We have some friends, Jo and Er and their little girl Lu, who are in language school near Paris. Since school hasn't yet begun, we thought it'd be a good time to visit them and see a little bit of the city. With two kids, the best we could hope for was one activity a day, and with the train schedule, that limited us to one thing.
Another great feature of Europe is public transportation. We drove to the University, parked our car, walked 200 feet to the Rennes metro, took the metro to the train station, got on a bullet train to Massy, hopped on a bus outside the train station, and walked off 100 feet from the language school where Jo & Er are studying. Talk about convenient!
The high speed rail system in France is called TGV, which is an acronym that translates to "very fast train." It's also incredibly affordable. Buying tickets a week out costs €10 per adult and €5 per child (from Rennes->Massy, prices vary for other routes). A four hour drive is reduced to a one hour, twenty minute ride on a train that goes 200mph the whole way.
Some people spend longer commuting from Franklin to Nashville.
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| This particular train was built in 1994, which should surprise nobody once they look at the teal seats with magenta trim. |
We left Rennes around lunchtime and got to Massy in time to relax in the garden behind the language school for the afternoon.
The next day we headed to the Eiffel Tower to get the obligatory family picture and do some climbing. Unfortunately we missed the chance to take a
zipline off the tower.
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| Obligatory family picture. |
We bought tickets to climb the stairs since the line for the elevator was quite long. J wore H, and F climbed all 669 steps to the second platform AND back down. I was impressed.
Here are a few pics:
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| Looking down from the first platform. |
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| Lots of layers of paint going back all the way to 1889 and the first coat of red. |
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| The tower is made of iron, not steel. It's pretty corroded in spots. |
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| If a baby's head can fit through, the rest can. |
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| Taking a rest. |
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| Rust on the tower. It was last painted in 2009, and is a year overdue. |
