Paris: Thursday

The girls (or Maya at least) had an extended Easter break (basically a spring break) from the Wednesday before Easter until the Wednesday after Easter. We decided to take the night train to Paris and spend the time there. So Wednesday evening, we hopped a train to Verona, where we grabbed some dinner in the train station before getting on the train at 8:50pm. We had a four-couchette compartment to ourselves. It was cozy. (The seats folded down into a bed on either side, then there were two beds above as well.)

We arrived in Paris about an hour behind schedule. (It seems as though maybe we stopped extra long at the borders; we definitely arrived at the French border way behind schedule but made up some time between Dijon and Paris.) Upon arriving in Paris, we took the métro to Le Marais, the neighborhood where we had reserved an airbnb, had some crêpes, and then met our airbnb hostess. She showed us around the place (an adorable two bedroom apartment with views to the Centre Pompidou) and then we headed out for a first afternoon of sightseeing. Cora rode in a borrowed padapum (thanks, Amy!) so she could get in a nap.

We first headed past l'Hôtel de Ville, flying Belgian flags.

And then across the Seine. (Upon returning to Trento, Maya remarked that the Adige, the actually quite wide river here in Trento, seems like a "tributry" compared to the Seine.)

This took us past the front of Notre Dame, and Tim couldn't resist some quick snapshots.

We went on into the Quartier Latin to see l'Église Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and our first introduction to all that flying buttresses can buy you. (Also, Maya LOVES the term "flying buttresses," in the way that a middle school boy would love the term...)

Inside, our favorite parts were the stone spiral staircases.

We then popped across the street to the Panthéon. 

Maya really liked the enormous (Foucault's) pendulum under the dome.

In the crypt, the only famous Frenchman with whom Maya was familiar was Louis Braille. His concrete burial container isn't pictured. We did learn about Victor Hugo, who followed us around later in the day...

Cora woke up, and we headed to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Here, Maya's scavenger hunt had us seek out three statues. The first was a statue of La Bocca della Verità, a representation of a woman putting her hand in the mouth of truth... a statue we saw for real on our visit to Rome.

There was also a sculpture of a mask merchant (literally, a dude selling masks), where the masks were faces of famous people (she had to find Victor Hugo's face here).

There is also a ring of famous French women who became queens ringing the main fountain in the park. Maya had to find Mary, Queen of Scots, and we learned about why she lost her head. The story didn't make Queen Elizabeth sound all that nice...

From here, we took the métro to the catacombs to wander under the city. But the line was several hours long, so we decided against it. We went instead to the Jardin des Plantes, which was a lovely diversion in the middle of the city.

There's even a zoo inside the Jardin des Plantes; we didn't go inside, but we could see some wallabies anyway.

We saw this sign in many places... we believe that, wherever one sees this sign, it is illegal to prance in front of your dog.

We had a FANTASTIC dinner at Chez Julien (yes, I know you're not really supposed to say "at Chez Julien", but since it's the name of the restaurant, I figured it makes more sense that way...).

The girls had veal and gnocchi. The chef offered them chicken and french fries, but they opted instead to share the veal. I think that the chef was so impressed by this choice that he ended up cooking them each their own small piece of veal and simply charging us for one. The girls devoured it.