We spent the day today at the Jardin d’Acclimatation.

We took the bus there, and we had to take two routes. We switched buses literally right on the Champs d’Elysées in front of the Arc de Triomphe. It’s funny to think about how that profoundly famous location can just be a place to switch buses. There were plenty of barricades up as the final stage of the Tour de France rolls through tomorrow. They’ll be racing right through our neighbourhood, just a couple of blocks from us. With road and metro closures were a bit hemmed in tomorrow, but that’s fine, we’ll just remain close to home.

The Jardin d’Acclimatation was really neat. We got there a little after 11 and while busy, it wasn’t annoyingly so. Poppy was hesitant to go on any rides at first so we started by checking out the animals they have: birds, goats, a warthog, and plenty of peacocks roaming free around the park.

Then we had lunch and convinced her to try this little boat ride. Lines at this point were small, we maybe had to wait 10 minutes. She loved it so we went right around and did it again.

From there we went to the big splashpad they have and played at the copious amount of swings (Poppy finally got as much time as she wanted on a swing!). We also convinced her to go out on a pond in a little boat that Jill drove and try out the other boat ride at the park (which was a snooze fest). Not sure why we could only get her to go on aquatic rides, but it is what it is. There were lots of other cute rides she would’ve enjoyed but it wasn’t in the cards.

She had a bit of a catnap around 3 and afterwards we went to the puppet show. I couldn’t understand what was going on at all but I tried my best to explain my limited grasp to Poppy and she seemed to dig it. From there it was back to the first boat ride she loved for another two rounds (line was about a 20 minute wait at this point) and then we headed home.

Overall the park was so adorable and I think Poppy would warm up to more activities over time.

Back at home Jill went and picked up ramen for us for dinner. We all devoured it.