Fantastic last day of touring!

I guess you aren’t supposed to get a lot of sleep while in Pari!  This is our last touring stop on this trip though so we are pushing through.  We started a little later and headed back to the same café for today's breakfast.  They were happy to see us come back.   On the way Carter saw a store he wanted to visit and ended up choosing to buy a bocce ball set to play somewhere in a park.  

                                                            It's hard to see in the pic but that's the Eiffel Tower 

                                                                    over the top of that cappuccino!

Today, we did not have anything booked until late evening so we made a plan to visit a few sites.  We started by making our way to Sacre Coeur Basilica.  We took a couple of trains before taking our time strolling through Arrondissement 18.   The Basilica was beautiful inside and out.  You can see all of Paris from up there.  It’s such a vast expanse of city that it’s hard to tell what is what but WOW, it’s enormous!  As we've experienced in multiple areas, there are hustlers trying to sell something.  The kids really learned the lesson the first time in Rome when a man who was so kind and friendly put bracelets on them and then tried to get John to pay for something we didn't want.  

From the top of the hill, we wandered down to see the Moulin Rouge with a stop for crepes along the route.   This is such a fun area of town.  Very quaint! We stopped for drinks after crepe and there were some families walking by.  People were not in such a hurry; we really liked this area!   It was so fun to see the actual Moulin Rouge after just having seen the theatre production this spring!   Before leaving the area, we stocked up on picnic supplies – meat, cheese, bread, desert, fruit….  Another train took us near the Eiffel Tower.  We popped in for drinks on the way to the park.  For the next few hours, we had a picnic and played bocce ball in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower!!  How amazing is that!  

                                            Grace had a new friend!  

  

After spending time in the park, we still had over two hours before our tickets to climb the Arc de Triomphe.  We were so exhausted, we almost didn’t even go that direction.  We did though, walk up the hill to Trocadero plaza for one last viewing of the tower.   There was of course a café near by so we decided to hydrate and see how we felt afterward.  It was close to 5pm and you could see that people were going home from their jobs, stopping for a drink, and taking the kids home.  I love watching people in their spaces doing life!  Side note:  the romance of sitting in a cafe to watch the world happen in front of you was a little smothered by the constant presence of cigarette smoke.  I had forgotten how smoking is such the norm in Europe.  I’m not sure if it was unanimous but the parents decided to walk in the direction of the Arc to see if we could get in early.  We had purchased tickets for sunset but didn’t think we could make it that long.  200+ steps to the top and we were glad we came this far.  The sun was setting so limiting our view in one direction but not the direction we really cared to see.  We saw a man in a Georgia Bulldog baseball cap!  Go Dawgs!  The last leg of this journey was tough.  One more train and walk back to our little, noisy apartment.   I think we were all tired enough to get a little more sleep this night except me.  Oh well, there was always the trains the next day.  

The Louvre at the end of the Champs-Elysées Avenue.