come around on zoos. Now that we've evolved and we no longer create them as places to gawk at imprisoned exotic animals, I no longer avoid them. This particular zoo no longer will have the tiger that Madeline wasn't scared of, because tigers dont belong in city zoos. There are some animals you'll encounter probably for the first time, and there are always educational materials available that'll teach you about what you're seeing.

 

(A "red panda??" Looks more like a red racoon to me!)

(I associate flamingos with France, where I in fact saw them in the wild. In the Camargue.)

(I asked the girls if they were sure these birds were pink, they said "yes!")

Perhaps the best part here is the freedom that you can give kids. And this little one grabs all that she can take of it, hiding so well that I almost could not find her!

But let's not forget the flowers. It is a fantastic time to visit these gardens. I'll show you why:

As in all parks, you're going to find a merry-go-round here.

Juniper always starts off cautiously.

 

But that's only at the beginning of a new ride.

And of course, the way to keep them excited is to say yes to ice cream. Before lunch!

 

Time to take the bus back to our neighborhood...

 

... Where the parents have just arrived! 

Before we can even think of lunch foods, we have to wash up: I hand over dusty, sticky, disheveled girls!

Okay, all fresh.

We head out to a crepe stand.

 

Rather than stand and eat, we walk over to the church gardens of the St Germain des Pres church.

 

(so beautiful!)

(a park, even a small one, is an invitation for Juniper!)

It is the girl's naptime now so they head back to the hotel as I continue my stroll through the all too familiar blocks. I pick up a coffee, and of course, in this weather, I must take a few moments for the Luxembourg Gardens.

(However did this street musician set up his instrument here!)

Sure, none of us should hang out in the sun too long. But those few minutes in spring are irresistible!

(the green shades of spring are simply sublime...)

Okay, I need a rest. Just a few minutes. With a cup of herbal tea in my room.

And now we all head out for dinner, with a stop at the Tuilerie Gardens. 

 

 

 

Why? Because we did this before, some two years back -- same restaurant (Primrose begged to return to it!), same stop at the gardens beforehand, with a pause for a refreshing drink.

(lemonade!)

(lemonade)

(with Parisian twenty-somethings having great fun next to us)

 

 

Which restaurant so struck the girl's fancy? Le Souffle. Funny, because this is where I took my girls when they were very young -- because it's such a rare treat to eat all things in a souffle form!

We walk back afterwards the long way: to the Obelisk, looking out on the one hand to the Arc de Triomphe, and on the other -- to the Eiffel Tower (and we catch the few minutes of twinkling lights on the Tower). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the night air is wonderful, so full of the sweet scent of a season that does not believe in holding back.

(one post-card vignette after another...)

I had one string of breathtakingly lovely days! 

with so much love...