Paris, France
/(April 30th - May 3rd, 2015)
So we’ll definitely be visiting Paris again. I always manage to bring the rain with me wherever I go and this trip was no exception. I could probably end the drought in California if I just made a trip down there :) We did our best, but it’s hard to see everything and appreciate the city’s beauty when you are busy dodging puddles for three days straight. Having been to Paris once before, I can truly say you don’t get the same experience when grey skies and fog are the background in every photo and you have to focus more on avoiding other tourists and their umbrellas than appreciating the sights right in front of you.
Even with some unexpected challenges, we had a great time in Paris. We arrived on the morning of April 30th, figured out the metro system pretty easily and arrived at our first airbnb apartment around 10:30am. We changed into the warmest and most waterproof items we brought, thankfully found a large umbrella in the apartment, and set out to explore Paris. We took our time walking through the Rue Cler neighborhood, stopped for our first French meal at La Source (French onion soup, spaghetti Bolognese, and bad steak), and eventually made our way to the Louvre. There was a very long line to get into the museum, but an Australian man walked up to us right as we got in line and handed us his two priority line tickets that were good for the rest of the day! So we walked right in and bypassed every line inside with these fancy (and free) tickets :) We spent a little over two hours wandering through the Louvre admiring sculptures, paintings, and the intricate architectural details of the building itself. The crowds were intense, but it was well worth the visit. Next we went to Musee d’Orsay and took advantage of the extended hours (the museum is open until 9:45pm on Thursday nights with a reduced fare after 6pm). The building itself was impressive, and while neither Allen nor myself are true art enthusiasts, we did enjoy seeing some Monet and Van Gogh masterpieces. We walked through the whole museum, but found a lot of the other paintings and exhibits to be somewhat underwhelming compared to what we had just experienced in the Louvre.
After Musee d'Orsay we made our way over to La Poule au Pot for dinner. We enjoyed a mixed green starter salad, boiled chicken and rice with their special sauce, salmon with a butter wine sauce (and a very strange gingerbread man shaped pastry), and finished off our meal with a spiced apple tart. Everything was delicious and the service was incredible. We would definitely recommend Le Poule au Pot to anyone visiting Paris who is looking for a reasonably priced French meal.
On the way back to our apartment, we saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time and caught it while it was lit up. Our jet lag was finally catching up to us so we headed to bed and slept in the next morning. Around 1pm we finally got up, ate lunch at Cafe Central (salmon & pesto pasta, croque madame, and two double esspressos), and decided to go up to the Montemartre neighborhood and visit Sacre-Coeur Basilica. Due to the holiday and the weather, I guess that was everyone else's plan as well. We toured the church and tried to take a photo of what should be one of the best views of the city, but again the weather would not cooperate. We didn't spend too much time exploring the surrounding area because we were overwhelmed by the number of people, umbrellas, and lack of personal space. Before heading back down into the city we snapped a quick photo of the Moulin Rouge and stopped at Kooka Boora, which is supposed to be one of the best coffee spots in all of Paris. It turns out that the French like their coffee bitter, and I don't, so we might disagree on the best coffee shops in the city.
Next up on our list was to place a lock on the Pont des Arts bridge. I had a special lock engraved before we left that had our names, wedding date, and a few other things on it. However, we came to find the Pont des Arts bridge was boarded up to avoid more locks being added, so we chose to place our lock on the Passerelle Leopold Sedar Senghor bridge instead (simply because we could find enough room).
We made our way from the bridge down to the Champs Elysees and walked to the Arc de Triomphe. We could have spent a few hours exploring the shops on the Champs Elysses and surrounding streets, but since it was a public holiday very few places were actually open. On our way back to our apartment, we stopped by the Eiffel Tower to take a few photos. We decided to postpone the trip up to the top until our last night...which may have been one of our worst ideas yet :)
Later that evening we met up with some good friends for dinner at Le Bistrot d'Henri. We enjoyed a couple bottles of wine, their special salad with smoked duck, avocado, and roasted pine nuts, lamb shanks, and scallops & sea bass. We finished off the meal with a cheese plate and chocolate mousse. The food was delicious and the company was superb! We ate, drank, and laughed for hours about the rain, lack of reliable wifi, our struggles with communicating, and our frustrations with nothing being open before 11am.
On our last day in Paris, we decided to get up early and eat breakfast at Ble Sucre (a highly recommended bakery with the best croissants in Paris). After wandering around the Bastille neighborhood for close to an hour, we gave up and decided to eat at Cafe St. Regis right next to Notre Dame. We had a wonderful (and much needed) breakfast and Allen got to experience his first croissant in France. Because we had gotten such an early start, we still made it to Notre Dame early enough to avoid major lines. We spent about an hour walking through and around the church admiring it's beauty, history, and impressive architecture. By the time we left, the line curved around the church and it was starting to rain again so we set off to get some french macarons at Pierre Herme. We decided to try their most popular flavor (passion fruit & milk chocolate), but unsurprisingly preferred the vanilla and salted caramel flavors.
We then had a mid day siesta and set back out to walk (or puddle jump) through Luxembourg Gardens. After cutting our garden trip short due to the rain, we headed over to Cafe Constant for our final dinner in Paris. It was an extremely small and crowded restaurant, but we had the the most amazing meal (lobster ravioli, sea bream with ratatouille, seared steak with mashed potatoes, and chocolate ganache in a cream sauce). Yum!
Sorry - we got so distracted by the amazing food that we forgot to take photos of anything after the appetizer...
To finish off the night we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. By this point in the evening it was raining sideways, windy, and foggy, but we figured it was worth a shot. Allen accidentally bought stair access only tickets so we started climbing up, umbrella in tow, and tried not to focus on how high we were getting (Allen is afraid of heights). About 1/3 of the way up we realized we couldn't take the stairs all the way up, bought a second set of tickets and waited in line for 40 minutes to take the elevator the rest of the way. When we arrived at the top we were completely soaked and the fog was so thick that we could barely take a decent photo. We lasted maybe ten minutes before heading back down and decided that while it was a great story, we'd have to try again whenever we return to Paris.
Next up...Nice, France!
