I had failed to buy tickets for the Eiffel Tower ahead of time, so when we headed over there first thing in the morning we were thinking we'd take the stairs up to the first landing or not bother at all. The internet made it sound like the lines would be impossibly long without an advance reservation. Surprise! There was no line whatsoever.
We took the elevator straight to the top!
It was warmer than the previous day, but a bit hazy for maximal city viewing.
For lunch we went to nearby Cafe Constant, which a friend had recommended. It was a tiny little place where we were crammed into a room the size of my office with forty other people, but the food was great and it was extremely reasonably priced. In general Paris seemed much more affordable than London.
The bread in Paris lived up to the hype everywhere we went.
Then we decided to walk up to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs d'Elysees. One lesson I took from our 36 hours in Paris is that it is much less compact than you might think, looking at a little map.
Finally we made it, though.
We walked all the way down the Champs d'Elysees and then took the Metro to Montmartre to see Sacre Coeur. Here is where we had some excitement:
Coming up the stairs out of the train station, someone shouted, alerting us to the fact that a pickpocket was trying to open Mom's backpack! The kid ran away and we thanked the guy profusely. She didn't actually have anything in the pocket of the backpack except an empty wallet, having moved important stuff to a more secure location when we arrived, so we didn't worry about it too much and kept walking down the street.
Unbelievably, a block later the same kid showed up and tried again, and managed to get the wallet completely out of the backpack before she felt it. Before I had any idea what was going on, my 64-year-old mother was turning around, grabbing the kid's arm, and yelling, "You give that back to me right now!" AND HE DID. And then he ran away and we never saw him again. It was awesome. A bunch of Parisian pedestrians came over to check that we were okay and made disapproving noises and shook their heads at the hooligans trying to mess with the nice American ladies.
Anyway, after this we were on super high alert in the Montmartre area. At one point I thought someone had managed to steal my phone out of my purse while I had it tucked under my arm on a bench, but it turned out I had just put it in a different pocket.
Before we got to Sacre Coeur we waited for about twenty minutes (seriously, twenty minutes at least) to use this weird public bathroom stall that cycled through a full wash cycle between every user. Every single person in line was flummoxed by the whole experience and finally some dude started standing by the door pressing the buttons for everyone else because nobody else could figure it out.
At last, we arrived at the church! Mom sat at the bottom and read and I walked up all the stairs to the top. It was a gorgeous day, much warmer than the day before.
After this we went to a touristy restaurant at the bottom of the hill and got some tea and dessert, then walked back to Gare du Nord to catch the train back to London. On the way to the train station we got a bit lost and ended up walking through a neighborhood that appeared to be composed entirely of cheap wedding dress stores, one after another, with shady guys loitering around outside each one. What was actually going on there, I have no idea.
We were early for the train so we sat on the Eurostar balcony and read our books until it was time to go.
Arriving back at the Doubletree in London felt like coming home! We ordered room service. This is the Doubletree Hyde Park's version of a BLT. I approve.
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