July 20 - Playing in Paris

The girls and I spent time exploring Paris today. We were all excited to find the Des Halles park area just a few minutes from our place. The Des Halles park has some beautiful flower beds, wide open green areas, and, best of all for the girls, a really fun play area that is unlike something the've seen before - we will definitely return a lot.

This area accesses a section of the metro where they've built a large underground shopping area, including a cinema and a swimming pool! The girls were quite amazed by it all. I decided to pick out activities they would really like to keep them moving through a "jet lag" day. We spent the afternoon in a large and beautiful kid friendly park in the 19th arrindosement (after a mild adventure figuring out how to purchase a one week metro pass, during which Carolyn exclaimed "Paris is complicated".)

This park has a pond with a tall island upon which you can hike to a small tower and overlook Paris. Getting to the top was a fun adventure. We went through some caverns on the way down that went next to the waterfall that Evelyn is standing by above. We also managed to find the boulangerie in this area from my Paris pastries book. We bought picnic items here and enjoyed them in the park, including my first Paris pastry of the trip--a wonderful lemon tart topped with curd. It was a bit tart for the girls, but they had a little, before moving on to crepes and gelato later. (Yes, I think we will eat just fine here!).

A section of this park also had a great play set area with more of the bars-and-cables networks the girls found at the first park. This play area was rimmed by a cafe selling crepes and ice cream. Very nice! I think they would get more moms to the park back home if they all came with these amenities :)

We ended the day with a walk around the St. Eustaph cathedral and then Ice Age 3. The girls had a great time watching a movie they had already seen--but this time in French, and it was a nice way to mellow out the evening.