Earlier in May, we went to Paris for a couple of days before our bigger adventure to Disneyland Paris. With Jaxon starting school in September, we decided we would try and fit this “big” holiday in before the schools break up for the Summer.
My first post was getting too long so I split it into two posts. You can find Part One here.
Sunday
With it being our last proper day in Paris, we decided we’d get up and be organised about what we were going to do. First, thing we headed over to the Sacre Ceour. We decided that we’d walk again which was fine. However the route that Chris had found on Google Maps, involved us climbing up the stairs that he tried to get us to climb back in 2010 when we came. We ended up taking a more gradual route which wiggled across the Montmartre hill instead of taking the stairs up the side.
We wandered along Rue Lepic and Chris commented that we were off to a special location. It crossed my mind whether we were going to be coming near the Cafe Des Deux Moulins which appears in Amelie. Actually in Chris’s plan he took us to 54 Rue Lepic which was Van Gogh’s House when he lived in Paris with his brother.
While exploring we stumbled upon Le mur des je t’aime (or the Wall of Love). The wall features the phrase “I love You” written 311 times in 250 languages. Some of the languages were easy to recognise or spoke but it was really hard to find English. While Jaxon explored a little where we were, Chris and I sat on the bench nearby and tried to spot the English one. Chris found it in the end but I now can’t remember where on the wall it was!
In this little garden, the birds were so tame. I think they were used to being fed by tourists. We found that there were signs all over the place saying not to feed the birds. Jaxon got a little excited and did a squeal which scared the bird away but even then the bird came back and sat on the fence just a little way, away from us.
We continued our walk through Montmartre towards the Sacre Ceour. If like me you’re a big fan of the film Amelie, You will recognise the greengrocers from below. Again I was excited and the boys didn’t really get why I was excited about a random Parisien shop. If you like the film Amelie, you can find more of the filming locations here. When we came to Paris back in 2010, we had been through the Abbesses Metro Station when we came to Montmartre that time.
Having made it to the Sacre Coeur, again we just wandered around the outside. It was very busy – I’m not sure if that was just the tourists or whether the churchgoers were also making it seem crazy. With it almost being lunchtime we decided to head down the hill towards the creperie that Chris had found. We had a little challenge between us which was for Jaxon and I to ride the Funicular railway down the side of the hill and Chris would race us on foot. The last time we did that was when we were in Bridgnorth and I was pregnant with Jaxon!
I didn’t manage to take many pictures on the way down the funicular. As I got my phone out to take a picture, I realised I had a message from my brother. There had been a small attach in the Opera district of Paris the evening before. By the time the attack had happened we had been back in our hotel room for hours but it was really sweet that my brother was on it to make sure we were all okay.
We went for lunch at Crêperie Brocéliande. For our main course we had a galette, which is a savoury buckwheat based crepe. With this being buckwheat it makes it wheat gluten free which meant Chris could eat it. I ate all of mine and then had what was left of Jaxon’s as he didn’t really like it. Chris also had a crepe for pudding too. The service was so lovely. The waitresses were bilingual and the menu came in French, English and Spanish. We made friends with an American couple and their daughter. The little girl thought that Jaxon was great so they kept pulling faces at each other.
Following lunch, we found a playground for Jaxon to play in. He’s spent the last two days doing things that were kind of “adult” activities rather than child-friendly and yet he’d been such a good boy. We spent a little time in the playground before we headed back to the hotel again. Chris and I spent some of the time repacking the suitcase ready to head to Disneyland Paris in the morning.
You can read all the posts here.
