Paris Round Two, Day 1

Every time Matt has a trip that ends or begins in Paris, we have the opportunity to go visit on the cheap.  That is precisely what we did a couple of weekends ago, and even though the weather wasn't the greatest (high 40's and rainy), we still had a blast.

On this trip we stayed at the Pullman Bercy, which is a fantastic location, especially if you have kids.  Click on the picture below to check out their website.

Right across the street from the hotel is a metro stop and a fun area called Bercy Village, which is a pedestrian area with shops, restaurants, a movie theatre and a great park.  I didn't take many pictures of the actual village, but here are a few I found online.

We started the day our first day with a long walk to the Musee d'Orsay.  Which took us over a massive pedestrian bridge.

And past the Bibiotheque Nationale de Paris.

Unfortunately, the line at The Musee d'Orsay was far too long for us to go in.  We will know better next time to buy tickets in advance and skip the line.  From there, we walked over to the Seine, to scope out the place where we would be buying tickets for our canal cruise later that day.  Right across the street was Jardin du Tulieries, so we stopped there to enjoy our picnic lunch that we picked up earlier in the day.

From there, we headed over to the starting point of our cruise.

The total length of the cruise was 2 and 1/2 hours.  It started in the Seine, then went into the Canal St. Martin.  The views from the Seine of Paris were spectacular.

Kellan loved looking at the water (or "wah-woo" as he calls it) and the passing boats.

Notre Dame in spring...

Pretty foliage and kids perched up on the wall lining the river.

K loved hanging from the rails like a monkey.

Once you enter the canal, you have to start going through locks, so the boat can be raised or lowered to the proper level.  Kellan liked watching the water rush into the lock.

At one point, the canal went underground, which was really cool.

The the locks were cool the first couple of times, going through about ten of them got a little tedious.  So the two and a half cruise was a little long for us.  If you're trying to see the sights or have kids, I wouldn't recommend this trip.  If you want a relaxing place to read a book and sunbathe in the summertime (without kids - not enough for them to do on this long cruise), this would be a nice way to do it.

The temperature dropped significantly over the last half hour of our cruise, so we were cold and tired when it was over.  Fortunately, K fell asleep about 1 and 1/2 hours in.  We headed to a metro to get back to the Bercy after this and ate dinner at a place recommended by the concierge as "good for kids".  When he told us the name, we were intrigued.  It sounded like "Eepo Po Taimoos".  We found it and now know what Paris' equivalent to Applebee's is.

From Trip Advisor.

Not really what we had in mind for a nice Parisian dinner, but K was pretty happy in his high chair - which are not commonly found in Paris restaurants.  We walked home after that and called it a night.