We flew into Paris for six days of cheese, bread and sightseeing. It is a wonderful city, even with loads of other tourists about. We even managed to catch up with a Canadian friend who happened to be passing through – great timing! We had met her in South America in 2008 and N met her in Myanmar in January of 2020. Amazing to have a friend that we only meet outside of each other’s countries 😎

So, besides lots of amazing food, and going to a local market near our Airbnb, we also visited the classic sights like the Eiffel Tower. We took the stairs to the second level, got ice cream and admired the view. We also grabbed a filled baguette and had a pique-nique nearby in the sunshine (with loads of other folks of course). M bought a slightly pricey beer (€6) from a guy walking around with buckets of alcohol – impressively, it was cold, so he didn’t feel too ripped off.

We went up the Arc de Triomphe with a dizzying spiral staircase 😵‍💫

We wandered up to the Basilica of Sacré Cœur in Montmartre to overlook the city. Lovely view from its steps, just a pity about the scammers (the friendship bracelet and the petition were popular there). One such scammer did not seem to like being quietly pointed out to the kids and invited us to leave the area (in perfect English).

We took (jump) selfies outside the Louvre and chased some runaway balloons for a bridal party who were doing a photo shoot there. Alas, the handstand photo was a bit advanced for us.

We weren’t sure if the kids would enjoy the Notre-Dame cathedral, but it is free. There was a huuuge line (probably extra long since it recently reopened) which moved quickly but we were still able to admire it. We figured we wouldn’t be doing many cathedrals/churches so may as well make it to the best one!

We dragged the kids to the Musee d’Orsay, which was also very busy. There are some pretty amazing pieces of art there, but with the crowds it’s painful. For the most popular paintings, you basically line up behind a group to slowly edge to the front and then, of course, you can’t spend very long looking at the painting because there’s more people behind you who want to see it. So you snap a pic and move away. Not exactly the art appreciation I’d imagined.

The highlight of this place for me was my celebrity spotting 🤩 I saw Kim and Penn from the Holderness Family! If you don’t know who they are that’s ok, neither did the kids but they do have 5 million followers on Facebook so they are actual celebrities. I may have gushed slightly to Kim about how great they are. Then M had to watch some of their videos when we got back to our Wifi.

There were a few lesser-known sights too, like Paris’ Gong Cha (bubble tea chain). The kids have been trying Gong Chas in every country that they can and getting Esti into it as well.

Much to M’s delight, we stumbled across the final few mins of the Paris Open ladies’ final on the big screen. It was a great match!

Plus we just spent time wandering the lovely streets. It still amazes me that Paris really does look like the movies. Just with a bit of pixel street art of various recognisable characters, including Star Wars.

Such a beautiful city and a trip highlight for us all.