Another a Busy Day

It started out quiet enough as it was 8am before any of us got out of bed. We had a leisurely breakfast and then headed out to the metro. Today was about seeing some of the more famous Paris landmarks.

Our first stop was the Place de la Concorde only to find out we couldn’t get anywhere near it. The entire area was cordoned off as they complete the viewing area for the 2024 Olympics. The skateboarding, 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle and breakdance (seriously, breakdancing is an Olympic sport??) competitions are being held there.

So instead, the girls had a ride on a carousel…

And played in the playground.

Because we couldn’t walk through the Place to get to the Champs Elysee, we had a very long walk around that end of the Tuileries to get to the other side of the Place and the Champs Elysee.

On the way, Nora got her first good look at the main reason she wanted to come to Paris.

It was only about 11:30 but we’d already walked a ton of steps because of all the detours we had at the Tuileries. So, it was time for a rest and lunch.

Christina and I both had beef bourguignon, a Paris specialty.

While the girls played it safe with their bacon burgers.

We walked off lunch on our 30-minute walk to our Macaron Baking class. This was high on Drew’s list of experiences as she loves to bake. At the beginning of the class I was a little nervous as the baker brought us to the front and showed us how to make the macaron dough. My first thought was that if all I wanted to do was watch someone else make them, I could have watched a YouTube video for free. But once she explained that the dough had to sit for 30-60 minutes, depending on the humidity, I understood why we couldn’t make the dough for our cookies.

While the dough was resting, we had the chance to make the ganache for the inside of the cookies. We made two kinds, chocolate and pistachio.

We used cookies previously made to put our cookies together.

Between the 4 of us, we brought home 20 macarons. They are delicious and not terribly hard to make, just a little time consuming. We got the recipes to take home with us so I may have to try my hand at making them.

At the store across the street (where we accidentally went looking for the baking class) we found a market filled with French pastries and bread. The place was incredible. Cynthia, these next pictures are for you.

After picking out our sweet treats (a very difficult decision) to take home, we headed back to the Metro for our final stop of the day, Jardin du Luxembourg and sailing boats in the pond.

They sailed their boats for about 45 minutes and had an absolute ball. I sat and watched from the sidelines.

Then it was finally time to go home. To get there though, we had a 10-minute walk to the Metro, a 20-minute ride on the Metro and a 5-minute walk to the flat. The total step count was just over 18,000 or about 8 miles. And, yes, I’m exhausted.

Tomorrow, we’re off to the Palace of Versailles. I’ve already warned the girls that the Palace is likely to be crazy crowded. But our entry time is early afternoon so I’m hoping it will be a little better than early in the morning. We’ll pack sandwiches for lunch and eat them in the gardens before our Palace tour. It should be a fun day.