Arriving in Paris

The kids were easy to wake this morning as they were still reveling in their spy game triumph of the night. They were successful in filling their spot under the covers with pillows and sneaking around our bed. Just minute before they were going crazy, then it was all quiet. I looked over to see them under the covers and barely moving. I hovered over them for a few minutes,sure that they could not handle it for very long. When they did not come up for air I figured that just maybe they must have somehow relaxed under there. It was only later when I heard them rustling around the room that I clued in. 

We left Ghent this morning earlier than Patti wanted, as I was insisting that we do everything possible not to miss our train to Paris via Brussels. It was a train that was not available to us the first few times that we had checked, and if we missed this one we were in trouble. We arrived in the Ghent station early enough to take the train before the one that we had planned for the Brussels leg. 

If you recall we are missing part of our ticket but had been advised by an authority to play dumb, we we were willing. I also figured that I would separate the tickets that we did have from the partially intact jacket. God willing that turned out to be the right move. While we were sitting in our first class seats zipping our way to Paris the conductor came, I handed the tickets, sans jacket, and we were all set. The person on the next seat up had a jacket on his, the whole jacket, and the conductor made him fill it out in its entirely. It was time to part with my ratty EURail tickets and the shiney new Brussels to Paris seat reservations as our long leg rail journeys were over.

We took what turned out to be a rather long walk when we left our accomodations near Gare de Lyon and walking all the way to the Eiffel Tower with tours along the way.  Being out into the evening has been par for the course during this trip and our getting home at 8:30 this night was no exception. We were able to see Notre Dame from the river and street levels. 

The glass inside is something to see. 

We stood in the center of France. 

East of Notre Dame was a memorial to the 200,000 Jews who were slain in the Nazi reign. There are 200,000 crystals lit up in this hallway. 

We saw a pretty good shell game being played out. This guy was taking €50 for guesses and paying out €100 to correct guesses. He kept 'accidentally' revealing where the pea was. I was helping Tara understand 'who' the shells were. The money man for this game had a wad of 50's, one for every sucker that walked by. 

We found a nice little garden across the street that houses the oldest tree in Paris, an acacia. Snapped a nice pic of the all the girls there. 

Found some Van Gogh stained glass in an empty little church in the Latin Quarter. 

We climbed 700 steps up to the second platform and ran them down when we were done. I think it was a contest or something. My right calf was super tight after that stunt. 

We were surprised to see that no roller skates were allowed on the Tower stairs. 

Our kids hooked us up with another great dinner which we enjoyed from the top floor once again. But this time we had an elevator.

Images in 2015 Paris Day 1.