Paris, Day 6 – Notre Dame, Shopping and Paris by Night

On Tuesdaymorning we were quite tired, so we slowly went to get breakfast and got dressed. Last year we had followed a walking route from my mom’s book through Quartier Latin, which we enjoyed a lot, so we decided to pick another route from the book. We chose the one around Notre Dame, since it looked quite nice. I had also received an email from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright Paris that they had found my buttons and that I could pick them up if I wanted!
We collected our things and went on our way.

Our outfits of the day! I wore my pirate skirt! This is one of the few pictures
where you can see my green shirt, since I put on a cardigan later.
I chose a metrostation that seemed close to the walking route. When we got out of the station, we noticed a little market across the street. My mom loves markets, so we decided to take a look.
The market was so cool and, to me, so French! There were a lot of foodstalls that sold everything! From fruit to fish to sausages!

The giant fruitstall!
We decided to buy raspberries and walked around some more. I saw a stall with absolutely adorable flower rings and bought two roses, in mint and pink.
After I looked at a map (to find out where the heck we were), we crossed the street and sat down next to little fountain. We decided to take some Amélie-like pictures with the raspberries (Haven’t seen that movie? Watch it, it’s one of my favourites!).

I love raspberries so much. ♥
We sat for a while and after I checked the map again we went on our way.
We walked past some nice buildings when we discovered a comic shop that sold all kinds of awesome figurines from movies, series and games. I saw a really beautiful Legend of Zelda statue, of Link and Epona. We found Doctor Who things and decided to buy a little spinning Tardis for my brother. For my dad we bought a Gromit figurine (from Wallace and Gromit). Finally we had some presents, yay!
We kept on walking (I was a bit lost, haha), but it was quite fun. Finally we saw the Notre Dame in the distance and we recognized the surroundings. We were standing in front of the shop Shakespeare & co, where we had been last year!
I started to feel quite cold, but luckily my mom had brought an extra cardigan with her! It was a bit big on me, but also nice and warm.
We walked along the street, into a little park with lovely flowers and a big black statue.

Mom. ♥
The park was really small, but incredibly well maintained. The different flowers were so colourful!

Me behind the flowers. I liked this outfit with my mom’s white cardigan a lot!
We crossed the street and went right, because I thought it would be easier to get to the start of the route. We walked past several stalls with paintings and books, until I discovered the route was at the other side of the Seine, so we walked back and crossed the bridge.

The beautiful cathedral. I love the architecture so much!
After we looked at a man feeding birds (he held up his hand and the birds sat on his hand, head and shoulders. It looked really cute), we walked into the garden next to the church. The garden wasn’t very special, but there we quite a lot of small houses made of straw, that reminded me of African huts.

Taking a picture of each other. Don’t you just love the little straw house?
We walked through the garden and ended up at the back of Notre Dame. Lots of people were taking picture and we asked a man if he could take a picture of us too.

Behind the beautiful cathedral!
We followed the route and bumped into a weird, circle-shaped device that spun around where children were playing on. After they left, I tried it too! It was a lot of fun, because the device was in an angle of 45 degrees. When you lay down on it, it seemed like you were hanging upside down sometimes! I made me very dizzy! ^^
We continued to follow the route and left the garden, crossed the road and walked through an old, deserted street that used to be a very busy street in… the Middle Ages. Well, now it was a little dead. We passed a bush with an enormous snail shell on it, but thank God it was empty. XD I wonder if it was real..? After walking some more, we found ourselves in a more crowded street again with tourist shops.

It was fun to see how different the souvenirs were close to the Notre Dame!
We found an umbrella that really resembled a beautiful umbrella we had seen the year before: a dark blue one with colourful flowers on it. We decided to buy it and take pictures with it! Although the route said we had to go right, we decided to go left, back to the Notre Dame. I was a bit tired and I really wanted to go inside the church this time! We arrived at the big square in front of Notre Dame and took some pictures.

My mom with the new umbrella. Her make up matched the colour perfectly!
The square was very crowded as usual. The long line in front of the entrance of the cathedral reached everywhere. We took some (jumping) pictures in front of Notre Dame, which was a challenge with all the tourists walking by!

We took a similar picture like this one last year too.
We also managed to take a picture of Point Zero, the spot from where all the distances in Paris are measured.

My mom regrets not taking more pictures like this during the previous days.
Despite the amount of people, we decided to go stand in line. We had to see the inside of Notre Dame some day after all, so why not try it today? To our surprise we didn’t stand in line for long! Entering the church is free, so it takes less time to let people enter.

Almost time to enter!
We entered through a big wooden door and immediately the atmosphere changed. I think that is what makes churches so special: whether you’re a believer or not, everyone speaks softly in a church, making the whole experience of visiting a church spiritual.
I must be honest: I love the Notre Dame from the outside, but from the inside it was not very special to me. Some of the windows were really beautiful, that much is true. But the rest wasn’t very different from any other church.

The beautiful side window.
We followed the outer path inside the cathedral, walking the wrong way. There was a small exhibition about saint Thérèse de Lisieux, which was interesting to read and look at. When we arrived at the other side, we could finally enter the middle part of the church. I was hoping we could see the round front window of the cathedral from there, since I heard it was very beautiful. But there were organ pipes in front of it! =(
After walking around some more, we left the church again. We had finally seen it from the inside!
For a moment we doubted about what to do, but we decided to stop following the route and go somewhere else. We walked back into the street with the tourist shops, when we saw two bicycle taxis! We were very excited and took a look at the prices. It was quite expensive, but since we wanted to take the taxi so bad, we decided to take one to the Louvre!

I love bicycle taxis! I was so glad we took one!
Our driver (or should I say ‘cycler’?) was British and very nice. He was so strong. And brave! One bus drove so close past us I was scared!

It was so much fun looking at the driver and the beautiful buildings of Paris!
After a while we arrived at the Louvre (again! XD) and we thanked our driver. We had gotten quite hungry, so we decided to go get something to eat at the stall from Paul. We both chose a piece of chocolate cake.

Mom with our lunch!
We sat down on a bench under a tree and immediately a bunch of birds came up to us, with little greedy eyes. My mom held out her hand and some of them flew up to it to see if she had any food! When we finished our lunch, we bought a croissant, just to feed them!

I love feeding birds! They are so much lighter than you expect!
After the birds finished the croissant (XD), my mom suggested to go to my shops! We walked to Rue de Rivoli and took the metro to Bastille. There, a violinist was playing beautiful music. I really love the musicians in the metro stations. They create such a great atmosphere!
We arrived at Ledru-Rollin, where we took pictures again in the Photomaton! When we left the metrostation, the sun started to shine. After a brief stop at McDonald’s (where I could go to the toilet normally), we went to Baby, the Stars Shine Bright. While walking to the shop, Sawada-san passed us on the street, haha!
The shop was completely deserted! It was very different from a couple of days ago, when the shop was filled with dressed up girls in poofy petticoats. We said hello to Claire and I browsed the shop some more. Of course there weren’t any new items, but I just love looking around there so much! My mom showed me a cardigan she liked, with a piano keys print on the bottom. I liked it too, but I would have preferred it if the piano had been printed on the back of the cardigan too. Suddenly, I saw a cardigan I hadn’t seen last time: a red, short sleeved one with white polkadots. I instantly fell in love! I adore red with white polkadots and I had been looking for ages for a cardigan like this one. I tried it on and it was so perfect, I just had to buy it! It’s perfect for in and out of Lolita. ♥
Sawada-san had returned and I asked if they had found my pins. He went to the back and gave me a new set! He also gave a set to my mom, so sweet! ♥
I also decided to buy one of the big Baby bags I had seen a couple of days before: a big, linen bag with a bow and chocolates on it. I preferred the white one, but since it was sold out I decided to buy the brown one. It’s cute and very handy to bring lots of Lolita stuff with you!

I made a picture just like this one last year!
I took some last pictures of the shop (because I love it sooo much), until Claire was finished wrapping my things.

Me and Claire. ♥
I thanked Claire and Sawada-san for the 100th time and then we left the shop. Hopefully I’ll be able to shop there again next year! Or sooner..?

Purchase picture!
Then we went on our way to Angelic Pretty!
When we arrived there, it was just like Baby: deserted! Such a difference, the shop seemed a lot bigger! Dominique and Cocotte were there, yay! I looked around and showed my mom some things, which was a lot easier now. It’s funny: my mom loves Baby’s dresses most, but she prefers AP’s jewelry (except for the Baby necklace she once gave me).
I walked up to the closet with dresses to see if the Cutsew OP was still there and it was! While my mom was talking to Dominique I tried it on. I was a bit nervous about the size: Sydney bought it too and she’s skinnier than me. But to my great happiness it fit and it looked so cute! I showed it to my mom and she really liked it! Of course I couldn’t leave it hanging, since it was for sale too! So I bought the adorable dress! ^^
After thanking both Dominique and Cocotte again for their help and for the wonderful Tea Party, it was time to go.

With my Angelic Pretty bag!
We returned to the metro and we decided to go back to the hotel to rest for a while. We wanted to try to get up the Eiffeltower again that night.
Apparently, it was rush hour because the metro was so full! We decided to wait for the next one and sat down, but other people didn’t and literally squeezed themselves in. Since there were so many people, the doors couldn’t close and the metro didn’t depart before several tries of closing the doors!
We arrived at our station and we bought huge macarons in the cute bakery close to our hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and chatting on Facebook.
Both my mom and I wanted to eat at McDonald’s (somehow we had cravings XD) and I had looked up where the closest restaurant was. It was only one station away, so we decided to go look for it. When we exited the metro station (after shaking off a man that started talking to us in English about him living there for quite some years) we were shocked! We were only one station away, but this seemed like some kind of bad ghetto! After walking a few meters, my mom said: ‘Ok, I recall my statement that every part of Paris is beautiful. I want to go back, I don’t feel safe here!’ and we went back to the metro. I suggested to go the McDonald’s on the Champs-Elysées and my mom agreed, so we went on our way!
After looking at some shops at the Champs-Elysées, we walked into McDonald’s. It was very crowded, so we waited for a while. The staff was very slow, wow. It was almost interesting. In the next line there was a man and sorry, I must say it: he was a real pig! He was waiting for the rest of his order, but he was already stuffing his fries into his mouth. And when I say stuffing, I mean stuffing! Ugh, disgusting.
We found a place to sit outside, so we could look at the people passing by.

Somehow I can totally imagine this being a meme, like a ‘rich girl meme’? XD
‘Only eats fries… at Champs-Elysées!’ would be the caption. XD
After we finished our dinner, I went to to the toilet (looong line), while my mom went to get some desserts at the McCafé. She bought tiramisu for herself and cheesecake for me. We decided to eat it at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe.

'Only eats tiramisu… at Arc de Triomphe!' XD
The sky was turning darker and we finished our dessert.

Yay, my very own Marilyn Monroe picture! ^^
We decided to go the Eiffeltower and we took the metro after taking some together pictures.
We arrived at Trocadéro, but when we arrived there we found one of the many obstacles in Paris: more gates. There was no way of getting through, so we walked all the way around Trocadéro. Well, at least we saw a new side of Paris again. -_- After somehow getting around the big building, there were more gates. Luckily we could walk around them and continue our way. We could finally see the Eiffeltower again! The tower started sparkling while we crossed the river.

Perfect picture is perfect. ♥
We crossed the street and set foot on the square underneath the Eiffeltower, but we quickly realized this was not going to work. The line in front of the only elevator was very long. We asked a member of the staff if the top was opened, but she told us it would close in 45 minutes. Standing in line for the Eiffeltower itself would take about an hour, so I didn’t want to go up anymore. We decided it was not meant to be this time in Paris.
I suggested to go to Tour Montparnasse instead: the second highest building in Paris with a panoramic view on top. I had thought of it before, but now was the perfect moment! We went on our way to station Bir-Hakeim.
We took the metro and arrived at station Montparnasse Bienvenüe, but to my disgust it was super quiet! This station is so big, why was it so quiet?
We followed the signs that said ‘Tour Montparnasse’, but when we walked around the corner the metal fence was down! For a moment I got really angry and upset: was this really happening again? But then I remembered the Tower would be open until midnight, so we decided to take a different exit.
We exited the station and immediately saw the blue lighted tower in front of us. We walked up to it and entered through the front door, but there were only security guards. Luckily they told us the entrance was around the corner, but the last elevator ride up would be at eleven. It was 15 minutes before eleven, so that was okay. We bought our tickets and entered the elevator. We were together with a couple with a young child. I was a little worried about the time, since I didn’t want to end up missing the last train again. I asked the man if he knew at what time the last metro would depart and he looked it up for me in his phone. The last train wouldn’t leave anytime soon, so I felt okay again.
We arrived at the top, where a photographer took a picture of us in front of a green screen. They put a panoramic picture of Paris behind us later. We walked through a hall up some stairs to get to the roof. When we arrived there, I let out a sigh of amazement. The roof was surrounded by glass windows, so you could see everything perfectly! The view on the Eiffeltower was wonderful too! The building wasn’t very big, so you could easily walk around.
My mom had been acting a little strange ever since we had exited the metrostation. It turned out she wasn’t feeling comfortable at all! To her, the building seemed supersmall and way too high. She had a lot of trouble with her vertigo and she couldn’t enjoy the view. At least I did enjoy it, otherwise the little trip would have been for nothing. ^^’
While I looked at the city, a bunch of people was yelling every time the search light of the Eiffeltower hit the building. Then I realized it was almost 11 pm, time for the Eiffeltower to sparkle! We found a little spot in front of the glass and waited. Finally, it started to sparkle again!

I loved the view so much! Paris by night is really gorgeous!
As soon as the Tower stopped sparkling lot of people left and we decided to follow them. They were probably returning to the metrostation, so at least we wouldn’t be alone there. We checked our picture first and then went down with the elevator again.

Tour Montparnasse, I really recommend it! The view is great!
The metrostation was much more crowded now and we felt a lot safer. We took the direct metroline to our hotel. Two guys with a violin and a saxophone walked into our train segment and started to play music, which was a lot fun!
We arrived our hotel and went to bed.