9.16.22
After a late night, this morning’s alarm did not come with a warm welcome, but I knew we needed to get up and going as our time in Paris was limited. Nick’s co worker mentioned that a visit to Sacra Coeur was a must to see the best 360 degree views of Paris. After grabbing yet another delicious pastry from the same place as yesterday we set off. I knew that there was a climb to the dome, but little did I know there would be several hundred stairs to get to the actual church – holy stairs!
We spent some time in the church before making our way to the bottom of the dome to start our climb. 298 stairs later we were there and boy was the view wonderful! Prior to our recent, which was around 11:00 am my watch had closed two rings and stated we had climbed 31 flights!
After our decent we made our way to Montmare to catch the train to our lunch reservations at Substance, our first Michelin star restaurant. We were seated at the bar where we watched all the action happen. I’d love to tell you what we ate, but it was hard to understand. All I know is I had a snail – eek! The food was certainly interesting but it was better than I anticipated – I knew it would be good, I just feared it would be too strange for me.
Nick enjoyed the experience and food, so this is all that matters.
We had thought afterwards we’d go to The Dior Museum but tickets were sold out so we headed to The Cartier Foundation, an art museum that Nick had wanted to see. We toured the art of the museum viewing pieces by an Australian women who started her art career at the young age of 80! In my opinion, the gardens were more impressive, but I don’t know how to appreciate art, well expect Van Gogh 😉
We then headed back to the apartment for a much needed nap before our concert at Sainte Chapell this evening. We upgraded our tickets and were able to enjoy champagne across the street before the show and then we were ushered into the chapel where they had the most uncomfortable folding chairs set up. We were able to enjoy views of the beautiful stained glass before the concert, when the turned off the lights and we listened to songs by a string quintet.
After an hours worth of music we made our way through the chilly streets of Paris to “enjoy” the next part of our “upgraded” tickets, wine and tapas. Needless to say when booking this we figured it would at least be near the chapel, but we made the 10+ minute walk to our next destination, which I can best describe as a really popular college bar. There were 20 year old Parisians hanging out of it smoking and drinking their beers. The beers should have been the first clue the wine was going to be terrible. We met two young ladies also traveling from the US, who had also “upgraded” their ticket and to say we were all disappointed in our experience was an understatement. We just witnessed a wonderful concert in one of the most beautiful chapels in the world and we were now sitting amongst a smoke filled construction zone on the side of the street with the worst wine and tapas we’ve ever experienced. The tzatziki was watery, the tuna mousse was suspicious but the best tasting option and the wine tasted like it was squished straight from the grape. We gave it a good effort but decided it best to head back to our place and stop by the Wunderbar, a German restaurant next door. Well unfortunately at 10:30 pm they weren’t even taking people for drinks so we made our way upstate to pack for our morning train to Brussels.