Paris on the Red Bus

On Sunday, we travelled into Paris to meet up with Liza to pick up Lukas and to give Katey and Megan their first taste of Paris.

We left early in the morning and enjoyed our train ride.

We were to meet Liza and Lukas at the Pont des Arts on the Louvre side and we were then going to catch the Red Tour bus and do a two hour tour around Paris.  Unfortunately,  the concierge at Liza's hotel told her to meet us at a different spot because they thought the Red Bus tour stopped in a different location at the Louvre than where I had told her to meet us.  So, we waited in our spot for about an hour and a half and she waited at her spot for almost two hours.  She finally went back to her hotel, where we had left her a message and we were all ultimately united.  Yeah!  During our wait, we had gone into a brasserie to have a quick lunch.  Food was terrible!!!!  We are now sworn off brasseries in Paris...at least the ones anywhere near a tourist area.

We had decided to do the Red Bus tour to avoid the hours and hours of walking that we had done on our two previous visits to Paris...and to give the girls an overview of all the major sights in Paris.  It was a great idea (thank you Katie & Chuck for suggesting it).  You have headsets that you plug into the bus and can listen to a narration of what you are seeing, in English.  The Red Bus tour has 9 stops and you can get on and off as you like.  We had decided we were going to stay on through all 9 stops, which was about a two and half hour tour.

On the bus.

Liza looks happy!

Here're all the great places we saw:

Notre Dame

View of the Seine

Little red car on boat.

The Opera House

Arc de Triomphe

Eiffel Tower

Crowds under the Tower

Kids with guns!

More of the Tower!

Lawn in front of the Tower.

Hotel des Invalides, with a real gold top!

Now that it is August, the crowds in Paris are much less than they were in July.  There are still a lot of tourists, but the traffic is a lot better.

When we finished with the Red Bus tour, we walked over to a summer amusement park in the Jardin des Tuileries, where the kids did bungee trampoline jumping and a few other rides.

Katey on the bungee trampoline!

Lukas doing a flip!

Ethan learning to fly!!

The kids refused to spend 8 euro for this ride!

We then walked through the gardens.

The requisite ice cream!

You can rent these!

And sail them here.

Classic shame!

Sunday in the park!

Then, we hopped on the metro and went to Montemar and Sacre Coeur.  It was Sunday, so Sacre Coeur was mobbed with people.  Still, it was an incredible sight.

The sky was so cool!

View from the top.

The crowd.

Cool kids!

Just to prove I really am on this trip!

After Sacre Coeur, we hopped back on the metro and headed to our train station.  Lukas said goodbye to Liza (he's staying with us for the next three weeks and she has a few more days in Paris before she heads home).  We bought sandwiches at a little bar and sat and ate them before boarding the train.

Another fun day in Paris!