Off to Paris! We impressed ourselves by hitting the road by 9:00am. We're still waking up early due to jet lag so that definitely helped. To break up the trip we decided on a slight detour to a tiny French town about an hour North of Paris with a medieval castle – Chateaux Pierrefonds. We picnicked in the town square, then headed up the hill to the fortress. It was an amazingly restored castle above an unbelievably little picturesque town with a self-guided tour throughout. There were very few visitors and we were often the only ones in the room.

After snapping a hundred pictures, we headed back off through the French countryside to Paris. We hit a bit of a jam on the way in and then were accosted by aggressive window washers (who demanded a tip and threatened to break the wipers and mirrors if we didn’t!) but we finally made it to the Renaissance Arc de Triumph. That afternoon, we strolled past the giant victory Arch toward the Eiffel Tower and then rode the elevator to the very top. Crowded but with spectacular views, we bumped and nudged our way around then headed back down and toward the hotel. At one red light, Aidan jumped up and headed into a souvenir shop saying, "I’m just going to look around". Okay…. He then picked out the biggest gaudiest Eiffel Tower replica (which we quickly talked him out of) and then he settled on the 50 cent key-chain size – perfect.