Berthillon Icecream | A Daily Dose of Europe

Paris Days 8-10

With week one and the majority of sights to be seen – seen, week 2 in Paris was about just living day to day in our “regular life“ routine. There was no real plan of things we had to do or see.

On the Monday we decided to head to the oldest Zoo in Paris at the Jardine des Plantes. Both Brodie and Sydney have been infatuated with Zoos’ ever since Heidelberg and I thought it would be a great outing for the 3 of us. We made our way to the stop on the metro, but got a bit turned around once we surfaced, however we finally made our way. It was pretty hot and humid that day so Syd fell asleep in the stroller, while Brodie and I toured around looking at all the animals, and since the zoo had Orangutans, Brodie was especially happy! We made our way to the reptile area of the zoo, Syd woke up and was excited to see the turtles and the crocodiles. When it was time to continue on our way, we made our way to the metro for only 2 stops since the person I asked for walking directions gave me a real funny look and said it was much too far to walk to Île Saint-Louis and Berthillon Ice cream.

Sooooo …… Berthillon ice cream was closed by the time we got there, however….. all the shops on the Island sell their ice cream, so the kiddies were none the wiser, all while eating their cones of delicious Berthillon ice cream! Syd had her usual daily meltdown over nothing, in the most unusual place, and this one was on the Ponte Marie as we were leaving the island bound for the metro…. sigh!

Tuesday we decided to hop the Metro to Jardin d`Acclamition. It is a kids amusement park that has been open since October 1860……. craziness, right…. anyway the kids and I had a blast! There are all these different play areas. some with just crazy swings, some with just an entire rope fort, and rope bridges (Brodie got his first rope burn when another little boy “bounced” him off the rope bridge). Our favourite part of the park was the Enchanted River ride – it is a man made river and big wooden boats, that take you along the cutest little route, with stone crocadiles and alligators. Syd was scared of the “covered mist”, but it sure felt great in the heat! There was also the most awesome horse racing ride with carousel sized horses that went bouncing along a railing. So. Much. Fun. Seriously!

There was also a small train that went through the park and dropped off close to the metro station. The kids and I loved this. We spent longer in the park than I thought we would, so we hit rush hour on the M1 line back to our stop at the Charles de Galle -Etoille. It was crazy busy, we even waited for 2 trains just to see if it was going to get any “less busy”. On the third train I decided we just needed to squish our way in…… 2 kids, myself and a folded up double Maclaren stroller. I had 2 guys that were so awesome helping hold the stroller while I held on to Syd, Brodie, and the pole so I didn’t go flying.! It was super stressful but we made it to our stop.

The weather was mixed on the Wednesday, the kids were tired so I thought it would be good to walk to the Disney store on the Champs de Elysees, and then it would be onwards to Les Halles park which I read was THE MOST AMAZING PARK for kids. The store had the greatest Spiderman display, and it was on Brodies must go and see list, since he saw it from Les Cars Rouge the week before. We got to the store and it was Spiderman from top to bottom – Brodie was in heaven! “Can I get this….. no…… how about this…… no, no maybe this”. Brodie settled on a set of Spiderman PJ’s and has worn them just about everyday since!

Both kids were tired so I decided I would walk to Les Halles park and let them snooze in the stroller. I knew it would be a long walk and was prepared for it since they both needed sleep. It really WAS a long walk…… at one point I thought I must have missed the Rue de Louvre. I finally found my way to Les Halles, after an hour and a half, of pushing a double stroller, with 2 kids asleep, and mostly on cobblestones, in the 25+ degree weather – just to find out the park was under a major renovation, and had been since 2010. I now had 2 well rested kiddies that wanted to run and play, and no park to do it in!

All was not lost for me this day…. upon finding Les Halles was closed I found a cafe for an afternoon coffee with the kiddies that was right across the street from the only store I wanted to shop in in Paris……… E. Dehillerin. A cook shop that 12 years earlier I bought my first and only copper pot. It is the oldest cook shop in Paris, and it was on my list to add more copper pots to my collection. We made our way to the store, and I knew the pots I wanted to buy, so that part was pretty easy…… getting our purchases paid for, (wow…… a whole lot of paperwork) and “wrapped” on the “wooden table”, well that was a whole other process. Now I probably would have loved this whole process if I didn’t have 2 kids that just slept and needed to run! It was a painful 25 minutes, trying to keep the kids interested (and under control) while we finished the purchase of the pots!

We left the store with the intent of getting on the metro, and going to a little park that was near our apartment. The Les Halles metro station is CRAZY (once you finally make your way through the underground mall). We were going to hop on our regular M1 line but with the experience of rush hour the day before, fresh in my mind, I decided we would take the RER line. The RER line is only 2 stops to our Charles de Gaulle – Etoile stop, and is less crowded. All was going well…… the train arrived, tons of room, and was super fast being it was only 2 stops. We were making some good time – well that is until we needed to exit! We were doing fine…. following all the Sortie signs, when all the signs just stopped, and there were more pay stations that we needed tickets for. The other problems was having to get the stroller through, all while keeping the kids together and in control. All that precious time we made up on the train, we lost trying to get out of the station and back to street level.

After all that I was finally at the end…. it was almost 5, the little park that the kids now wanted to go to was another 20 minute walk, and I just didn’t have it in me after trying to get out of the station. The kids were disappointed, but didn’t put up much of a fight, and home we went.

This was probably my only real “off day” in Paris, but looking back on the day, Brodie got to see his Spiderman display and he picked up some pretty awesome PJ’s that he loves. I bought two new copper pots that I love and cant wait to cook in……. and we were in PARIS! Life is good!

Enjoy your Daily Dose

Xox