Paris - Wednesday 16 April 2014

When we told Grace and Will that we planning this trip, Will asked if he would be able to eat croissants everyday.  Quite frankly, I think I thought that if that was what it took to get him on board, it would be worth it.

So I am not sure how we managed to get to Day 3/Morning 2 to get the poor kid a croissant, but  this was the day we finally got into the swing of things.  After another 4am wake-up, Andrew set out for one of the local patisseries.  At first he was turned away – things weren’t ready – but before too long, he returned with delicious, still-warm pastries. 

(After a few days of tasting, some of us have now settled on our favourites – warm from the oven pain au chocolate for Elle, chaussons aux pommes for Andrew... and Will still can’t go past the classic croissant.)

Grace is very keen to go up the Eiffel Tower, but we saw the queues for this yesterday, and pre-booking online is booked out, so Andrew and I are less keen.  We have been recommended the view from the top of the other big tower in central Paris, Montparnasse; some say it’s beautiful because it’s the only view of Paris which doesn’t include the Montparnasse tower!  Anyway, it’s in our hood, so we thought it was worth a try.

We had a beautiful walk to the tower through a local market, with an interesting array of aromatic spices, fresh produce and flowers, cashmere jumpers, souvenirs and knick knacks.  Grace was entranced and persuaded by a demonstration of a simple device that one presses into a piece of citrus fruit to allow you to drink the juice directly, and Will found an iguana he just had to add to his reptile collection, plus we got a few assorted Paris souvenirs.

 

 

That led us to the base of Montparnasse Tower, and after just a five-minute wait for tickets, and a ten minute wait for the lift, we ascended to the 56^th floor in 38 seconds, and then up a flight of stairs to the open-air rooftop terrace.  We’d highly recommend this experience for an easy way to see the wonderful sights of this city from above.

 

 

PS, Rachel, one of the buildings below on Place 18 Juin was where we stayed in 1996, wasn't it?