What I learned in Paris

It's quite a climb to get to la Basilique du Sacre Coeur...

Parisians have a gorgeous Academie Nationale de Musique...

Napoleon married Josephine, his one true love, here...

Parts of les Jardins des Tuileries are nice and cool on a hot day,

but the Paris Eye is puny compared to London's...

There are lineups everywhere in July, unless you get a speed pass...

It's hard to get close to the Mona Lisa...

But there are plenty of other more amazing portraits in le Louvre...

and Dan Brown was right -- parquet flooring all over the place!

To my girls' chagrin, there were no steps in front of Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris

where Quasimodo's mother supposedly died, but at least there were gargoyles...

Our girls were suitably impressed with the big church's flying buttresses,

and saw for themselves why Paris' bridges are stressed

by the weight of "lovers' locks"...

Leapfrog is still fun in Paris, as it was when I was her age...

The tower is most romantic at night...

My youngest daughter wasn't as impressed with the Eiffel 

as with the wildlife nearby (she took more pics of ducks and muskrats than the tower)...

but I'll admit that she has an eye for lining up interesting pictures...

Now it costs money to see l'arc de Triomphe close up, 

so this was as close as we got...

Shopping at the food markets was more fun than any grocery store...

and if you're not drinking wine near Champs de Mars,

you're selling it...

La Musee D'Orsay is better than le Louvre in our books...

It wouldn't take much for a sparrow to turn a somersault 

(Julia's pic again)...

And I wouldn't mind a glimpse of la tour Eiffel, l'arc de Triomphe 

and l'hotel des Invalides every day... if there wasn't an emergency 

department directly below me. As lovely as Paris is, there's no place like home!