Day 11--Paris (Petit Palais and Eiffel Tower)

June 10, 2025

On this day, we decided to take it a little easy and made our way to a smaller art museum on foot. The museum was an hour away, but we had such a wonderful time meandering that the journey took three hours.

After touring the museum and enjoying the serious lack of crowding (hooray!), we headed home to take naps in preparation for the evening’s festivities at the Eiffel Tower.

I waited a while to book our Eiffel tour for a reason I don’t quite remember. By the time I was panic booking, 10pm on a Saturday was the only time available. So, we left very early and began our journey. The trains were quite crowded for so late at night, and we ran into our first maintenance/delay issue. These train stoppages continued throughout the weekend, but at this point we were blissfully unaware. Finding a train able to get us to our tour on time was very stressful. We even ran into an Irish family with small children who were trying to get into the Tower without a ticket. The dad’s determination was touching. I really hope it worked out for them.

The grounds of the Eiffel were crowded and dark, with almost no staff available to ask for navigational assistance. By some miracle, we found our tour guide, who had been waiting for us with everyone else on our tour. The night was windy and cold, and several of our fellow American tourists were in shorts! Yikes. Our tour guide was fine; Donnie enjoyed his deep dive into how and why the tower was constructed. The guide went into way too much detail about how the lifts that would be taking us up are over 100 years old. But the ride up was smooth and fast and felt very safe. We went to the second floor and were required to listen for another 20 minutes (in the wind and cold, remember) before the guide allowed us to take pictures. I think Donnie has a much different perspective, but since I’m the one writing this, I will be honest and say I found this annoying. It was 10:40 at night and I wanted to enjoy the view for a minute and head home. We were released eventually, and really loved the rest of the experience. Donnie got some spectacular shots that I will post below. We also got to see the Tower sparkle, which was beautiful even while on it.

We rode home on a crowded train and went to bed extremely late. Poor Elise had been showing signs of a cold throughout the day, and they really came out in full force by the time she went to bed.

Found on our walk to the art museum. So fun and unexpected!

Gracelyn used to believe these wands were absolutely magic when she was little. We loved this store and bought a Jelly Cat croissant for Elise’s souvenir.

Here’s the store. So cute! I’m glad Donnie asked to stop.

This sweet, sweet woman stopped to talk to us because we were admiring her little dog. She is Iranian and used to live in Utah, so she is familiar with Arizona. I asked if she prefers Utah or Paris; she told me she doesn’t really have preferences because “it’s not about where you live but how you live.” Such wisdom, right? She has lived in Paris for over 21 years and said she thinks she’s finally used to it. Donnie asked to take her picture because she was the friendliest Parisian we met ❤️.

Next, we randomly found a relative of Donnie’s who owns his own salon. He was working with someone so we didn’t go in and say hi. Donnie tried to book an appointment but he couldn’t get in. I guess Franck has that Provost work ethic and is in high demand!

We are an incredible lunch at a restaurant that turned out to be quite popular with other tourists. We were seated next to fellow Americans for the first time (I’ve erased them from this picture), and I will say that it was weird to hear their American accents and high volume of speech. They weren’t even being obnoxious…it was just so different from the voices we’ve been hearing for a week straight. This helped me recognize how jarring our speech patterns might be for the French. Also, I’ve been told to speak up my whole life, but in France my voice is average or even a little loud.

Gracelyn had bone marrow for the first time. I let her order it because our chef friend Mary Cressler told me a long time ago that it’s delicious. She was so right. Yay for new culinary delights!

Almost to the museum. I will never get tired of the Seine.

That gorgeous architecture!

How is this real?

Here’s where we went—Le Petit Palais. It’s smaller than the Grand Palais across the street, but I was trying for great art with no crowds. There was no line! Such a win.

One of my favorites—this is Rembrandt’s self-portrait. He hated his legs so much he painted a dog over them. Relatable! Perfectionism is an issue even for geniuses.