2 April 2018 – A sunny Monday near the Seine and an Easter concert in Paris [France]

We took advantage of some lovely Spring weather in Paris on the public holiday Easter Monday, and wandered along the Seine to Notre Dame, indulging in some souvenir shopping, crepe eating and people watching, before an Easter concert at the Madeleine Cathedral.

Despite Anto and my late night at the ballet the night before, the kids didn’t sleep in much past 7am. Running out of days left in Paris to indulge in French treats, Anto and Astrid went to fetch some fresh breakfast pastries and came back with warm croissants aux almonde, pain au Swisse (which had chocolate bread and custard) and pain au chocolat. Plus some more fresh baguette. We were all in a sugar coma post-breakfast but we figured we’d miss those delicious pastries come our time in Iceland (and we were right)……

Since it was a nice day for once, we decided to do some wandering around and enjoy the sights of Paris.  It was already about 8 degrees in the morning and the sun was trying to peak its head out. We wandered down towards the Seine for a walk along the famous river, and a visit to Pont Neuf. We have walked this area dozens of times over the years but it is always scenic and the weather made for some spectacular light this Monday morning…….

I must have hundreds of photos taken in the same area but today the light was amazing so I added a few more. Being a public holiday and long weekend there were plenty of tourists out and about, but we managed to avoid most of the tour bus crush.

As part of our leisurely wander, we had a couple of stops at the markets along the river to buy a few bits and pieces to add to our ever-expanding luggage…..

Now in the area we opted for a wander past Notre Dame. We’ve all been inside the famous cathedral before, so we were happy just to take photos of the beautiful views outside.  This was lucky as the lines to get into Notre Dame were back over the bridges, so we would have been in for a rather long wait.

The light was still pretty amazing so I was more than happy to make use of it and capture Notre Dame from the outside on this occasion (complete with posing kids)…………

We then walked back over to one of the islands for some souvenir shopping and a little more sight-seeing. Sadly Berthillon, our favourite ice-cream provider, is closed on a Monday so we couldn’t stop for salted caramel ice-cream, but instead wandered around admiring the houses and gardens and picked up a few more souvenirs.

Without our ice-cream fix, we instead walked back past Notre Dame in search of some crepes, as Granny hadn’t yet had any during her Paris stay.  While freshly cooked street crepes are generally  our preferred option, Soren really needed a toilet so we decided to sit down for coffees and inside crepes. We picked somewhere that was making them fresh to order outside and it turned out to be a good pick.

The kids had lemon and sugar crepes and a hot chocolate they shared with Granny, and they were excellent.  Anto and I decided we needed something non-sugary so shared a champignon omelette which was also pretty tasty.

With full tummies, it was off wandering again across another bridge, stopping to listen to the buskers and take some Paris selfies!

We then wandered past Hôtel de Ville, the city administration building which happens to be one my favourite buildings in the city to look at. The kids are rather fond of the carousel that is in front of Hôtel de Ville, but we declined their request for their favourite carousel ride as we were going to Disneyland the next day, and instead headed into Forum des Halles for some shopping.

Shopping was relatively successful, we were making sure we filled up Granny’s bags before we headed off to Iceland and she was off on her river cruise through France.

We made it back to the apartment around 2pm for some late lunch and an enforced nap for the kids before our Easter concert that night.

We had dinner in the apartment of spätzle and chicken, cooked by Anto then it was back out into the cold for the metro over to Madeleine station for the concert, which was being held in the L’église de la Madeleine (Madeleine church) in the 8th Arrondissement. Of course we weren’t rushing thinking the concert started at 6.30pm and got there about 6.15pm to discover it had started at 6pm! The church is very plain (but enormous) from the outside but extremely beautiful on the inside.

The concert was lovely, with a six person orchestra of violins and a cello and opera accompaniment for some songs. The music and singing were beautiful and sounded wonderful in the large church.

The kids also enjoyed the concert, although Soren was getting tired and restless by the end so it was probably good we missed the start.  The concert ended just after 7pm and when we headed back out into the cold it had started to rain.

The Easter weekend in Paris done and dusted, it was a quick trip back on the metro to our apartment, before we had to convince the kids that they needed a good nights sleep before a big day  at Disneyland the next day……..

Daily statistics for Monday the 2nd of April, 2018 in Paris, France – the temperature range for the day was a mild 7 to 16 degrees Celsius, with a mean of 12 and light rain in the evening.  The total walking for the day was 11.0km.

Up next – on our 4th trip to Paris in 5 years, we finally made it to Disneyland, Paris!  All the Disney pictures coming up soon……