Paris Day 2... December 15, 2013

We were once again up way before the sun. Which is actually not hard to do because the sun doesn't come up until about 8:30, but we were up around 3:00 again. The kids read and watched movies and played games quite well, and by 8:30 we left and ate breakfast at Paul. I couldn't get enough of their olive bread, and the kids had some great cinnamon rolls. 

We took the train to the Louvre (the kids thanked us for not walking there), and we spent a couple of hours exploring its beauties. Aaron had a scavenger hunt for the kids, so they were on a hunt to find some of the art on the list.  They really liked Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People.  It reminded them of the barricade from Les Miserables.  Sophie was thrilled that there were so many pictures of Baby Jesus and Mary. She pointed all of them out. And the kids saw some interesting depictions of some Bible stories, like David and Goliath, and the beheading of John. Of course the favorites were the Mona Lisa and Venus di Milo. It brought back memories of when Aaron and I took the kids there 7 years ago and they watched Little Einsteins on the iPod in the double stroller so Aaron and I could enjoy the museum. We made them pause it long enough to look up at the Mona Lisa and a couple of others. It was so nice this time because there were no crowds at all. 

As we walked from the Gardens we came across the "Lock Bridge".  The real name is Pont de l'Archevêché. We had seen it on The Amazing Race, so we were excited to happen upon it ourselves.  A padlock is locked to the bridge, typically by sweethearts with their initials on it, to symbolize their love.  Then the key is thrown away to symbolize unbreakable love.  Aaron and I wrote our names, but we also had the kids write their names on the lock too.  We locked it on the bottom row of the bridge between the 3rd and 4th lamp posts.  

We had a nice walk through Luxembourg Gardens. The kids found a fun playground with an awesome zip line that they played on for 30 minutes or so. 

We continued on to find the catacombs. I have always wanted to go here, but never have. We waited in line for about an hour, but Aaron and Ashley went and got us some chocolate eclairs, and some other treats, to make our wait more enjoyable. Sophie's gigantic cookie lasted almost the whole time. The walk through the catacombs was very interesting, and shocking. The countless amount of skulls and bones, stacked so perfectly and beautifully, was amazing. The Catacombs of Paris is an underground ossuary. Located south of the former city gate, the ossuary holds the remains of about six million people and fills a renovated section of caverns and tunnels that are the remains of Paris's stone mines. Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1874. 

                                      

It was around 4:00 when we left the catacombs, so we called it a day again and returned via taxi to the hotel.  We were leaving early the next morning for our flight to Israel, so we got organized and ready to go.