Zurich & Paris

Our last day in Switzerland was spent in Zurich. We had planned on staying the night but after arriving in Zurich and seeing that it was just a big modern city, we decided to stay a few hours then drive back to Paris where we would just add an extra night to our hotel near the airport. We did a walking tour of Zurich from our guidebook that took us through some of the pedestrian shopping streets, through 2 local churches and along the riverfront. The bummer was we forgot our camera and had left it in the car so we have no pictures of Zurich.

After our tour we ended up back at the train station where our car was parked, picked up some dinner at the food court, then hopped in the car for our 6 hour drive back to Paris. It had also rained all day in Zurich and on the drive back to Paris so we were glad to have spent it mostly in the car. We arrived at our hotel after midnight, checked in and crashed around 1:30am.

The next day we had planned on driving all day back to Paris but since we came early, we now had a full free day and decided to go into Paris. It also happened to be Bastille Day, which is France's Independence day. Since it was a national holiday the streets were packed! Everyone was on holiday, there was a large military parade that morning down the Champs Elysees then fireworks planned for that evening at the Eiffel Tower. We are staying out by the airport so we took the train in to the city center arriving around noon. We first decided to see if we could go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. So did millions of others... The Eiffel Tower and surrounding park was the place to be all day with concerts going on all day. People were steaming in to the park and getting their spots for the fireworks show later that night. We couldn't even get near the tower with all the security blockades and people. We finally asked around and found out the tower would be closing in the afternoon to get ready for the fireworks so we gave up on the tower and headed over to the Arc de Triomphe. But first we stopped on Rue Cler for some lunch/snacks. We each got a yummy crepe. Chris & Sophie got a sugar crepe and I got a nutella one. We also picked up an eclair and raspberry tart.

Enjoying our crepes

Yummy


This was about as close to the tower as we could get.


We made it to the Arc de Triomphe, this was also a happenin place for Bastille day as it was the location of the tomb of the unknown soldier and there was some military ceremonies going on around that. We were however able to wait in a long line to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe something Chris and I have never done before in all our trips to Paris.

Views from the top











Back down, we decided to walk down the Champs Elysees since we had never walked the entire length of this famous street. It was also crowded and the barricades were still up from the morning parade restricting some of the areas that people could walk. We stopped at McDonalds for an early dinner.

Sorry we didn't take any pictures on the Champs Elysees. From there we decided to head over to the Tuileries Gardens as we knew it would be a fun place for Sophie to play and be able to run around. In the summertime they set up this little carnival in the gardens, we decided to have some fun here for a bit.

Soph had a blast

Next in the gardens we stopped at the park, this was our favorite park. It had so many fun things, Sophie had fun with all the kids. Traveling with Soph made us stop at a lot of parks but it was fun to see local parents out with their kids and getting to meet some of them.

Wandering through the gardens some more.

We had wanted to take one of these boat rides along the river as we had never done that. Not having our guidebook though for Paris (since it was an unplanned stop) we weren't sure where to catch it. It took about an hour of walking along the Seine to finally find the boat launch area but they were sold out until an 11pm boat tour. We thought that would be too late so we decided to skip it and stick around for the fireworks.

Sunset in Paris



We went over to visit the Notre Dame, it was closed inside but still fun to wander outside.



It was now getting dark about 11pm so we made our way back to the Tuilleries to watch the fireworks. Here was our view.

Sophie was getting tired and cranky so we left a few minutes early before the fireworks ended to beat the crowds in the subway. We made our way back to the train out to the airport only to discover halfway there, the train wasn't going all the way to the airport but to other suburbs of Paris. We hopped off the train and waited for another one to take us to the airport. But it never came. There was a few other Americans in our situation also trying to get out to the airport. We found a station attendant who told us there were no more trains to the airport but we had to take a bus. It was about 1am at this point when we finally got on the bus but the bus stopped at every other train station in the area picking people up. An hour later we arrived at the airport. It was now 2am and the shuttle from the airport to our hotel wasn't running so we got a cab to take us back to the hotel arriving just before 2:30am! One would think being Bastille day the trains would run late since the city was full of of people on Holiday! Luckily Sophie fell asleep on the bus and got a little rest. It was after 3am when we finally went to bed. Tomorrow we would be spending our last day at Disneyland again so we didn't mind just sleeping until we woke up then heading out to Disneyland.