Paris Day 2- Sainte-Chapelle, Lunch, La Cuisine, Eiffel Tower, Seine Night River Boat Tour

We got up and headed straight to the chapel that was closed as we finished our walking tour on Day 1. We waited in a VERY long line for over an hour and once we were close to the entrance I found someone to ask if we could go in the other door with our pass and sure enough we could have. What a waste of time. Thankfully we didn't wait even longer. We had to go through a metal detector since it was secured building with a Courtroom I believe located in the square. Surprisingly it beeped on us but since we had the baby they just let us through...they really are VERY relaxed with kids. VERY different from the United States where they wouldn't care if you had a baby or not.

Sainte-Chapelle

The Chapel has a low ceiling entrance room where the common folk worshiped. The Royal Christians worshiped upstairs. located up spiral stairs on one side and you exit another set of stairs on the other side. It really is breath taking to be surrounded by stain glass.

Cain Clubbing Abel (Top left: Cain is in red) &
Jesus in purple being crowned with thorns (top right)

The Stained Glass

Fiat lux. "Let there be light." From the first page of the Bible, it's clear — light is divine. Light shines through stained glass like God's grace shining down to earth, and Gothic architects used their new technology to turn dark stone buildings into lanterns of light. The glory of Gothic shines brighter here than in any other church.

There are 15 separate panels of stained glass(6,500 square feet — two thirds of it 13th-century original), with more than 1,100 different scenes, mostly from the Bible. These cover the entire Christian history of the world, from the Creation in Genesis (first window on the left, as you face the altar), to the coming of Christ (over the altar), to the end of the world (the round "rose"-shaped window at the rear of the church). Each individual scene is interesting, and the whole effect is overwhelming.

This triumph of Gothic church architecture is a cathedral of glass like no other. It was built in 1248 for King Louis IX — the only French king who is now a saint — to house the supposed Crown of Thorns (now kept at Notre-Dame and shown only on the first Friday of the month and during Easter). Its architectural harmony is due to the fact that it was completed under the direction of one architect and in only five years — unheard of in Gothic times. Since Notre-Dame took over 200 years.

Beautiful TALL ceiling

Loved the HUGE door!

Pictures from Outside the Chapel and surrounding buildings in the square:

After our tour of the Chapel we were starving...well, I was mostly thirsty since we didn't bring water with us on accident. We hit up the local street vendors for some grub and two bottles of water to drink before heading back to the hotel for our babysitter for SP so we could attend our cooking class that afternoon.

First Penni
(So Yummy...full meal: Sandwich, side, dessert for about $9)

Loved the look of this tower. Sadly it was closed.

Once we got SP to sleep right before the babysitter arrived. So glad we were able to do that. I told her about the different feeding options (rice cereal with water, bottle of Breast milk, baby food-pear (she's not a fan of though)) so she would have ways to help SP in case she got hungry before we got back. I was relieved when I opened the door to see a sweet girl standing there. She reminded me of a brunette form of Julie our babysitter at home. That was a huge relief.

We took off for the Metro and tried to navigate our way to the cooking class. We left with lots of time and thankfully we did. We got a little turned around. Yeah for Becca's GPS on her phone. We started walking and it was tell us if we were getting further away or closer. I then finally asked a local store worker where to go and we walked in right on time! Yeah. It was exciting to just be with my sister.

La Cuisine
(Tutti Frutti Cooking Class: Pear and Lemon Tarts)

We lucked out in our class that half the class didn't show up so we were in very small group! We got to do a lot more hands on and it was great. Another mother with her two teen daughters from Canada were also there for the cooking class.We had so much fun in the class. We were asked at the beginning of the class if we bake. I said yes. The instructor then asked us what we baked. I said pies, cakes, cookies. She dwas impressed that we actually baked. She said some times she asks and people say they do but all they do is slice off cookie dough from the packages from the store and put them in the oven. I laughed and said no we make our own dough AND pie crusts too. The other mother that was there said that's what they do. I was shocked. It really isn't that hard to bake with a recipe. I sure hope after this class they try baking more.

Tips Learned

Measuring with a scale ROCKS...less dishes to clean
Foil &baking beans filled your pie crusts to keep them from getting bubbles on the bottom
Real vanilla bean is YUMMY
Beating things by hand takes FOREVER

Our Class
(instructor on the right)

Best part...tasting the fruits of our labors!

SP's Babysitter

(sadly she blinked but I didn't want to ask for another picture)

Once back our cooking class we found out that SP slept for an hour and then woke up for a little bit. She tried to see if she would eat but she wasn't interested. She held her for a little bit and changed her diaper and then SP fell back asleep! Becca and I were in SHOCK. Rebecca was wondering WHY she doesn't do that for us and sleep at night. I was glad though that she wasn't upset with me being gone. It made for a VERY expensive babysitter for her only being up for about 15 minutes out of the 2.5 hours.

Eiffel Tower

We packed up the stroller and headed out for the metro to see the Eiffel Tower. I was so excited to finally lay my eyes on it. It's been one thing I would like to see in this lifetime. Rebecca read in "Rick's" book that we needed to ride the metro to Trocadéro to see the best view of the Eiffel Tower. It was stunning. I just wish there weren't so many other people there too. Especially guys selling mini Eiffel Towers and other souvenirs.

SP sporting the cute hat her cousin made for her

Closeup_across the street

We were hoping to ride up to the top for the sunset but the line was TERRIBLY long!!! The line almost wrapped around to three of the four legs of the tower. After waiting for like 30 minutes and not really moving much we decided we would come back another day. We also brought the stroller and we decided we would put SP in the Ergo for the next trip.

View of the tower from Champ de Mars Garden

The Eiffel Tower lights up every evening from sunset to 1am (2am during the three months of summer), coupled with the lighthouse on the Tower top that sends out its light beams during the same hours. The glimmering lights happen for ten minutes every hour at night.

We walked around the garden grounds. I loved watching people jogging by off the beaten path. There was a tomb like structure there but there wasn't anything telling us what it really was. It was fun yet also a little creepy since it's not lit real well. After talking for awhile and figuring out what we wanted to do with the rest of our night we decided to go on a night river tour. I had read so much about them and figured it was a MUST.

Seine Night River Boat Tour

waiting for the tour to begin...a little chilly
(yeah for a stroller full of sweaters and extra baby blankets)

So after going on the tour I think a day time one would be better for pictures. It was pretty to see the lights but sometimes harder to see things because it was night. I wouldn't say it was worth the money though. I think I'll only do it again if someone else really wants to go that I'm with.