Stairs, Stairs, and More Stairs

Today was the day of stairs.  We started out climbing Notre Dame – with 384 – and ended up climbing many times that by the end of the day.  While this was Day Two of the Museum Pass, the boys were happy to go to Notre Dame and climb up.  It is one of the things from their list that they want to make sure they do in Paris.

The boys really liked this bell.  Jack was a little nervous that it would ring when we were near it because he figured it would be pretty loud.  (It takes 8 men to ring it by hand, so I wasn’t too worried…)

The views were as good as promised!

We also climbed stairs at Saint Chapel church, The concierge (old prison), and the Louvre.  I know, I know – again!  But it just felt wrong to have been so close to the pieces of art that we wanted to see, and not see them.  The boys were a little hesitant at first, but when they realized that the Mona Lisa was there, they were game.  (Ok, so Owen was game, and we bribed Jack with ice-cream…)

The boys liked the artwork much more today and actually asked to stop at several paintings.  Owen was fascinated by the Christ on the cross paintings.  Fascinated in a kind of -awful car wreck you wish you didn’t look at but can’t quite stop yourself from looking again – kind of way.  I tried to hurry him along as he had a hard time getting over a painting he saw yesterday – depicting the bible story with King Solomon deciding what to do with two mothers with one dead and one living baby, each claiming the living one was her own.  But it felt strange telling Owen not to look at these great works of art that were so interesting him.  And the pieces today were not that graphic (certainly we had passed other scenes of hell and some scary looking demons which didn’t phase him at all.)  Jack finally said, “These make my tummy feel funny inside.  I don’t want to look at them anymore.”  And we moved on.

I think we will stick with the Monet’s water lily paintings or the like,  for the time being!

We all enjoyed Jack’s bribe…some ice-cream from a shop across the street from our apartment.  (one that makes your ice-cream into a flower on the cone – will have to take a photo!)  Somehow we have passed this store several times a day and neither of the boys have figured out it was there!  It was so good that I am afraid I will cave the next time the boys ask for it!