Our 2nd day in Paris, we took the train to Rouen since we had never been there and it was a quick and inexpensive train ride – only $10 per adult, half price for my daughter, and free for my son. We walked to Gare Saint-Lazare and on our way, we picked up breakfast at Ernest & Valentin again.

The train ride was only 1 hour and 20 minutes. Rouen train station:

It was a straightforward 20 min walk into the old town.

An old abandoned church on the way:

Our first stop was Rouen’s own Notre Dame! Rouen’s Notre Dame is even taller than Paris’ but lesser known. Monet has a whole series of paintings of Rouen’s Notre Dame!

Early in the morning at 9:30 AM, the tour group hasn’t arrived yet!

The Gothic church is as beautiful as Paris’ Notre Dame.

With huge stained glass windows:

An awesome staircase:

More stained glass windows:

After Notre Dame, we walked to Le Gros-Horloge, the incredible clock tower:

This reminded me of Bern, Switzerland.

This is a shopping street but not many souvenir shops.

The side street was interestingly decorated with beach/pool theme:

The golden clock one on each side of the tower:

The angel facade looked incredible beside the golden clock.

Commercial vehicles were going into this old street so we had to watch for the traffic when stepping out to take photos.

One of the side streets is filled with half-timber houses and very quiet.

However, not much interesting shops in the side street so we went back out to the main street.

At the end of the long, old street was a carousel, my kids wanted to go ride it but it was rather small so I said maybe later…

After the carousel, it was an open square of a farmer’s market and next to it is this very interesting structure:

You would never guess that it’s a church – Église Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc de Rouen! It was a relief to see a public bathroom at this square!!! The square also filled with a row of highly decorated half-timbered houses that looked like Colmar!

This house was filled with flowers and flags of different countries!

This one had giant teddy bears hanging out the windows which reminded me of Colmar!

My daughter loved the teddy bear house.

We also checked out its farmers’ market where we got fresh and sweet strawberries and peaches!

Afterward, we headed back to the center of town via the street next to the main one to check it out. The huge building complex that looked like a mansion/castle is actually a courthouse – Tribunal Judiciaire de Rouen!

Rouen’s old town was compact and small so we walked through it in less than an hour with stops. We had plenty of time left before our 3:11 PM train back to Paris so Jason looked up the nearest post office and checked it out. I couldn’t believe that they have a vending machine inside the post office where I got some cute Disney 100 anniversary princess stamps!

After the post office, we walked back to the direction of the courthouse, it is a huge building!

There was some blue sky, the gray clouds were clearing out a bit.

The kids were super happy to see that there is a big carousel here! I had no more excuses, so I bought 10 ride for like €15. The kids got to ride on almost every single character that could go up and down LOL!

When we were about to run out of tickets, an old lady came up to me and said “your kids are so cute, here are some leftover tickets that they can have them”, it was so nice of her!

After the rides, we headed over to Baobaozi （煎包煎饼), a tiny restaurant that makes the Chinese-style crepe. A French man was running the whole restaurant, he took our order and cooked everything. The pan-fried baos were authentic so we were wondering if he made them or someone Chinese. He said his wife is Chinese!

Our set meal included the dessert, we all picked the matcha crepe, it was good.

After lunch, we walked back to the train station and waited for our 3:11 PM train back to Paris. Roeun was a nice and easy daytrip from Paris. Of course, I would recommend Versailles and Fontainebleau for a day trip if it’s your first or second time to Paris. But for us, it was like our 4th time so we tried something different.

Once we got back to Paris, we took a quick bathroom break back at our hotel and then took the metro to Dim Dim Sum where we had a reservation for our dinner at 6 PM with 50% discount with The Fork! The street leading to the restaurant was filled with boba tea shops and lots of Chinese restaurants!

The menu was mostly dim sum and some Vietnamese plates like this one a beef salad with spring rolls:

The beef fried flat noodle was okay:

The xiaolongbaos were decent; my son liked the skin of the soup dumplings after this trip LOL!

The rice rolls were good, their skin was thin and chewy.

The har-gaos (shrimp dumplings) were good too.

We were disappointed with the siu-mai, which looked small like the frozen ones you could get in a supermarket.

The sticky rice steamed in lotus leaves were decent, my daughter loves sticky rice.

Jason got the wonton soup and it was small portion.

Overall, our dim sum dinner was good, better quality than in Boston. Better yet, with 50% discount, it was an amazing deal for only $38.58!!! We couldn’t even have 4 dishes for that price in Boston!