We booked tickets on the Toot Bus, which the kids obviously thought was the funniest and made our way to the Notre Dame. We took photos outside the cathedral, as it was fenced off for construction due to the fire. Caroline was already in full blown tantrum mood when we got to the cathedral. She was very happy to just sit on the bus all day long.
Then we made our way to Sainte-Chapelle. The line to get tickets was long and unmoving, so I bought some online for 1:30 pm entry. It was a little after noon, so we had some time to kill. Then we did some souvioneer shopping. Obviously the kids love all the souvioneer shops. So much overpriced garbage. Bennett had a crepe and we added two new soccer jerseys to his wardrobe. As we were walking around, we kept asking Caroline what she wanted to eat. As we passed a sushi restaurant, she said she wanted to eat that. GREAT. She ordered chicken skewers and rice. I told her she needed to eat two of the three before she could open a bag of gummies we bought earlier. To my surprise, she didn’t argue and ate two. I was satisfied with the amount of food she ate and was hoping that for once, she’d be in a great mood.
As we made our way back to Sainte-Chapelle, I learned that wasn’t the case. She was hot and didn’t want to walk. Even enticing her with candy wasn’t quite working. Despite her attitude, Sainte-Chapelle is still one of my favorite so I was excited to see what the kids would think. Caroline basically scowled but Bennett’s jaw dropped when he entered the chapel. It’s really just too beautiful for words. Bennett also added two new knight toys to his collection from Reims. This probably also contributed to Caroline’s sourness but really, the stuffed animals at the souvioneer shops here and such crappy quality, I can’t justify spending 10€ on them, even if it’d make her happy. Here’s hoping Versailles will have some cute ones, because each site had some in London and I’m really regretting not letting her get more while we saw them.
After Sainte-Chapelle, we hopped back on the bus and made our way to the Champs Elysees. Joel wanted to stop at the Musee D’Orsay but I could tell that’d put Caroline in full blown meltdown mode. The Champs was great. Caroline and I bought matching sweatshirts, and we stopped at McDonalds to get the kids some ice cream and a cold drink.
We made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. Joel didn’t really want to go to the top but that was one of the things I didn’t get to do on my first trip to Paris, so I insisted. It was really great! The kids actually enjoyed it. In order to get up and down the Arc, we needed to walk up and down really narrow spiral staircases. They made me so dizzy during the walk, and I clearly wasn’t the only one. People were clutching onto the railing for dear life, so they made their way up and down. We passed people who needed to stop due to the dizziness. It was a lot, but I’m so glad we did it.
We boarded the bus and made our way back to the Opera, which was the closest stop to our hotel. On the bus ride, Caroline fell asleep. I carried her for a while but she was just too heavy, plus it was too hot, so I woke her up and asked her to walk. Surprisingly she woke up in a good mood and understood when I said I just couldn’t carry her anymore. As luck would have it, we were right next to a video game arcade. They asked to go inside, so it was hard to say no. It definitely put both of them in a good mood.
After, we did a little more shopping and bought some giant bottles of water because we ran out on the bus today, and it was just miserable. It was nearly 7:00, the early end of dinner time, so we decided to eat. We happened to be next to a ramen restaurant, Neko Ramen, we wanted to go to the other day but had a tremendous line. This time, we were able to walk in. The food was SO good. I can definitely understand why there were about 30 people waiting outside last time. The restaurant is pretty small too, but the service is quick.
After dinner, we made our way back to the hotel. Originally Caroline wanted to go back to the Eiffel Tower to see the lights show but we talked her out of it. I feel kinda bad becsuse she really wanted to see it. But 30 minutes of walking and metro to get there is hardly worth seeing the Tower lit up in sparkly lights for 5 minutes, only to make the 30 min trip back. In hindsight, we probably should have toughed it out last night, since the light show happens every hour but we didn’t realize that until today. This kids took showers and had some screentime though, so they were happy about that. We were just shy of 13k steps today, so definitely a lighter day compared to the rest of this trip.
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