When Joe and I travel together, his job is always to navigate because he likes knowing where we are and he’s really good at it. Whereas I am happy to follow along blissfully unaware of which direction we are going. So, for my mother-daughter weekend in Paris, something I have been looking forward to for a long time, I turned on my navigation skills, only to be reminded that they are not one of my stong suits. We arrived in Paris at around 7:30pm on Friday night, and I found the Metro (Paris underground) to take us to our hotel. We made the right connections and arrived at the stop that was supposed to be “steps from the hotel.” But I failed to consult the last page of my meticulously printed directions, and simply started walking around looking for the hotel. We actually went right past it and carried our luggage all the way around a very large circular plaza. When we started passing things for the second time, I dug out my pages, reoriented myself and found the hotel about 30 feet from where we had started.
We hadn’t eaten much, so after dropping our things at the hotel, we decided to have a Paris-style dinner. At 8:30pm, which is normally Emily’s bed time, we were sitting in a café eating dinner and having a glass of wine. Café culture in Paris is deeply ingrained. There are cafés on every street, and Parisians go to their local cafés to pick up an espresso and croissant for breakfast, have a late leisurely dinner, or sit and enjoy a relaxing, afternoon drink. We did our best to take part in the café culture and try out French food. We had croissants at our neighborhood café for breakfast, we sampled crêpes at a café on the Île St. Louis, we had a late lunch in a café in the Latin Quarter, and finally a light dinner at a café near the Arc de Triomphe.
In between cafés, we saw a lot of landmarks and snapped a lot of pictures. We started at the cathedral of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité. We walked much of the main island and the Latin Quarter on the Left bank of the river Seine. We took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower and braved the crowds to get a few prize shots, though we didn’t wait in the insanely long lines to ride to the top. Instead, we headed to the much shorter line at the Montparnasse Tower for a beautiful view of the city and the glowing Eiffel Tower at twilight. Lastly, we viewed the Arc de Triomphe, after which we got completely lost trying to find our hotel again, which didn’t look that far away on the map. After making at least one wrong turn and ending up in alternately sketchy areas and fancy areas, I finally caved and we took a cab.
That was all in one day! So, on Sunday we took a decidedly slower pace. We spent the morning in the Louvre museum, and again found ourselves completely lost. To my credit, that place is humongous and confusing. Like a labyrinth completely filled with incredible art. Once we abandoned the audio guides we had because we couldn’t find the things they were talking about, we just walked around and enjoyed the majesty of the place. Once, we were turned away at a stairwell, so we went a different direction and ran right into the Venus de Milo! We also came upon several pieces completely by chance that Emily recognized from the Louvre’s website (which has a great set of videos and explanations for children.) If you’re going to get lost, the Louvre is a great place to do it!
After two hours in the Louvre and lunch at a café, we were pretty tired from sensory overload. So, instead of seeing Sacre Coeur in Montmartre (Plan A) or taking a boat ride on the Seine (Plan B), Emily opted for Plan C — head to the right bank of the river and lay in 
the sun with all the Parisians on a Sunday afternoon. There was a street musician playing accordian on the next bridge and leaves falling from the trees above us. It was a beautiful way to end our weekend in Paris.
We spent my last Euros to ride the carousel in front of the Hôtel de Ville. Then we got on the Metro to our train station, where we got lost one more time trying to find the TGV trains, and then trying to find platform 23 when all the platforms seemed to be labeled with letters! I pannicked for a while, thinking we were going to miss our train, but we are now safely on our way back to Switzerland. Au revoir Paris!
Don’t miss the pictures in our gallery: Weekend in Paris.
Sarah and Em, What an experience in Paris all by youselves. We were just at all those places in Sept on our brief stop in Paris. Sarah, I think you are really brave to do all of that. We were able to attend Mass at Sacre Coeur. which is quite a jaunt up that hill!! Kudos to you both and taking a rest on a Sunday afternoon by the Seine was the Smartest, Emily!!! Love to you both Grams and Gramps