Paris day 2

Ten years ago, I spent a few days in Paris around Christmastime. My enduringly memory is of eating savory crepes from street vendors, partly because they were so good and partly because my attempts to get served in cafes and  restaurants  were frustrating. Now that I'm more capable of the latter, it seems I've become incapable of finding crepe carts. Or rather, incapable last night at dinner time with tired kids. Because I must have passed eight or ten on my run this morning! Too bad I didn't note where this actually was!

It is so much fun to run in the city. Yesterday I did hills circling the Sacre Coeur Basilica. This morning, from our hotel in Montmartre, I went past a market near Les Halles, a chalk artist outside the modern-art Pompidou center, a long queue for mass at Notre Dame, and millions of padlocks on the Pont Neuf that apparently show unending love (?).

A quick turn around the left bank and I headed back to meet up with the family. After a cultural morning of French cartoons in the hotel (while Dave and I ran), and patisserie ogling while eating chocolate croissants (

) we fulfilled Adi's one request for our visit to Paris. 

Honestly not what I would have chosen but apparently someone's been educating our daughters. I still think that visiting the Da Vinci museum in Amboise was better than viewing this one painting, but there's obviously lots else to see at the Louvre. After the Mona Lisa, The big girls and Dave went through Greek and Egyptian exhibits while Viv and I checked out the coffee and juice in the pyramid atrium.

We finished with a boat ride on the Seine, sweet crepes from a cart when we couldn't find any cheese ones (argh!) and a lovely dinner at one of many sidewalk cafes near our hotel. We even got the kids to bed early in preparation for a big surprise tomorrow. (Hint: they don't know there are princesses and roller coasters in/near Paris...)