Paris, Deuxième Partie

Valentines Day in Paris.  Utterly enchanting.  And a great way to offset the grey, winter skies that had followed us for the previous two days and didn't seem to be going anywhere, anytime soon.  We were up and out early because today we had big plans.  Valentine's Day plans that were all for the girls.  Our  first two days included some fun things but, even though they loved them, they were educational and touristy.  Today, we would still be doing educational and touristy, but in a much more kid friendly way.  First things first though - we stopped to smell the roses.  Literally.  It was Valentine's Day after all.  And they were everywhere.

After a quick petit dejeuner, and stopping to smell every flower we came upon (rose or not), we headed underground and boarded the subway.  When we emerged from the dank underground into the light drizzle that was falling we were greeted by the site of a mist shrouded Eiffel Tower.  MadHatter was mesmerized all over again.  But we weren't there to visit the Eiffel Tower (though we did stop to touch the tippy top of it...)

We were headed across the street to visit the Aquarium.  We were all pretty excited to see it, as it had been recently renovated and reopened after a 20 year closure.  And we love aquariums.  We were ready to see the fish, the sharks, the shows.  We couldn't wait to experience the petting pool, and the glass tunnel that allowed sharks to swim directly overhead and the fact that they have fish from all over the world, and from all types of water.  And, and, and...Yep, this was going to be a lot of fun.  And, since it was misty/rainy/foggy/dreary outside, we loved that we could spend a couple of hours indoors.

Don't know.  It was part of a "Special Exhibit" and it was all pretty scary.

Don't they remind you of Flotsam and Jetsam from the Little Mermaid?  My girls thought so the second they saw them.

They both loved touching the fish.  Though MadHatter kept pulling her hand away a the last second as she was a bit scared (she did end up touching them at the end though).  Stinkerbell, on the other hand, was trying to catch them so she could give them a kiss.

Finally, we dragged the girls away from the petting pool and turned around to see a tunnel full of sharks.  Sharks in front of us, sharks behind us, sharks on top of us.  Fishes, forgotten.  We all pressed our noses to the glass and were mesmerized by the giant cratures swimming all around us.

 We knew we wouldn't be able to top the shark tunnel and didn't even try.  We left the aquarium and were pleasantly surprised that it had cleared up while we were inside.  So, we headed out on our next mission.

The day before we had stumbled upon the Ponte de Artes Bridge.  And the girls were fascinated.  They couldn't believe the number of locks and kept stopping to read them.  I explained to them that the legend says that if you write your names and the date on a lock and affix it to the bridge, then throw the key into the Seine river, you will have locked your souls together for life.  Or, if we did it, we would lock our whole family together forever.  From that second on we knew what we would be doing on Valentine's day.  It took a bit to find the lock and some permanent markers (we should have known they would be selling them on the bridge).

We gave each of the girls a marker and they wrote their own name on the lock.  I added mine and B's.  Then we wrote our last name and the date on the other side.  MadHatter got the honor of locking it forever to the bridge and each girl got to throw a key into the Seine.  Such a great memory.

And then as we were walking off the bridge, we spotted this guy...And couldn't resist...

A pretty spectacular day and we still weren't done.  We were off to see another of MadHatter's favorite things - a really old church.  A really old, spectacular, famous church - Notre Dame.

Standing on Point Zero - the official center of Paris.  

Fascinated, as she always is.  We could have spent all day in the Church.  And she is right, it is impressive!  The stained glass, the gargoyles, the architecture.

But we still weren't done for the day.  We still had a special Valentine's dinner, some more flowers to smell (this time their very first Valentine's roses from their Daddy) and Crepes from our favorite crepe cart (for the second day in a row).

And finally we were calling it a day.  A fantastic, never better, Valentines Day!

But we still had another day in Paris, so we hit the hay so we could enjoy our final day in the enchanted city of lights.  We had brunch with friends of B's (from grade school) that happen to live in Paris.  Afterwards we headed to the Champs Elysees to do some shopping.  MadHatter had requested a pair of Eiffel Tower earrings.  Stinkerbell wanted a replica of the Tower with crystals on it.  We were sure to find them somewhere along this strip of shops...

And on our search, we suddenly found ourselves in front of this...

And our faces lit up like this...

Who could deny that face a ride?  So up and around and around we went and got some spectacular views...

Even another great view of this...

We had ridden a Ferris wheel, found the girls souvenirs and found a bunch of fair food carts along the way.  We figured, why not fiish this carnival kind of day with some cotton candy...

Their candy looks like the clouds and are bigger than their heads...

We were worn out.  The sun was starting to set and we still had to pack up the 17 bags we came with.  We left early the next morning for the airport to begin our new life in Prague.  But what a fabulous whirlwind of a vacation to Paris.  One we will never forget, I am sure.