Sunday Outing

Everyone slept in today, except Anna who got up and went swimming. She called in the late morning to rouse us and have us meet her at Paul, a bakery near our home.

It took a while for the boys and me to wake up. Sky and True ordered the usual, hot chocolate. Anna and I had coffee.

The service was relatively quick - not always a given at this place.

True ordered hot milk on the side as Paul's hot chocolate is otherwise too intense for him.

But Sky likes his straight.

We sat and talked and ate and talked. The boys had seconds.

Finally, we were ready to go out and do something. True wanted to go home, but we managed to talk him into taking a drive.

We walked back to get the car. I took this picture of some flowers on the way. This is such a beautiful city.

We stopped at a little park that I've always admired. It runs between two rows of chestnut trees trimmed into boxes. There is a nice statue of the poet Alphonse de Lamartine at one end of the park and an artesian well at the other.

"Mankind has no harbour, time has no shore."

That's a line from Lamartine's most famous poem, The Lake. He became a politician, served as France's foreign minister, and then went back to writing and died poor.

People come from all around Paris to fill up jugs with the water from the well. It was dug in 1855 and at one time served much of the 16th arrondissement. The water doesn't have a lot of character, as water goes, but it's fun to drink and it got True out of his funk.

Afterward, the boys played in the park while Anna and I sat on a bench in the sun. It was a beautfiully clear and crisp October day.

We decided to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, something Anna and Sky had done together but neither True nor I had. The spiral staircase up has 284 steps. I had to stop twice to catch my breath as the others marched on.

The views are lovely from the top.

The boys enjoyed spotting the various landmarks that they know.

True took over the camera for a while.

Sky's hair is getting so long!

We took the stairs back down. A man was cleaning the brass around the eternal flame of the Uknown Soldier.

Here Sky is standing in front of the sculpture called The Departure of the Volunteers of 1792. It's also called La Marseillaise after the French national anthem written that same year.

It is the most famous of the four reliefs on the arch. It depicts French citizens responding to the call of the Roman goddess of war, Bellona.

Later, we went to Passy, the neighborhood near our apartment. We picked a brasserie for lunch and sat for another long while.

Anna had chicken. I had duck. True had French onion soup with bread and cheese on top. Sky wasn't hungry.

Cool Sky!