Bonjour Paris

My very modest attempts at French lessons had hit a wall. I'm not a natural linguist and find French hard to teach when K loves it and W doesn't. We did the basics but I was out of steam. We happened across £6 kids tickets to Paris in the budget airline sales last year (it was more expensive to get back to the UK than to leave sadly but still a bargain) so we decided on a day trip to Paris to soak up some French culture and practice the basics.

We pre-booked tickets to the Tour Eiffel which are good value although Storm Doris meant we couldn't visit the summit. A quick marvel at the engineering and the views and we were happy to tick it off the bucket list and head out for more exploring. We missed the Catacombs (I tried to pre-book tickets but was 3 minutes too late the night before - you have to book before 10pm for the next day if you're being spontaneous/disorganised like me!) but stood outside, next to the (3 hour+) queue, and showed the boys some images on my phone. We didn't get to see the bones of 6 million people, but there were roughly 6 million people in the queue so we imagined them all as skeletons and then headed off for lunch.

We ate in a lovely little cafe down a side street, managed our order, pleases and thank yous (with a bit of showing off from Mum with a very passable 'Can I pay by card' - thanks google translate). We experienced the Metro and RER and figured out signs. We walked along the river, outwitted a pick pocket (but only just) and found a play park and free toilets behind Notre Dame.

We had got up at 4am, and arrived home at midnight, as storm Doris caused yet more trouble. We were beyond tired but it had been a fabulous day.

I'd go so far as to say it was fantastique.