It was quite brisk this morning, but also a nice relief from the hot weather we experienced yesterday upon arrival. I had marked plans to visit a church this morning to experience the 360 degree view of Paris, but needless to say we weren’t going to make it before our 10 am walking tour.
Showered and out the door, we stopped at a bakery near our Airbnb suggested by our host. It did nit disappoint and we plan return qour next two mornings.
With pastries and coffee in hand we made our way to the metro to meet our group at a fountain in the Latin Quarter close to the palace. Daniel, the Irishman/American would be our tour guide and I’m pretty confident I was the only one the respected his wittiness and corny jokes.
We walked for 2.5 hours past the old / new parts of Paris, Notre Dame de Paris, the first city street, learned where the “mortals” keep the French language alive and finally through the massive common spaces that surround the Louvre.
After our time with Daniel and our new friends from around the world (Australia, Brazil, Tel Aviv, Germany, Scotland, Canada and of course the US) we caught the metro over near the Centre Pompidou where we enjoyed a nice lunch of crepes, I sat and blogged for a while Nick took pictures and then we made our way in. Contemporary art is not necessarily my thing, but there were some pieces that I enjoyed, however Nick was thrilled to finally see the inside of the building and enjoyed most of the art.
After a few hours of being cultured, we made our way to one of Paris’ famous eclair shops, in my opinion these were too fancy looking to eat and very pricey. I got the vanilla praline and Nick the pistachio. Let’s just say I’m sticking to American eclairs.
Knowing that we had 7:30 reservations for the Arc de Triomphe we made our way to that side of town for a quick visit to the Eiffel Tower, it was not a magical as I previously remember, maybe because Daniel informed us earlier in the day that the lawn in front of it was where thousands of people were murdered by the Romans or the fact that it was essentially a patch of dirt with Parisians carrying buckets of beer and wine to sell? I’m going with the latter.
I had reserved us time at the Arc de Triomphe in hopes of a beautiful sunset, but it just was not to be this night. We did however enjoy wonderful views of the Eiffel Tower and laughed a lot in amazement as Paris moved along below us. We had dinner reservations at a place nearby but we were quite early and they were not ready for our early arrival since the place was quite small and packed. We made our way down the street to an empty bar where we enjoyed a Leffe (we are prepping for Belgium), before returning to Chez Gabrielle. I enjoyed the scallops, Nick the sea bass, and we shared a delicious bottle of white wine with poached cognac peach and lemon crepe brûlée. I had read reviews on this place and was a little skeptical when we arrived but it turned out to a delightful find! Exhausted after another busy day we returned to our Airbnb, called home and the crashed.
