Paris from on high, day 1

During the kids' February school vacation, we used the very good excuse of Thomas having a work colleague in Paris to justify four days in the beautiful city...  

Tuesday 2/12, we took an early TGV directly from Munich to Paris (at times, in France, hitting 320 km/h!) and arrived in plenty of time to settle into our little rental apartment near St. Michel then hit the Catacombs (see earlier post).
For our first full day, Wednesday, the kids and I did a tour of  Paris "high points" (literally and figuratively).  First stop, naturally, la tour Eiffel.

View on the way up, in the elevator

Palais de Chaillot, et Jardins du Trocadéro,
seen from the top of the Eiffel tower. 

View to the east.  The big golden dome is on Les Invalides.
Too bad it was misty.

We took the stairs part way down.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at the nearby Paul boulangerie for a mid-morning coffee plus.  Man, the French know how to do pastries.

These macarons were to die for.

We walked around "our" neighborhood in the Latin quarter for a little, taking in the atmosphere of cafés, restaurants, and, well, touristy souvenir shops.  The streets are narrow but lovely.



After lunch (simply baguette from a nearby boulangerie, and St. Albray cheese from the grocery... yum) we headed to L'Arc de Triomphe.

Luckily it wasn't too crowded on top

284 steps up to the top in a tight spiral.

View from atop L'Arc de Triomphe,
down the Champs Élysées

Instead of taking the Métro, we decided to walk from L'Arc de Triomphe down the famous Champs Élysées. There are some pretty fancy stores along there, but I loved simply looking at the architecture of the buildings.

It didn't take us long to walk the couple kilometers to the Place de la Concord.  

As we kept walking towards our flat at St. Michel, we strolled through the beautiful (even in winter) Jardin des Tuileries to the Louvre.  What an absolutely gorgeous walk.  

Looking through the Tuileries garden, towards the Louvre.

L'Arc de Triomphe du Carroussel, in front of the Palais du Louvre

I love the Louvre, simply for the building itself...

Our visit inside the Louvre was planned for the next day, since rain was forecast, so we headed over the Pont des Arts pedestrian bridge.  Its simple mesh side fences are chock-full of love locks -- which actually looks very cool.

 We met Thomas, and went for a dinner of fabulous Breton galettes (savory buckwheat flour crêpes) and then wheat flour dessert crêpes (with house-made caramel au beurre salé...)

A pretty satisfying first full day, en tout cas.  

(The one frustrating thing, however, was the fact that my language ability seemed totally blocked:  my French used to be quite fluent, but this first day, when I tried to speak, my words came out half-French half-German, and I ended up totally tongue tied.  Arg!  It got a little better by the end of our time there -- and then of course I ended up trying to speak French the first day back in Germany...)