Day 2 in Paris - Lots of walking

Got up late after some collective sleeping in catching up from the jet lag still. We left the hotel around 10am and walked over to the nearby Cluny museum to see the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries and to buy our 4-day "go to the head of the line" museum passes. We zipped through the Cluny enjoying its very nice antiquities and then perused the gift shop (required when shopping with the Tan family). Next we were lucky to stumble into the same store that sells kouign amman pastries we had in Bourdeaux, so we had to try a few. They were nice, but we were pleased and excited to note that we enjoyed our local kouign amman even more - from Frank Sally's local (Berkeley) bakery, La Fournee, which is a few blocks from where we live.

Then we headed off in the direction of the Louvre musuem and found large (but likely not summer-sized) lines there; we zipped right in with our museum passes. We headed to the Marly and Puget courts and marveled at the wonderful dappled light and the superb sculptures there after having a Louvre lunch ordered by Livy delivered our in bien French. (He was suitably impressed and made a nice but brief fuss over it.) Next we head to the Winged Victory sculpture but it was being restored until summer 2014 so we missed out on that, but there is lots more to see. We headed over for Livy to see the Mona Lisa painting and got to the room where it was mobbed by at least 200 people, all crowding to get up close with cell phones raised high in the air. It was funny to see so many people vying to see this one painting, considering all the riches in the Louvre. (Maybe kind of like the way people line up to get the latest iPhone. Note that Chet does not do that despite whatever you may think. Haa haa)

So we finally ditched the Louvre and headed North to the Tuilieries garden where at least 3 sweet looking gypsy girls asked Livy if she "spoke inglese" but we had already mentioned to her to not respond to these query's for whatever purpose they had in mind. Someone else she stood out as the "most American" looking. We think it was the clothes.

Our next destination was the Orangerie to see the Monet's oil paintings of the water lily's in his pond in Giverney which were spectacular as usual for this quick visit to this museum. We weren't in a hurry but made it out of there in a half an hour thanks to the museum pass and ditched the line again. No photos allowed in this place either. God only knows why as if you don't use a flash then who would really care. My guestimate is that 1/3 of the museums here don't allow any photography.

So we felt we had to stop and get Café Créme  (that is espresso ) on the Champs d'Elysées street with all the glitz and glamour that is there.. Liv tried her Créme but pronounced it to be un-drinkable after adding all her sugar so Chet finished it for her.. We then marched on to the Arc de Triumph after Liang nearly re-sprained her ankle on the hard streets of Paris. We hiked to the Arch and decided to go up to the top and found the views to be very nice. (Again the museum pass took us to the front of the line and likely saved us 20 minutes.)

The photo above was of a veteran at the Arc de Triumph.  We hopped on the metro train and got back down to the Saint Germain area (pronounced San German) and found the restaurant we wanted to go to Cafe du Metro was packed to the gills with World Cup revelers and so we went across the street to a plan B location and the food was good but not great. We were entertained though by the people outside and inside screaming at their excitement about France winning the game and then after the game the horns going off because mother France had won!  There were people with flags coming out of their cars honking their horns and the partying went on well after midnight keeping us up later than we planned despite how tired we were and all the stairs we hd to take to get up to our 6th floor room-ette. 

Paris - City of LIght Day 1

Took the TGV from London and zipped over to Paris in 3 short hours. We all enjoyed the ride and train was clean and nice. This was Livy's first TGV ride. We arrived in Paris and found our way to the hotel. Lynne (GPS girl) led us there with her usually navigational skill.  Upon arrival we checked in and got to our room and found the room to be pretty nice. (Albeit routinely small as Paris hotel rooms usually are.) The only downside being the usual  shower that doesn't have a side to contain the water in the tub and so it becomes something of a shower bath, but who cares - we're in Paris. We all went out to Notre Dame and enjoyed the 900 year old church after grabbing some baguette sandwiches from a over-touristy type sandwich shop with semi-bad pastries. 

(Will have to get to our favorite place soon.)  At which point we discovered we were all exhausted and said it was time for a rest back at the hotel room. (We are still on the US time zones body-wise.)  So nap time it was. Post nap we all got up and headed out for dinner with a short stop at the Jardin de Luxemburg. The jardin was wonderful as usual and also had a memorial map about the start of World War I which was quite sobering considering the magnitude of death and destruction which our species heaped upon ourselves.

We found our favorite place was closed (Cafe Du Metro) but we ended up going to Cafe Cassette and enjoyed an excellent dinner of  Lamb, Terrine, Fish and spaghetti type Zuchini (where we discussed the merits or lack of merits of a kitchen gadget that cuts pasta shaped vegetable) with pesto sauce and it was all just super good. The flavors were just amazing and we had the same waitress as we had had a year ago although we don't think she recognized us. (Not that we expected her to.) 

Our next trick is to figure out how to get in all the fun stuff we want to do in the next few days. There is something special about the interplay of the people, buildings and light of Paris. I'm not sure what it is or if it's even real or imagined but I like it as do Liang and Livy. (On her first time there.)

Link to the 2nd day 2nd day of trip Day 2 of trip