BootsnAll Travel Network



Paris in the Spring

From France

April 23-27, 2007 

We had planned our itinerary specifically to ensure that we arrived in Paris in April so we could experience the quintessential “Paris in the spring” and we were not disappointed. The day we arrived, temperatures skyrocketed to a balmy 25 degrees Celsius and stayed that way until we left Paris; to us, after India’s smothering heat, Paris’ “heat wave” felt like a breath of fresh air. Spring had arrived in full force and the lush greenery and blooming gardens of Paris created a sensory overload that made my heart ache. In contrast to India’s dusty brown landscapes, the sky seemed bluer, the air fresher and the streets were definitely cleaner.

We had five days to see all the sights of Paris and we decided to do as much as possible on foot. It became our routine to have breakfast in our room each morning and pack snacks and drinks for the day. We’d then take the Metro into the city and begin exploring. Sometime around lunch, we would find a boulangerie (bakery) or a grocery store and buy a fresh baguette, meat, cheese and, of course, wine and have a picnic in one of Paris’ many family-friendly parks. Claude and I quickly discovered that, while everything else in Europe is more expensive, the “cheap” wine is a great deal – a 2 Euro bottle of wine knocks the socks off our $10 wines in North America! One of my fondest memories of Paris is of our picnics spent watching the kids play in the park while sharing a bottle wine. The only drawback with sharing a bottle of wine over lunch is that it makes for very lazy afternoons and we often found ourselves abandoning our ambitious sightseeing plans to just wander the streets of Paris. Although there’s something to be said for wandering…

Through careful planning and random meandering, we managed to explore almost every corner of Paris. Over five days, we hit all the major tourist sites like

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the Arc du Triomphe (both during the day and at night),

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the Eiffel Tower,

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Notre Dame, etc. We saw the spectacular views of the city from the Basilica of the Sacre Coeur

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perched atop the butte of Montmartre and got lost in the winding streets of the artists’ district (classic Paris à la La Bohême). Alexa was fascinated by the portrait artists and would have been content to watch them paint all day. We eventually distracted her by having a smiling little Chinese man, whose scissors moved like a blur, produce silhouette cutouts of each of the children in less than 2 minutes.

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Eventually, we ended up in the nightclub district right in front of the Moulin Rouge where the kids and I posed for photos while attempting the can-can.

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We also spent a few hours admiring the impressive family tombs in the massive Cimetière Père Lachaise
(over a million people are buried there!)

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where we found Chopin’s modest grave

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just a few hundred meters from Jim Morrison’s. The thing about Paris is that you can experience it just by walking the streets, enjoying the gorgeous architecture and soaking up the atmosphere. Even the kids didn’t seem to mind being dragged all over the city as long as we stopped to play whenever we passed a park.

Of course, what is a visit to Paris without a trip to the Louvre

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The exterior alone is spectacular and we spent a good part of one afternoon just roaming around the building and exploring the gardens. The next morning we returned bright and early and were among the first 50 people to enter the building. While Claude bought our tickets, I quickly scanned the map and we made a beeline for the Mona Lisa

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where the kids were escorted right in front of the painting by a smiling security guard. Of course Claude and I had to stay behind the velvet ropes but, thanks to the early hour, we had managed to avoid the crowds. For several minutes, Alexa studied the Mona Lisa with an earnest expression on her face like she was committing every brush stroke to memory and later, with the help of a postcard purchased in the museum gift shop, she produced a very good reproduction. Now that we had “met” the most famous resident of the Louvre, we still had several hours of paintings, sculptures and antiquities left to see. In order to avoid boredom, I gave each kid a copy of the museum map which had miniature photos of the most famous pieces in each section of the museum. I challenged them to see who could find the most works of art featured on the map and it worked like a charm. While the kids were on their scavenger hunt, Claude and I were able enjoy the art at our leisure.

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The only problem was trying to contain the kids’ squeals of excitement when they discovered one of the pieces on their map. They were also sent into an uncontrollable fit giggles by a collection of Guiseppe Arcimboldo paintings which were portraits made up entirely of fruits, vegetables and flowers. After a few hours we were completely saturated with art and realized that the Louvre simply cannot be done in one day and resolved to return one day to see all the exhibits we missed the first time around. I was completely impressed by my kids who really seemed to enjoy looking at the paintings and statues and seemed to retain a remarkable amount of information. After our visit to the Louvre, we rewarded the kids’ good behaviour with a trip to McDonald’s and a visit to the playground.

We had gorgeous weather the entire time we were in Paris and absolutely fell in love with the city. In five days we felt we had barely scratched its surface and, like most of our destinations thus far, vowed to return some someday when we had more time to explore and really do it justice. But for now, Burgundy, the French Alps and the Côte d’Azur were calling our names and it was time to move on.



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