Paris Day 3

On Thursday, we headed to the Eiffel Tower the slow way.  We took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and spent a little time admiring the view and then we walked down Ave d'Lena to the base of the Eiffel Tower.  The boys enjoyed the leisurely walk, getting little glimpses of the tower through the trees as we went along.  They were appropriately awed when we finally emerged across the river from the tower (though I think they were just as excited about the fact that there were not one but TWO carousels on the grounds).  We rode one of the carousels while we waited for our time to ride the airport up to the second level.  The trips to the top had sold out about two seconds after our planned day to visit had come up, so we hoped we could get tickets once we got upstairs, but no such luck, much to J's chagrin.  We had to have a little attitude adjustment with the help of some gelato to manage our disappointment, but he eventually rallied and we had our packed lunches way up on top of the world with great views spread out before us.  And then we walked all the way down, with J counting all 669 stairs (we counted stairs, not steps, by the way), which made all the people behind us either pleasantly amused or really ticked off--mostly amused, thankfully!

J is happier than he seems, really!

Can we get one shot in which both boys look good?

Nope, I guess not!

Really, this is getting ridiculous! 

Maybe we should just leave them out of the pictures entirely?

We even let J take some photos of his own!

He's still learning!

As is the husband!

The husband does better than J!

Well worn shoes from all our fun walking! 

We took these before we went up the Eiffel Tower but here they are!

 We ate some more in the Champs de Mars park and played in the giant playground there, before heading on to Jardin des Plantes.  At this garden, we went to see the Galeries d'Anatomie Comparee et de Paleontologie, because I know my audience.  Both the boys and the husband were utterly enchanted by the huge exhibit of skeletons from every animal between mice and humpback whales, along with comparative displays of hearts, lungs, and brains etc.  There were even dinosaur skulls and and early mammals, along with all other kinds of vertebrates you can imagine.  Everyone in my traveling party enjoyed themselves immensely!  After a long time in the museum, we walked through the gardens a bit and then rode another carousel, this one filled with extinct animals instead of the usual horses.  Gotta say, I do love the carousels in Paris!

 After dinner back at our apartment (sausages, of course.  Did I mention how many pork products we ate on this trip?  Yeah, it was a lot!), we decided to head back to the Eiffel Tower to catch the light show at night.  It meant we kept the boys up later than normal, but they liked watching Ratatouille at the base of the Tower while waiting for the lights (it's a theme!).