Una mesa para seis - Table for Six: Paris Trip Day 4 - Île de la Cité and Pompidou Centre

My parents thought it would be nice to take a boat trip down the Seine river, so I checked out a bunch companies and booked a Seine river boat tour online through Vedettes du Pont Neuf. It was €9 per adult and €5 per child for a typical 1 hour trip up and down the Seine river past some of the most famous bridges and monuments. Fortunately it wasn't raining during our boat cruise, but it wasn't sunny either. Still, it was a quick and easy way to see a lot of Paris and the kids enjoyed the boat ride.

After we finished our boat trip we headed to the Notre Dame cathedral on l'Île de la Cité. The crowds had already started to form a long winding line outside the cathedral. Fortunately the line moved fairly quickly. We decided not to buy tickets to climb to the top of the cathedral. Entrance to the cathedral is free, and it was enough for us to just see the inside. Even though we have visited quite a few cathedrals now, I am still amazed at the work that must have gone into building these churches. The cathedrals in Europe are so ornate and detailed. With so many sculptures and paintings, each one is like an art museum. You just don't see churches like these in Canada.

After Notre Dame, we headed towards the Pompidou Centre. I figured that the kids would enjoy the Pompidou Centre because it's all modern art and a little strange. I also read online that there was a children's gallery that made modern art a little more accessible for young children. Well, we happen to come at a time when they were renovating a big part of the museum, so the entire 4th floor was closed because they were in the middle of a rehanging and the children's gallery was empty.

We did get to see the Jeff Koons exhibit though, and it was pretty interesting. I think the kids will remember it for awhile. Just this past week Rylan brought home the Guinness Book of World Records 2014 and found out that Jeff Koons' sculpture Balloon Dog sold for $58.4 million, making it the most expensive sculpture by a living artist. Rylan was excited to say that he got to see the Balloon Dog sculpture in person.

Even though the 4th floor was closed, there was still quite a lot to see on just the 5th and 6th floors. Everything was so bizarre and didn't seem to make any sense, but that's what makes modern art so much fun.

The kids have been asking to visit the Eiffel Tower since we arrived in Paris, but since the weather was so bad, we kept putting it off. It wasn't raining very hard when we left the Pompidou Centre so we decided to pass by the Eiffel Tower on the way back to the apartment. Well, even in the wind and rain, there was a significant line to get up the tower, so we decided to postpone the Eiffel tower for another day, but we still got a picture.