Day 8 – Dec 30th
The day to end all days. If anyone else has seen more of Paris in one day I would like to hear from them.
We started the day with breakfast in a nice café around the corner from our hotel. Fresh croissants, freshly squeezed OJ, and une chocolate chaud; is there any better way to start the day? After filling our bellies, we hopped onto the metro to the Latin Quarter. We had a beautiful walk through this historic part of Paris. We made our way to the Marche Mouffetard, which is a large street market. We browsed through the vegetable carts, the bakeries, butchers, frommageries etc. and bought a baguette, olives, gouda, meat and some sweets so we could have a picnic lunch later in the day. We found the perfect spot to have our picnic, right across the Seine from the Notre Dame. From here we were strategically located to walk along the Seine to the Louvre – our destination for the afternoon. The Seine and the bridges that traverse it are really the heart of Paris.
Words cannot describe how large the Louvre really is. Guide books often say that it is too big, so you might as well skip it during your visit to Paris. We would disagree. It is definitely worth the trip, although you do have to approach it knowing that you will only see 1/100 of what this amazing place has to offer. The map provided to visitors has the big ticket items clearly marked, so we simply followed this advice and made our way to each of these stops. We were able to see, among other things, the Venus de Milo, Vermeer’s The Lacemaker, Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Mona Lisa. Of course we had our Da Vinci Code decoder rings on as well and looked for clues to crack the code!
After three hours of cultural overload we decided to have another stroll. We made our way to the Opera de Paris Garnier. It is important to mention at this point that all of these strolls and nice walks we have been describing are actually at least 60 minutes walks. Paris seems to be fairly spread out and a short distance on the map, seems to take forever to walk. As a result of the endless walking, the endless French speaking, the cultural overload and possibly some low blood sugar one of us was getting fairly cranky. Beth’s brain was taxed by trying to conjure up all of her French from days gone by in order to communicate with everyone in cafes, restaurants, at Museums, etc., plus navigating through the streets of Paris which are irregular to say the least. (It really should be said that Beth’s French came roaring back when we needed it most. Once we became lost and Beth was able to communicate with an exclusively French speaking gentleman to get us back on track. Whole sentences were exchanged … it was really quite incredible.) To salvage the mood a time out was in order. What do we do when we need a break and a chance to regroup? Eat! Café de la Paix to the rescue!
Thanks to a fresh mindset and some red wine, we were able to continue our day. We walked through the ‘City of Lights’ to the Place Vendome to find the Ritz and check out the Bar Hemingway. This turned into quite a disappointment as we were denied access on account of the bar being “full”. Now it may have been, given it was a Saturday night, or it may just have been security trying to keep the riff raff out. To placate Brent’s shattered ego we made our way to Harry’s Bar (which, according to our guide book, is where Hemingway and his buddies drank themselves unconscious when on leave as ambulance drivers during the Spanish Civil War.) This really was an excellent place with passable martinis and a live piano player. A nice end to a lovely, but long day.