Paris

Greetings from London on Thursday night. Stephanie is currently not feeling the best, so I thought I'd write an update on our days in Paris. We will go in reverse order on this one, so that I can have time to remember what we did.

Our train on Wednesday left Paris at a little after noon. That gave us a few hours in the morning to hang out and fit in a little last-minute sight seeing. We decided to visit Montmarte and the Sacre Coeur basilica in northern Paris. Montmarte sits on a very large hill, so it offers really great views of the city. It was also in the seediest area of the city that we visited, including very unpleasant and aggressive men trying to sell junk or more likely pick pockets. Even so, the view was great, and the cathedral was quite impressive.

On Tuesday, we made our worst tourist mistake of the trip so far by not reading carefully enough about the Picasso museum. Long story short, we waited in line for over an hour and had to buy tickets when we thought it was covered by our Paris museum pass and we would be able to skip the line. Oh well. The museum was really nice. It is a massive collection of Picasso's work, and it fills a beautiful building.

The French were enjoying Armistice Day, which likely contributed to the line at the museum, as well as heavy crowds in several of Paris's parks. We enjoyed the parks with them, as the weather was pretty great for mid-November.

We concluded our Paris museum tour with a visit to the Musée D'Orsay, which holds an impressive collection of impressionist paintings (along with a lot of other stuff) in a re-purposed old train station. As the sun fell (which is happening at a dreadfully early hour), I decided to overcome my bad memories from last trip and head over to the Eiffel Tower for a romantic and picturesque sunset and night view. By way of clarification, I got nowhere near the steps or elevators that actually take you up the thing, only ground-level views this time. And those views were lovely, of course.

We dined at Chez Georges, a little restaurant just a couple doors down from our Paris home. The food was good, but the company was better. Our waiter tolerated and encouraged my poor French, and the couple next to us got a few good laughs out of my bungled sentences and the waiter's creative responses and attempts to help me out. At one point, in English, he commended my efforts saying "But at least you try. That's … Tres Bon."

Monday, we pounded the pavement to several museums (The Musée de l'Orangerie with Monet's water lilies, the Louvre with AllOfTheArt, and the Pompidou with lovely modern and contemporary art in a distinctly non-Parisian building). In between we found time for a little shopping and plenty of wine and coffee. It was a good day.

That night we enjoyed a standout meal at a fondue restaurant called Pain, Vin, Fromage (bread, wine, cheese). The food was really great, and the atmosphere was lively. The main floor of the restaurant doesn't hold more than 18 people, and it seems to be a popular place. We witnessed at least 5 interactions in person where people came in the door, asked to be seated and dejectedly headed back out after 1. smelling the awesome smells and 2. finding out that there was no availability until 11:00 pm. We heard at least twice this many phone calls covering the same conversation. "Vignt-trois heures" means 23:00 o'clock means 11:00 pm, for those who are wondering. Even after truly stuffing ourselves on fondue, we decided we could fit in one piece of cheesecake between the two of us. That ended up being a good decision, as the cheesecake was delightful. For anyone who ever dined a the Trattoria in Des Moines, it was about like that cheesecake.

Sunday we spent most of the day orienting ourselves to our neighborhood in Paris with one of Rick Steves's self-guided walking tours and a stroll throughout the Luxembourg Gardens, which like the Bobili Gardens in Florence, were designed as something of a back yard for a Royal Palace once upon a time. Like the Bobili gardens, the Luxembourg gardens get my approval as a very nice lawn.

Back to the present - I think I will skip pictures on this one for now, but we will get several of those up soon too. I'm not sure when we will check in again, perhaps in airports on the way home in a few days.

 A quick preview of London:
-Sam's family will remember our trip here several years ago. We're staying maybe a block away from there this time. Right next door to the Sicilian Pizza/espresso place Arancina. I remember making fun of it on that trip, but it's actually really good.
-We got ourselves re-oriented to London in proper fashion yesterday evening, visiting several of our favorite pubs and replacing the wine of continental Europe with London's finest (maybe?) cask ales.

See you soon,

Sam