Paris Trip Day 3 - Cité des Sciences et Industrie

On Friday April 3rd, we decided to split off from my parents.  They went to the Musée d'Orsay and we headed off to The Cité des Sciences et Industrie in Parc de la Villette.  After spending the day at the Louvre, I didn't want to take the kids to another art museum and my parents probably weren't that interested in seeing a science museum.

Again it was raining and cold, which was not such a big deal because we spent most of the day inside the museum.  La Cité des Sciences is actually the biggest science museum in Europe.  We have been to quite a few science museums now with our kids, and this one did not disappoint. There was definitely a lot to see, but a few of the expositions you had to pay extra for, including La Cité des Enfants which is a more hands-on interactive centre.  It looked pretty fun, but I wouldn't pay an extra €7 per child for a 1.5h session.  The regular exhibits are a lot of fun and interactive as well.  One of the highlights was going in a circular room that spins around and then trying to throw foam balls at each other.   Almost every exhibit was explained in French and English but many of the explanations are not simplified for children.  Bob and I had a hard time understanding some of the scientific concepts presented.  You can definitely learn a lot in this place.

We did pay €3 extra to see the planetarium show, which was only in French, you could go all the way back to the main desk and ask for headphones if you wanted to listen in a different language.  We didn't bother, so we watched the show on Dark Matter in French.  Even though I can understand French pretty well, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of Dark Matter.  I'm sure the kids would not have understood much even if it was in English.   All I know is that the universe is very, very big and most of it is dark matter.

Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to really explore Parc de la Villette because it was raining.  We saw some really cool playgrounds there, but they were actually all closed.  A worker there said they would open on April 7th.  I'm not sure if they were closed all winter, or just for maintenance.

La Cité des Sciences was a good rainy day activity.  Plus it was the only place we visited in Paris that wasn't crowded.

Can you spot Rylan?

Cool optical illusion that makes Ciara look like a giant.

Cole found the Earth

Nathan trying to virtually fly a plane.

The Geode outside of the Science museum

Here you can see part of a playground just outside of the museum

Too bad it was closed, The kids were so excited when they saw it.

Another really unique playground in Parc la Villette.  

Paris Trip Day 2 -The Louvre

I lived in Paris with my family from 1984 to 1987 in the Neuilly sur Seine area.  I vaguely recall going to the Louvre, but in any case it has changed a lot in the past 30 years.  For one thing, they have built a whole shopping centre underground between the metro station and the entrance of the Louvre.  The crowds were incredible and of course security was really tight.  We wisely purchased tickets through FNAC http://www.fnactickets.com/ ahead of time and picked them up at the local FNAC that was fortunately only 5 minutes from our apartment.  Those who did not have tickets had to wait in a long line in the cold rain.

One of the nice things about visiting museums in Paris is that kids under the age of 18 are usually free.  I think that it's a great idea, because with 4 children, we would be less inclined to visit museums if we had to pay for our kids.

We started off in the Egypt area, because I knew the kids would be interested in looking at mummies.  I really don't remember the Louvre being so big.  With the crowds, we had to keep an eye on the kids as they could easily be lost for a long, long time.  We spent a good 3 hours roaming around the museum and looking for the most famous works of art.  I'm not sure if the kids were really impressed, but they didn't complain, as there was always something to look at.  Since Rylan, Nathan and Ciara are all into Greek mythology, they tried to spot the Greek gods represented in the art over the centuries.

By 3pm we were pretty hungry, but it was too cold and rainy to walk around and look for a restaurant, so we opted to eat in the Louvre cafeteria, which was almost all out of food.  We purchased a few over-priced snacks to keep the kids happy and then Bob and I decided to take the kids back to the apartment.  Mom and dad stayed in the Louvre to see some more exhibits.  There were entire floors that we didn't even see.  Well, maybe I'll be back in another 30 years and I can finally see the rest of the Louvre!


 Pretty cool chairs in front of FNAC




This is us about to enter the metro near our apartment.  Grandpa thought it would be a good photo op.

 a sphinx

 A wall from an Assyrian Palace

The coronation of Napoleon

 The Venus de Milo

We are not sure who this is, but Ciara thought it was cool.

 

This is about as close as we got to the Mona Lisa.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace in the background

Paris Trip - Day 1

As I mentioned back in January, my parents decided that it would be nice for us to meet them in Paris in the Spring.  So after months of careful preparations my parents landed in Paris on April 1st at around 10am.  They had a few problems getting from the airport to the apartment that we had booked in Boulogne Billancourt.  First of all, Boulogne is just outside of Paris and therefore most airport shuttles will not go there.  My parents had to wait 30min for a shuttle at Charles de Gaule aiport that took them as far as the metro station Charles de Gaule Etoile.  Then they had to haul all their luggage into the metro station and purchase tickets.   I don't know why, but ticket machines are never intuitive.  A very nice young women dressed like a metro employee with name badge and all, offered to help them purchase a ticket.  She suggested they buy a 5 day pass so that they would not have to worry about buying tickets all the time.  Each pass was around €35 so the women kindly bought two passes for them with her credit card and then gave my parents the tickets in exchange for €70 cash.

Tickets in hand, my parents took the metro and made their way to the apartment we had rented.   Well, it was not until the next morning when they attempted to use their metro passes again that they realized that something was wrong.  My mother's pass didn't work.  They checked with the man working at the ticket office and he confirmed that the ticket she had was a one-time child's fare worth €0,70.  It is easy to understand how they could have been tricked.  They had already travelled 14 hours by plane, waited for a shuttle bus and then jet-lagged and weary they had to figure out the Paris subway system.  I'm sure that most tourists would have happily accept help from a friendly local.  Anyways, live and learn.

The rest of us arrived in Paris/Beauvais airport at around 9:40pm.  I was actually able to book a private airport transfer to our apartment in Boulogne through http://www.bluvan.fr/.  I was really glad that we did, because we got door to door service for €140 for 6 people.  Our driver met us as soon as we came off the plane and we got to our apartment in around 1 hour.   By some stroke of good luck, my dad just happened to be in the lobby of the building when our Bluvan pulled up.  That was fortunate, because we actually didn't have any way of contacting my parents to let them know we had arrived.

The apartment was a nice, modern, very clean with one bathroom and two bedrooms.  There were two sofa-beds in the living room and this is where the kids slept.  We reserved through Airbnb and paid around €1000 for 6 nights.  Seeing that we were 8 people staying there, I'm not sure that we could have gotten a better deal anywhere. The hosts were very accommodating of our schedule too.  They waited for my parents to arrive in the morning and also allowed us to stay past 6pm the day we left.

Inside our Paris apartment

Viva Barça!

For Christmas I received a set of Barcelona Fútbol Club cake moulds from my friends Socorro and Americo.  On Sunday afternoon, Ciara and I decided to make a cake and I thought why not make a Barça cake since we have never used my new cake mould before.  I'm not sure what I was thinking, but decorating a cake to look like the Barça crest is really hard work!  Rylan and I made 4 different colours of icing and it took us over an hour to finish decorating the cake.  We admired our work for a while and then shared the cake with our friends.  Since we may never go to an actual Barça game, we will show our support for the home team through our cake! Here is a picture so that you can admire it too.

Barcelona Zoo

Last week was "La Semana Blanca" or ski week for the kids.  Some families head to the ski slopes or other exotic destinations during this week, but Bob was gone to Germany for business and so the kids and I occupied ourselves locally.  Luckily for us, there is always a lot of interesting stuff to do around Barcelona.

On Tuesday we headed to the Barcelona Zoo for the day.  During the last two weeks in February, tickets to the zoo are half price, so €10 per adult and €6 per child.  When we got to the zoo, we discovered that because it was the week of Carnival, if the kids had come wearing a costume they could have gotten in for free!  We'll know better for next year.  Going to the zoo during ski week has become somewhat of a tradition as we did the same thing last year with friends Manju and her son Asvin.  This year Manju's husband and older son came with us as well and Ciara's friend Mia from her class at school.

The Barcelona zoo is a pretty nice zoo.  I like the fact that it's not too big (like the Toronto zoo) and you can really see a lot of animals up close.  There is also a cool dolphin show (all in Catalan though), petting zoo and some playgrounds, in any case enough to keep kids of all ages busy for hours.  It's also located within Parc de la Cituadella which is a really beautiful park in the centre of Barcelona.

Dolphin Show 

We arrived just in time to see the penguins get fed.  We were so close we could have touched them.

Nathan, Aryn, Rylan, Asvin, Cole, Mia and Ciara

Everyone loves capybaras

We thought this fruit juice stand was funny.

Feste de Santa Eulália and Llum Barcelona 2015

Last weekend we ventured downtown to see the light displays as part of the Feste de Santa Eulália and  Llum BCN.  The Festival of Saint Eulalia honors one of the patron saints of Barcelona who was just a young girl when she was martyred by the Romans.   The festival is geared towards children even though the story of Saint Eulalia is pretty gory and I would never tell it to my children.

We had never been to Barcelona during the Feste de Santa Eulália before, so this was a new experience.  We headed over to La Catedral and we just happened to arrive during a huge Ball de Diables.  There was loud music, correfoc, fireworks and dancing everywhere but without the crowds that you normally find during festivals in the summer.  After dancing with the diables we walked around to see the light displays set up for Llum BCN.

It's nice to walk around Barcelona's old neighbourhood and be surprised by the cool light installations set up by design students from Barcelona.  Many of the installations are also interactive and some are even performances.  We were also surprised to run right into the devils again with correfoc and drummers on a narrow street.  I don't think that we have ever been so close to the correfoc before.  It felt like we were too close.  The kids hid behind a trailer so not to get showered with sparks.  I could feel the sparks landing on my head.  It was a little hot, but it doesn't hurt and fortunately my hair didn't catch fire.  All in all we were really impressed with the festivities and light displays.  Llum BCN is now one of my favourite festivals.  Goes to show you that there is always something cool going on in Barcelona no matter what time of year.

Here is a short video of the diables dancing around with correfocs and one of the light shows

Fireworks display in front of the Catedral

More fireworks

Ball de Diables in front of the Catedral 

Neat light installation in Plaça Real

Projection show on the town hall in Plaça Sant Jaume

Another projection show

Another interesting light display.  Hundreds of illuminated white ropes hanging from the ceiling.

We waited in line for about 20min to get our chance to mingle with white ropes.

The kids didn't mind at all.  We love interactive art!

Cavalgata de Reyes 2015

I need to go back and blog about the Cavalgata de Reyes.  This is a huge parade that always takes place  on the evening of January 5th because the next day is El Dia de los Reyes Magos or the Day of the three kings.  Here in Spain, it's kind of like Christmas morning because the night before the three kings bring gifts to all the good little children and just like in other western countries, the bad kids will receive coal.

We had heard great things about the Cavalgata de Reyes in Barcelona as it is one of the biggest celebrations of the year.  We were a little worried about the crowds, but we got there 40 minutes early and there was only one row of people in front of us.  We decided to situate ourselves on Via Laietana near Plaça Sant Jaume.  While we were waiting for the parade to begin, we could see a couple of fathers pushing and shouting at each other on the other side of the street.  It was quite embarrassing as the police had to intervene.  Not a great example for their young children standing beside them.  You do have to hold your ground as more and more people crowd into the streets and try to push their way to the front.  There was a huge police presence trying to keep the people from moving onto the road, but in the end, as soon as the parade started, all the children moved to the front and stood in the road as close as they could to the floats and performers.

It was quite the parade: very cool floats, lots of performers in crazy costumes, music, dancing and of course the three kings and tons of candy.  There is something so exciting about thousands of candies raining from the sky.  I thought it was cool that the candy is shot out of cannons. Even though they are not great candy, it's just the thrill of catching them.  Even the adults get into it and there is a very good chance of getting your fingers stepped on as you try to pick up candy from the ground.   All the kids enjoyed it.  We would do it again.

Here is a small sample of what the parade was like