Paris 2026 Day 1 Part 2 | One Day at a Time

Continued from Paris 2026 Day 1 Part 1.

KL takes a photo of the pendulum too.

But our main reason to be here isn’t to look at the pendulum, it’s to look at the crypt.

Before we could get down to the crypt, the kids noticed this miniature model of the Pantheon…and they want to look at it first.

Alright, let’s refocus and go down the crypt.

Some of France’s most famous and important are buried down here.

Here we go, reason why we are here!

CL’s namesake. Again, part of the plan for this Euro trip was to take the kids to visit the tombs of all their namesakes. Seeing Curie’s tomb was a tougher one though. After I had already booked all of our airbnbs, trains, and whatnot, I looked at making a reservation to visit Pantheon; only then did I see that it was going to be closed for the entirely of our time here in Paris with the exception of the day we get in. Our original Eurostar tickets would have gotten us in by mid to late afternoon, and it would have been a mad dash rush to get here before they closed for the day. Too close for comfort. A decision was made to rebook Eurostar tickets to an earlier train at a cost different of $500(Ouch!) to make sure we get into Paris early enough to see Curie’s tomb. This was always a stress point for me, having to deal with the possibility of not being able to see all on the same trip and the grief that I would get from CL, or any of the children that missed out. Glad it worked out!

Woah, this is an elaborate tomb.

I don’t even know who that is with the elaborate tomb…I looked it up, and one of Napoleon’s most trusted generals.

RL thought this was funny to take a photo of the statue and then the shadow….eye roll.

Let’s get out of the crypt now…no running kids!

Kids were impressed by all the mosaic tiles…I think.

Lots of random boobs in this painting. The kids asked why there are random naked women and children in so many European paintings…I wonder the same thing too.

Lots of dressed people and just some random naked lady. I’m not complaining.

Lots of naked people in battle.

Oh look, more miniatures, this one even smaller than the last one, and therefore, more cute.

RL said Denis didn’t sound like a very saintly name. But apparently he can still use his arms to pick up his head after being decapitated though.

Alright, done with Pantheon, next is to visit Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont, located right next to Pantheon. And there’s the other main reason we are here.

It’s a beautiful church, but as far as European gothic churches go, it’s just a pretty regular looking one. But we are not here for the architecture.

This is the reason why we are here. Blaise Pascal is buried here and he’s PL’s namesake.

I believe this is St. Genevieve’s actual tomb.

And this is Blaise Pascal’s actual tomb…which seems to be…inside a weight bearing column…We did it! 3 kids all visited their namesakes on this trip! Success! It took a little bit of planning, especially seeing Marie Curie, but got it done. I hope they do remember this for a long time and made some sort of positive impact on them.

Look, Blaise Pascal is literally inside a column. Like, is he inside the column? Below the column? Next to it? Behind the plate of writing? At the steps next to the column? I tried doing more research after and still couldn’t find out.

The girls pointing to their respective namesake burial places. Cool that they are right next to each other, if anything, just for us to visit them back to back easily. PL said it was just like how they were sisters in real life.

Heading back the way we came…the ice cream line has gotten even longer. Wtf. there are other ice cream places around here.

Yup, still looks like a regular ice cream shop to me…I don’t get it.

Well, it’s pretty hot and we want ice cream. Good thing there’s an ice cream shop just around the corner with barely any line, this will do.

Some of us got bubble tea.

Some of us got ice cream.

There’s the park right next to the subway station that we’ll eat our desserts at.

Shit…I did notice really nice shade at this park. I looked around and saw all these London Plane trees EVERYWHERE. If I stay here too long, my asthma will act up again. I’m really not made for the outdoors, even in an urban setting.

Come on kids, help baba kick this giant London Plane tree with me!

Diana? Is that you?

Bike lanes are all over Paris now. It was a big deal when they started adding them in. I will say, people do seem to use them. But then again, the distances are so much shorter here in Paris and the weather much more mild than Austin in the summer. I see people use the lanes to commute, whereas in Austin I just see asshole cyclists in road ignoring the bike lanes.

Alright, been a long travel day, saw Curie and Pascal. Time to go back to home base.

Apparently the company that runs our airbnb has places all over the city.

Sure enough, we have our first casualty from bumping our heads into these slanted walls. PL runs her head into it while looking down at her ipad. Over the coming days, many of us would keep bumping our heads into these walls repeatedly. Cool space, ergonomically unforgiving.

Chill at our airbnb a little bit, got more settled in, and it’s now time to head out for some dinner.

One of the kid points. After a long travel day, we picked a restaurant just right around the corner from us.

Family photo.

We told the kids they all had to try escargot.

We were so proud of him. He volunteered to try it first and didn’t complain!!!! Good job LKL!

PL’s turn.

CL, you are next.

There you go. They all ate it, and no one spat it out. Success. We also had 3 forks at our table for the different dishes. The forks ranged from 2 long tines for the escargot to 3 small tines for the oysters, and a regular fork. LKL referred to the 2 long tines escargot fork as a “two forker”. Lol.

Frog legs. LKL actually seem to like these. I mean, they do taste a lot like chicken.

He wasn’t too sure on his first bite, but after that it was all good.

Loves baguettes.

Ohhhh…what is this groin exotique you speak of!

Oh, I guess that’s not as exciting. This is a restaurant that specializes in pork, so makes sense…I tried to order the drink, but it never came since the restaurant got slammed right when I ordered it. No biggie, they took it off the check.