At 9:32 AM, I was sitting on the Eurostar, ready to go off to Paris!! Of course, after having been up at 6:30 AM to get ready and get out to St. Pancras station to catch the train, I was so exhausted I slept the whole way to Paris!
The new Eurostar route takes only 2 hours and 21 minutes to get to Paris, so it was just noon (or 1 PM Paris time) when we arrived. Luckily, although the St. Pancras end is new (the Eurostar used to leave from Waterloo), the Gare du Nord end is still the same, so it was pretty easy to find an ATM, buy a carne of tickets, and lead us all down to our hotel near the Latin Quarter.
After we had checked in, we went out for lunch right nearby, stopping at one of those classic French cafes with the menu outside on a chalkboard, sitting in the window and eating steak frites with bernaise sauce.
Afterwards we visited Notre Dame (yes, we've all been there before, but it's still impressive), and we then went on a massive walk, going from the Latin Quarter down past Les Halles, to the Louvre, through the Tulleries (stopped to buy a crepe with banana and nutella) and down the Champs d'Elysees. After getting some obligatory photos at the Arc d'Triumph, we took the metro up to Angers, where my folks impressed me by remembering the way to the old apartment building where they used to live. So we took some photos, they talked to some of the residents (turns out the landlady had died only a few years previously), and then we went up to Sacre Couer.
As the sun started to set, we looked around for a place to have dinner, but all around were just little touristy cafes, where people were eating hamburgers and spaghetti. (Why on earth do people do that, when they're in Paris, the land of outstanding food?) And it was the precise moment where I wished I knew a little out-of-the-way place with outstanding food that somehow none of the tourists knew about, so that as you were standing there watching the heaving hoardes of Japanese tourists, you could say, "Let's go. I know a little place."
Well, major props to my Dad, he actually went and found some random guy sweeping his porch, and went and asked him for a restaurant recommendation. (Another situation where it probably helps to speak fluent French). And so we went down tons of steps, down little cobblestone alleyways, and uphill again, until we arrived at this little restaurant that was everything you might have hoped for: A warm beacon of light pouring out onto the cobblestone streets, smelling of garlic and all things good, and with a proprietor who welcomed us in and bustled us into a cozy little table in the corner. Apparently it was a woman who opened a restaurant making all of her grandmother's old recipes, and everything on the menu was simply outstanding. So now I totally want to go back to Paris just so I can impress some guy with my local knowledge of great little French restaurants tucked down an alleyway...
After dinner, we left the restaurant and walked back down to the Metro station, but on the way we passed this random hillside of steps, and you could see Sacre Couer all lit up at the top. And they'd put these little lights into the hillside, so the whole thing seemed to glitter and sparkle, with the beautiful white Sacre Couer at the top. It was absolutely breathtaking. And so I tried to take a picture, but as so often the way with these things, it just didn't come out right.
I then dragged my parents down to the Ecole Militaire (they were really fading by this point, and I wondered if dragging them out near midnight was pushing their limits), but I think they were still delighted when we rounded a corner, and there was the Eiffel Tower, all lit up in front of us. Call it cheesy or overly touristy or whatever, but there is still something awe-inspiring and just absolutely beautiful about the Eiffel Tower at night. And so we walked through the park up to it, and even got some tourists to take our photo with it.
And my mother was wondering if we should go up it, but I pointed out to her that you couldn't go up it after midnight, at which point it nearly was. And she exclaimed with surprise, "It's midnight?" But at that moment, the tower all began to sparkle and glitter, and everyone in the crowds below went, "Ooooooh!" And so we stood there watching all of the dancing lights, marvelling at how even after you've seen it a million times, the City of Light will still take your breath away.
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