Day 40 - October 10 - Paris
Dw was up all night sick. We figured out it was probably the mostly raw burger he had eaten on Day 8! He yogurt, aspirin and slept until about 11 am. I got ready to go and he showered and was ready by about 12:30 pm. It had lightly rained the night before, but by this morning had quit and was just cloudy. We packed the backpack and headed towards the St. Germain de Pres area via the metro.
David had stayed in this area several years before and wanted to show me the hotel, the church and where he ate. We got off the metro and started walking on Rue de Sevres towards the Church . We realize after 15 minutes or so we are going the opposite direction - we turned around and walked past the Bon Marche department store. We thought we would eat in the cafe and got ourselves seated. Ouch - kind of a frou-frou place - decorated in lime and pink. The most overpriced salads and sandwiches I had ever seen! We decided to not waste our money and got up and left.
We kept walking to Rue Four and then to Blvd. St. Germain de Pres. We saw the infamous Cafe Les Deux Magots and Cafe de Flore. We decide to grab something to eat here and were seated outside, crushed between several other tables with people smoking - I couldn't believe we weren't set on fire! Well I may get in trouble here from Francophiles, but this was the WORST MEAL EVER!
Two croque monsieurs (ham, cheese, bread - how bad can you screw that up?), one beer and one water for 40 euros! Sandwiches were awful - on white bread and nasty. The people watching was OK but NEVER eat here! There are plenty of good places around this area - do not waste your money here.
If you want a drink and want to watch all the old men with their young, blonde "girlfriends" fine; but we couldn't wait to get out of this area. We walked to St. Germain de Pres church and had banana/nutella crepes from the crepe stand on the corner - the gentleman sang us a song while he made our crepes- only in Paris!
We walked to Jardin du Luxembourg park. It's a fabulous public park where the locals go and not so touristy. We watched the kids play tennis and basketball, men playing cards and chess on the tables and chairs set up in the park. We wandered over to the pond where the wooden sailboats cruise around with children running with sticks to give them a push. It was quite crowded for a Wednesday afternoon. By now the sky had cleared and it was blue, sunny and warm outside.
We left the park and marched up Rue Tournon and stopped at a cafe on the corner - La Pallete for coffee. EEK expensive! The waiter was funny and nice though - greeted us in French, English, German and who know what else. We continued up Rue de Seine and across Pont des Arts to the Louvre. The Louvre stays opens late on Wednesdays and Friday nights so I thought it would be a great time to go with less crowds.
As we were walking towards the entrance we had the "Gold ring" scam pulled on us-read the link for info about scams in Paris. We went in through the Pyramid entrance and there was no line; we got our tickets quickly. Even though it looked crowded around the entrance, the museum is so huge the crowds are not a problem. We visited the ground floor and first floor of the Sully, Denon and Richlieu wings. We saw Italian, French, Spanish paintings, Greek and Roman sculptures and Egyptian artifacts. Able to see the Mona Lisa, at a distance, as they have it behind glass and make you stand behind a roped off area. Saw Venus de Milo (it was ok, but not impressive like the David sculpture).
We got lost trying to find our way out; our feet were killing us. We had stayed about 2.5 hours. I know most of you will think we didn't stay long enough or see as much as we did, but know that we had already been to museums in London, Rome, and Florence and seen alot of the similar type paintings and artifacts so we cruised through some of the areas.
We walked back along Rue Rivoli to the apartment (30 minutes - our feet hurt!). We had dinner at Cafe Le Ponthieu (onion soup and beef/mashed potatoes). Back to the apartment late and crashed. We were tired!!
