France Miniature

Today we saw all of France in about 4 hours. We went to a little attraction park outside Paris called France Miniature, where about 140 of the most beautiful/important/interesting monuments in France have been modeled at 1:30 scale. It was amazing. Laid out roughly according to the geography of France, the models were incredibly detailed and really highlighted how many truly incredible things there are to see in this country. It took a team of 53 architects and model makers hundreds of thousands of hours to build it. Ella especially loved this park, declaring it better than her birthday. Both kids had fun picking out the Paris monuments they recognized, watching the high speed trains that ran throughout the model, and looking at the tiny hand painted people and animals.

There was also, incongruously, a small rides area. What made this somewhat strange was that this little carnival rides area was run completely by the riders. You would sit down in the car of one ride or another and a sign would advise you to "ask the person behind you in line to shut the gate." You would then push a little button and the ride would start. They had some hammocks and swings for the littlest kids and somewhat more adventurous rides for Ella's age. Both kids loved sliding down a huge slide on a rug with Abe.

The last part of the park (and my favorite) was an exhibit of the work of an artist named Dan Ohlmann, who has spent his life creating miniature interiors (at a scale of 1:12). He had replicated the interior of Chez Maxim's (an elegant Parisian restaurant), the neighborhood epicerie (grocery store), about a dozen scenes of Christmas celebrations in various European cultures, an architect's studio, and many other scenes.

We've included a couple of extra photos of the kids eating eggs this morning, so you can see their new haircuts.