Last day in Paris

Finally it was time for our last day in Paris. Our train left at 5pm but after what happened when we went to Paris, we decided to try to be at the station not too long after 4. Because we didn't really know how much time we would need to do stuff, we didn't plan too much and just figured we would go with the flow. The one thing we did plan was to visit the Parc de Villette.
This is a pretty famous park amongst the architectural community. It's huge and is known for these bright red follies that are build all through it. They are all different but have similar design elements. Some are able to have little shops and cafes in them.


There was also a little bit of a playground. There was the COOLEST slide shaped like a dragon. The tongue was the slide part and it went down for a long time and turned and landed in a sand pit. I had heard that Europe has the best parks for kids and I have to believe it, they would never allow that in a park in the US.
There was also the body of the dragon that snaked through the park. It was closed off but you could climb in and on it.


Also in the park is a big science center thing. They had a huge sphere outside of it. We weren't able to get a picture of it with scale but believe me, it's HUGE. I think it was bigger than the building it was next to. We kept thinking of the movie Sphere, naturally.


As we continued to walk through the park, we found some more things to play on. Jason had to give them a try.

We don't quite get the giant bicycle tire sticking out of the ground but whatever. This was really big too. I think it was taller than me possibly Jason too.
Another folly.
After walking through the whole park, we came out on a big plaza with a cool fountain. The sun had come out and it was a beautiful day (the first time the whole trip, one downside to visiting it in December).
From there, we went to visit the Pompadou Center. This was made similar to Lloyds of London in that all of the duct work and structural elements are on the outside. This one was made first and the parts were painted bright colors. Naturally it's the French who have the colored one and the British whose is all gray. It is a modern art museum which seems fitting. We didn't go in it but spent a lot of time looking at the outside (at least Jason did, I went into a little souvenir stall).
Next to that was the funky fountain from the strange water photo shoot in the new version of the movie Sabrina. After seeing the fountain in real life, the photo shoot made a lot more sense. That was as far as we had planned and it was only lunch time (a late lunch but still). So we decided to visit the Paris Opera House.
It was amazing. The gold statues were really shiny in the sun. They have tours through some of the parts. It's still a working theatre so you can't go back stage but you can see the whole front part and into the seats where the stage is. They also have a little library and museum about the opera. There was a special exhibit about one woman's jewelry she wore on stage. There was a lot of it and she did pretty much all the leading lady parts. Unfortunately, that part was kind of dark so those pictures didn't turn out so well.

Then as you walk up the stairs from the jewelry exhibit, you see the grand staircase. And I mean Grand! Natually the pictures don't do it justice, it was totally worth the entrance fee. This is such the place to see and be seen. I was blown away.To either side of the staircase where these little balconies. What better place to show yourself off to people coming in?

Look at how cute we are!
Then we went into the actual theatre. They had a couple of boxes open so you could see in. It was all very lush which red upholstry. The orchestra pit was being set up. Another example that this is still being used.

The ceiling in the theatre was pretty cool. Although it looked a little strange after all of the formality of the rest of the place to see the loose free form work of, I'm guessing, Chegal.

Anna quite enjoyed herself on the tiled floor. I'm sure she will grow up to love opera.

After this, we still had some time. We had to go back to our hotel to pick up our bag so we decided to visit Montmartre which was near there. It was on the top of a huge, steep hill. The only way to get up there was stairs so we carried the stroller up a whole mess of them. I think there were 7 flights. We discovered as we were coming down that there was a tram that went up and down. Oh well, the walking was good for us.

This place was an abbey and it was quite impressive and looked like an old fortress. At this point, we didn't have a ton of time so we just kind of walked around it quickly. The dome was quite impressive and looked even taller from the bottom of the hill. The view from up there was amazing. Probably similar to the view from the Eiffel Tower during the day.

Then it was time to pick up our bag and go to the train. We got on it without any problems. Anna slept most of the trip which was lovely. But since we can't have a completely uneventful trip, as we were taking the tube home after getting into London, there were some serious delays. Our train would wait a while in the station before we could go or it would stop in the middle. Then when we went to change lines, there were severe delays in that line. The next train expected at the platform was in 15 minutes! We didn't want to wait that long so we went above ground and took the overground train home. It's nice to be able to have more than one option when dealing with public transportation.

We had a great trip in Paris. I was glad that I spoke a little bit of French and could talk to waiters, ask for and understand directions and that sort of thing. I couldn't understand when people tried to say too much but what I knew helped. When we were buying our metro pass the first day, there were some Americans in front of us in line. I realized how soft the British accent is and hope we can manage going back to the States. I can see why other countries say we are loud and obnoxious.