Sacre Coeur

 Setting off from 37 Rue St. Andre des Artes for another day of adventure.  You'll notice us wearing the same clothes every day.  We packed LIGHT!  Our carry-ons were half empty going over to save room for souvenirs.  On the way home, our bags were stuffed and we were wearing most of the clothes we brought.

On the Metro.  I love it.  I can get around on the Metro much more easily than the bus, although I did learn the ropes of the bus a lot better this trip.  My parents are pros.  We even discovered an easy way to get the the Eiffel Tower.  It's a slog walking or taking the Metro (even though we discovered a cool way to get there from the Bir-Hakem stop!), but Bus 72 goes right along the river past all the main sights and drops you off right by the tower.  Bill discovered it one night when we didn't want to take the 45 minute Metro ride back home.  Rick Steves probably knew that, but he didn't mention it!  Speaking of, we had two of Rick Steves' guides on the coffee table and perused them when we were relaxing.  I like his style and can't believe how much research he has done.  He was a great resource.

You can't avoid the hills going to the Sacre Coeur, or all those stairs.  Ugh!

 Just what everyone wants to see: a pregnant tourist doing a rendition on Singin' in the Rain.

The rooftops kill me.  They're all so impossibly quaint and beautiful.

 The Sacre Coeur

 Montmartre.  It's so cute!  We got crepes and peeked in all the shops.  With all the walking and sight seeing, none of the girls ever complained for a minute.  They were up for anything all day and all night.  Good sports!

Getting gelato on the way back from the Sacre Coeur.  There's a chain of gelato stores called Amareno, and they're everywhere.  It's an Italian chain, so just when you think you have enough French to get by with, the menu is in Italian.  We always got the "piccolo" size.  hee hee

 More gelato.  Golda's eating passion fruit and strawberry.  Why no chocolate?  I don't get it.  The first time Golda, as a baby, asked for strawberry ice cream instead of chocolate, I was genuinely perplexed.  She was my daughter.  How could this happen? It was literally the first of many parenting surprises where I realized that my children weren't necessarily little extensions of me.  Shock!  In one area, though, they seem to have caught the bug or the gene or whatever drives my mom to love France so much.  I think all the girls loved it and want to go back somehow, someday.