Paris, Day 7 – Notre Dame, Busrides and Eiffeltower by Night

On Wednesday morning we woke up, but I wasn’t feeling well at all. I felt really nauseous, so I took a shower to feel better. It didn’t really help, so I hoped breakfast would help then. We had breakfast at the hotel and I did indeed feel better after eating. After breakfast we went upstairs, got our things and went on our way. Of course we took some outfit pictures too!

Our outfits! I think my mom looked really nice that day.
My mom had suggested to go to the Notre Dame church to take the bus there, so we took the metro to Cité, which is quite a creepy station. The ceiling was really high, with a staircase that seemed to go on forever. Plus: the elevator never came…
We walked up the stairs and we finally arrived at the top. There, we quickly spotted a Photomaton! Despite the incoming draft from outside, we took some nice pictures. Our poses: smiling, me sleeping and my mom smiling, ‘Grumpy Cat’ and looking away. ^^

My mom holding our pictures!
We walked up the stairs and left the station. We arrived at a square with a beautiful building with an even more beautiful gate in front of it in the distance. After looking around us for a bit, I discovered a sign telling us where to go. After a little walking, we found the Notre Dame church. Because it was the church’s 850th birthday, a special platform was placed in front of it with an information desk and lots of other, stair-like platforms from where you could take beautiful pictures of the front of the church. Along the low walls of the platform, deep questions were written like: ‘Quel est de sens de ma vie?’ (‘What is the meaning of my life?’) and other things like that. A lot of them had to do with religion and the church. We walked up to the stair-like platforms and took some pictures.

In front of the Notre Dame. ^^
We walked down the stairs and walked up the square in front of the church. Our initial plan was to take the bus right away, but since the line to go inside the Notre Dame was so short, we decided to go inside after all! While we were standing in line, we spotted lots of military men. We often see them in Paris.
We entered the Notre Dame and this time we actually did walk in the right direction (unlike last time, when we walked countercurrent). We took a lot of pictures of the beautiful windows (my mom also tried her new camera) and we wrote our names down in the guest book.

Three of the beautiful windows you can find in the Notre Dame church.
We arrived at the gift shop (I still think it’s weird it’s inside the church), where I read a bit in a comic about the building of the Notre Dame. My mom, who had been browsing, wanted to show me something she really liked. I walked after her and she pointed out a small replica of the big, round window we had seen earlier. You could hang it in front of your window. Despite the fact she really loved it, she didn’t want to ask how much it cost since ‘it would probably be a lot’. Luckily I managed to persuade her to ask after all, since the price wasn’t expensive at all! So my mom bought the beautiful round window. :3
Then we left the Notre Dame again. We decided to take the bus now, so we bought some drinks and walked up to the ‘station’, where we waited for a little while.

Waiting for the bus with a wonderful view! :3
Soon the bus arrived and we managed to sit on top. ^^ We just sat down and enjoyed the view and the wind. Amélie, our Paris bear, enjoyed it too (huhu)! We drove along the same route again, but it was very nice. I love the bus so much~!
When we arrived at the Eiffeltower, my mom suggested to get off the bus and walk around the special ‘Summer market’ across from the Eiffeltower. We left the bus, crossed the street and walked underneath the big sign while enjoying the lovely panflute music that was being played (XD). The market was quite nice and many different things were being sold. At the front of the market there were mainly jewelry and clothing stalls, but the further you walked the more interesting the goods got (not that the market was that big or anything. You get my point). There was one guy that sold beautiful glass jewelry with real flowers in them. We had a nice conversation with him. ^^

This stall was all about matryoshka dolls!
While we were walking I started to feel bad again. I had been feeling a little nauseous during the whole morning already, but now I was also getting dizzy. My mom suggested to get some food at a really nice stall where they sold dried fruits and bread. There were a lot more stalls with food, but this food really caught our attention. My mom bought some dried pineapple parts and raspberries and a piece of brioche bread. Despite the fact I love raspberries, the pineapple parts were so much better!
We walked up to the Seine and sat down in the shade of the Pont d’Iéna. I dipped my feet in the water, which helped a lot. The brioche was really good and we talked for a little while.
We got on the bus again (it was a stupid bus with high yellow fences) and decided to finish our round, so we would get out again at the Notre Dame. But the bus was sooo slow because there were so many traffic lights and cars and people that we stood still really often. The sun burned down on us and I felt worse and worse. It got quite clear to us that it was actually the sun and heat that got to me! So my mom decided I needed a hat to protect me from the sun.
We finally arrived at Notre Dame again and quickly walked into the shade. After some browsing, I found a nice hat, but when I tried it on it looked stupid and made me feel old. Later, an older lady tried it on and it looked perfect on her because of her skin tone! I found another, very simple hat that I liked, so we bought that one. ^^
When we walked out of the shop again, we heard music and singing. We discovered a guy with a little barrell organ singing nice French songs. My mom liked him so much, she bought his cd! I also got a picture with him. *^^*

Me and the cute guy! You can also see my new hat!
In order to make me feel better, my mom bought some coke bottles and we crossed the bridge (we saw a shop selling dog collars with ‘Lolita’ in rhine stones on it!) to lay down in the shadow in the little park there. I also checked my phone a little, since there was wifi. It all really helped a lot!
After some resting, we started to think about things to do. We really wanted to go up the Eiffeltower at night and since I was starting to feel better (thank you hat and shade!) we still really wanted to do that. Of course we needed to have dinner first, but we doubted a bit. My mom still wanted to go to Princess Crêpe, so we needed to do it either on this day or not, because the shop would be closed on Thursday. But since we were right next to Quartier Latin, we could also visit the Italian restaurant we had visited two years ago that we really loved. I let my mom decide and after some doubting, she chose the Italian restaurant. We left the park and walked into Quartier Latin, which is a really nice neighbourhood filled with restaurants, especially Greek ones. We browsed a bit in a Georges Larnicol shop (chocolaaate~!) and just looked around for fun.

My mom in Quartier Latin.
Finally we walked into the street where I knew the restaurant was located. But we couldn’t find it! We walked the street at least two times, until we discovered it was gone! My mom was so sad…
After we accepted the restaurant was gone (boohoo ;_;), my mom suggested to have a salad at café d’Albert again, which we really loved anyway. So we went back to our metrostation and went to have some lovely Salade Loisir at the restaurant. So good…

I still dream about this salad…
Before we went back to our hotel, we bought two pastries at the bakery. A Marbre Noir for me and a raspberry one for my mom. After we had eaten them and had rested a litle, we got our things and then went to the Arc de Triomphe (I can’t remember why we did that again, but yeah). We took some brilliant pictures with a Grumpy Cat picture in the station. XD When we got up the escalators, I saw a red bus about to depart, so I asked the driver if we could still get on. But this bus drove according to an evening schedule, so it wasn’t possible. I believe we browsed one of the shops a little and then took the metro to the Eiffeltower.
We arrived at Trocadéro and walked all the way to the Eiffeltower. While we were walking on the Pont d’Iéna, I tried to take pictures with my mom’s camera, but somehow they all turned out black! Until I realised I forgot to take off the lense cover. -_- I am so smart.
We arrived at the Eiffeltower and unfortunately the line at the nearest pillar wasn’t that short after all. The line at the pillar a little further away seemed shorter, so we took that one. We had set a time for ourselves to return to the hotel, because we didn’t want to miss the last metro like last year. But the line was so slow! We were quite worried for a while, especially because going to the top of the Tower would take even longer according to the information sign. So we decided to see how long it would take to get to a certain point in line and if we made it in time, we would only go to the Tower’s second floor. So we waited in the cold (I brought a cardigan, my poor mom didn’t) and we made it! So finally, we were going up the Eiffeltower at night in four years!
We could finally buy our tickets (leaving a very enthusiastic American guy who was talking to a Russian couple behind us behind) and got our tickets and bags checked. The ticket lady ripped my ticket too much, meh…
We went to stand in line for the elevator and before we knew it, we were upstairs! We immediately went outside where it was super cold and windy! But it didn’t make the experience less fun! Paris looked breathtaking with all its orange and yellow lights. We were very curious about a group of blue lights between the buildings close to the Eiffeltower. They stood out quite a lot!

Paris by night! You can see the Sacré Coeur in the
distance and the blue lights in the middle.
Paris looked sooo beautiful! I couldn’t get enough of taking pictures! After a while, the Eiffeltower started sparkling too! :3
Finally we got really cold and went inside to browse the gift shop a little.

Eiffeltowers in every shape, size and colour!
Finally it was time to go down again. We waited for the elevator for maybe a minute and then left the Eiffeltower. I can finally cross ‘Visiting the Eiffeltower when it’s dark’ off my list!

The beautiful Eiffeltower, illuminated at night!
We took the metro back to the hotel, changed into our pajamas and went to sleep. Despite feeling sick for a big part, it had been a great day!