Paris (part deux)

So, we finally made it to the Louvre. There was a 15 minute wait to get into the Pyramid and then we had to wait 40 minutes in a line to take the girls to the bathroom...Of course there's NEVER a line in the men's bathroom, so Johann was in and out in 2 seconds, stood in line to buy our entry tickets to the museum (some nice person actually gave us one of their extra tickets, and R&R were free, so we only had to buy one), got a map and located all the hot spots before we even made it in view of the actual ladies room...

sigh...

And before you suggest it, Reese refused to go into the Men's room with Johann because "it's gross"...

whatever...if I were 6 and had to go, I sure would have gone...Rayna did...smart girl.

Anyway...we saw all kinds of cool art...sculptures......of course the coveted Mona Lisa...Reese said, "It's small"...I agree...especially with that sea of people standing in front of it.

We saw my favorite, the Winged Victory ......and another hour later wanted to find the exit, but spent another hour getting lost...

It was our fault really...we got strollers for the girls, lest we have to walk at a snails pace through the museum and the strollers obviously won't go down stairs...so we had to find all the elevators...what we didn't know is that there are 8 million elevators in the Louvre and only like 2 of them actually go to the floor with the exit...the rest take you to other random parts of the museum...

While lost, we did see some cool stuff, including the "ancient Louvre" which is the original two towers from the castle and the moat...before it was renovated into it's current palace like state...

So...once we finally escaped the Louvre, we were pretty hungry...so we went to the Opera district and ate dinner...and dessert. :-)

The girls were excited to see the Opera because it is featured in one of their favorite movies, Disney's Three Musketeers with Mickey, Donald and Goofy.

And that's pretty much how we ended Wednesday.

Thursday was our actual anniversary, so after breakfast at our little cafe, we boarded the train for Versailles.

We got in free there too because we had our handy Espana drivers' licenses and apparently young families from the EU are admitted free!!!

We toured the palace ...King Louis' rooms, Marie Antoinettes rooms, the Hall of Mirrors...

Reese was like, "Mommy...people LIVED here???!!!" I was like, yep...and then I gave her the bad news about Marie Antoinette...bwahahahaha!

We kind of sped through the palace tour because we were all anxious to get out to the beautiful gardens...

And take a rowboat out in the Grande Canal...

It was my favorite day of our trip...so fun, so romantic (even with les enfants)...

We all took turns rowing the boat .....and keeping R&R from hopping out and into the water...we even had a small collision...whoops...

And then we ate lots of ice cream, and the most delicious panini's EVER!!!

Then headed back toward the train for home since we had a hot date at the top of the Eiffel Tour!

(I should make a small note here that we got a tad lost finding the train home...but it's a sore subject, so I won't mention it...)

We did get back to the hotel in time for quick showers and took a taxi to our dinner date...Reservations for 4 at Restaurant 58 - which was 58 stories or feet high...or something like that.

Dinner was delicious, the view was gorgeous - we were looking out onto Trocadero...

And R&R were having a ball with our waiter. (And with their dessert....)

We took another elevator to the next level after dinner to take a panoramic view of Paris...and then after waiting a while for elevators, decided to WALK down the stairs...

As I was in 3 inch heels...

I plead the case for an elevator trip after we got down the first set of stairs...

And we got to the bottom as the Tower sparkled above...

Happy 10th Anniversary!!!

To be continued....