The Louvre Was Incredible, But Did We Also Find Our New Home?
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This trip has been one of the craziest in terms of weather. We went from having painfully high heat to now being subject to pouring rain and flooding. Our little guy got a touch of heat poisoning, and we were all so drained that we slept for 12+ hours for a second time during our vacation.
While you don’t exactly want to go to Paris to sleep and hole up in your hotel room, you take it as you go. I am trying very hard not to complain about it, even when I’m frustrated. At the end of the day, there are millions of people who would love nothing more than to switch places with me, and I don’t take my ability to go on this trip for granted.
With That Being Said
We do want to come back another time. Definitely nowhere near the summer months this next round, haha. But there is so much to do in Paris that we feel we haven’t even scratched the surface. I don’t remember the last time I felt so strongly that I wanted to come back again while still on the trip, but Paris is definitely going back onto the list for a future vacation.
I think it helps that I have some knowledge of the language too. While I am nowhere near able to carry on a conversation, I can communicate on the basic topics and ask the necessary questions.
To the Louvre!
On Sunday, we had 10 AM tickets to the Louvre. Primarily we wanted to visit our girl Mona Lisa, but I also wanted to see Napoleon’s apartments. When we first stepped out of the hotel, it felt nice, but that quickly turned to heat as soon as we got to the Louvre. It didn’t help that the entrance is in a huge open space and has no shade.
Since I pre-purchased our tickets, we got through security and into the museum pretty quickly. To start, the Louvre is massive. Utterly gigantic. The pyramid in the middle is just one of the entrances; there is an entire building that surrounds it and is part of the whole experience. We weren’t even going to attempt to see even a fraction of it. There were specific things we wanted to see, and that was about it.
To Further Explain This Sentiment
We saw a lot of art in Italy. I am not an art person, but I can appreciate the artists and know the importance of the various paintings and sculptures. Therefore I want to have the experience of seeing the different works, but I also now know my (and my children’s) limits after so many museums in Italy.
The heat was causing stomach aches in the youngest Meyer travelers, so we were constantly trying to get them to hydrate, and we were taking a lot of rest breaks. When I say air conditioning is minimal in the city, I’m not exaggerating. Walking through the Louvre, I was sweating. At times, it felt cooler outside than inside.
We would take at least three full water bottles with us when we left the hotel, and they would be gone within an hour. And you can’t duck into a shop or cafe to cool down because they don’t have any AC either! The designer stores do, but those are above our tax bracket, and there’s no way we could have faked it with our drowned rat, drenched in sweat appearance.
We Came To the Louvre, We Saw, and We Conquered!
However, we saw Mona! What you don’t see here is how we had to wait for entirely too long for wannabee influencers to take 800 pictures that paint them in 100 different lights. This is how I imagine the conversation in their head and the pics are being taken:
- Look at me looking pensive towards Mona; I’m so inquisitive!
- Now this angle – I look enthralled that I am finally here at my “happy place”!
- Oh, and again, let’s pretend I am so absorbed in the beauty that I am borderline emotional!
It goes without saying that this annoys me. We saw it all the time in Italy, and on the river cruise the other night, a girl used the boat’s balcony as her own personal photo shoot backdrop. I hope she paid her friend because the entire hour for her was spent taking picture after picture in every pose imaginable.
You can also spot these people because they are the ones dressed to the nines for a visit to an absolutely massive museum. Nobody, literally not one person, wears heels to walk around for miles when they are actually interested in what they are seeing.
Post-Mona Excursion
After visiting with Mona, we went to Napoleon’s apartment. I heard online that this was an underrated area of the Louvre but that it was worth the hike to see. It was clear on the other side, but we were so impressed that we went through it twice!
I told Jacob (the spousal unit) that this would do for my Paris abode. He seems to think that it’s priced out of our budget, but I think it’s doable.
After the Louvre…
We went to the park adjacent to the museum, called Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Garden). Parks in Paris put all others to shame. Many of them have carousels; they are acres upon acres in size, and they make you forget that you are in the city.
My kids quickly found friends on the playground. I think this is one of my favorite parts about traveling – seeing how easily kids come together no matter what their language. This group spoke three different languages, but the only thing that mattered was that they were having fun together.
Story Time Break
When my daughter was little, we were at a park in Chicago. She and a little boy were running around playing some game together. Neither spoke the other’s language, but somehow they knew what was going on and played perfectly for almost an hour. At one point, my daughter ran up to me and said, “Mommy!” and the little boy looked at me and called me Mommy too, haha.
Some of our new friends followed us over to the trampolines. Yes, this park has trampolines. For five euros total, my kids got to jump for five minutes. At the end, the worker blew the whistle, and the next group came in.
Playtime Had To Come To An End
After we left the park, we were back in the full sun. We were on the hunt for the ever-elusive fan before going back to our room. Already we had been to a few places without luck, our hotel didn’t have any, and we were going on three hours of sleep due to the heat. We needed fans.
Finally, a kind Parisien pointed me in the direction of a store called Hema. We found the most beautiful fans in all of the world.
In all honesty, they aren’t anything great. They were just so wanted that it made them all the more beautiful. Kind of like when an average person has a killer personality, and it makes them even more attractive. Yes, I am talking about myself.
At this point, we were in bad shape. Our little guy was in tears, we were all in bad moods, and we needed to cool down. We went back to the hotel, plugged in our fans, and did nothing else. When we fell asleep, our beautiful fans helped us to get over 12 hours of rest.
That Wasn’t the End
It was the next morning when our son started throwing up. He woke up, drank a ton of water, and then puked. After a lukewarm bath and some Lego playing, he wanted to eat. And he didn’t stop. He completely wiped out all the snacks we had and was then asking for more. So we headed out to find food. We went to Montmartre, which is home to the Sacre Coeur. More on that in the next post!
