France (Part One)

So which country is the birthplace of modern magic, has one official language but seven local languages, and a capital city with zero stop signs? France! I mean, sure, the country may be better known for its baguettes, art, and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, but if I said that, you wouldn’t have gotten the joy of Googling yesterday.

So I’ve spoken about this Gwyneth Paltrow story before, but I really wanted that for my kids, too: “I wanted you to see Paris for the first time with a [person] who will always love you, no matter what.” And we said that to them on the last day, while we were standing in front of St. Sulpice. They got to see the City of Love (and a lot of the rest of France) with two people who will love them, no matter what. Plus, they got to practice using their French on a daily basis.

So we went to France for about three weeks.

We started in Paris and stayed near the Eiffel Tower for a week.

We spent the first part of the trip in the canicule, or heat wave. Yes, it was just as bad as you were hearing on the news. It’s a city with very little air conditioning, so we had to shift things around and did most of the neighbour walks towards the end of the trip (we returned to Paris) and spent most of the first part of the trip in art museums and various landmarks.

We went to the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Pompidou, and Rodin. We went out to Versailles. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile. We went to 3579206 churches. (Okay, maybe it was more like 12 churches, but it felt like 3579206 churches.) And every single garden in the city. We ate falafel in the Marais and baguettes on Rue Crémieux. And crepes. There were so many crepes.

And Josh finally proposed on the Pont Neuf, which is what I had hoped he would do 19 years earlier.

And then we rented a car and headed to… Normandy. And I annoyed everyone in the car by belting out “Normandy” from Once Upon a Mattress. Our first stop was Étretat.

It was gorgeous, but even better, the water was so cold! We had a great time on the beach and then continued on to Bayeux, which was a highlight of the trip. We loved the town and the Bayeux Tapestry. And we toured the World War II fields. And we fell in love with the poppies that line all the roads in the area.

After a few days, we continued on to Mont St. Michel.

And St. Malo, which is technically Brittany. We ended up returning to Brittany later, but that story in a moment.

Actually, this is getting a little long, so I’ll throw up the rest of the towns tomorrow.