Last Days in Paris

This is the last post summing up what we did on our trip to Paris.

Day 6:

After picking up breakfast at a local bakery (chocolate hazelnut beinget and a violet eclair), we went to the Louvre again because David was determined to finish looking at the highlights. This was interesting, and better than the first time we went, but I still found it totally exhausting.

David is reading more about the Hammarabi Stone.

From the Lourve, we walked to to St. Chappell Cathedral, stopping along the way to look at various street art offerings. (We try to buy some sort of street art on every big trip we take.) The line for St. Chappell was quite slow, and our Paris Museum Passes did not let us skip the line this time (it does in most places). 

The Cathedral was beautiful, but quite small. It was also under construction, and 1/3 of the stained glass windows were blocked off. It was literally this room pictured above (which hosted a gift shop) and the small room with stained glass windows. 

Not to say the stained glass wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't a lot given the wait. I was glad that the entry fee was free with our pass. (To be fair, the security here was tight and that's why the line took so long. The Cathedral is entired surrounded by a large Justice building, so I think that they have more security concerns here than at other monuments.)

After this, we went back and bought the street art we had been considering. Then David had a big lunch, and I had a small one (snails). David planned to eat a lot because we were going to a fancy French dinner that night, and he knew there wouldn't be that much there for him.

After this, we went to the Arc de Triomphe to actually climb the Arc at night. The sun was just set.

 

 

We made it back from the Arc just in time for dinner. David was not wrong about not having many vegetarian options! The only things he could really order were a cheese plate and dessert, and the chef made him an off-menu salad to have as well. I ate quite well, with bone marrow and toast as an appetizer, duck as a main course, and creme brulee for dessert. David got the floating island dessert again. 

Day 7:

Our last full day in Paris! We had made a list of things we wanted to do, and we started out close to home at the Pantheon. It was a grand place, and there are a lot of famous people buried in the crypt. We saw Voltaire, Dumas, and Marie Curie's tombs, along with others.

It was raining when we went into the Pantheon, but the sun had come out in glorious fashion by the time we left. 

We wandered towards a cheese shop that our guide book had recommended, picking up pastries (macaron for me) along the way and eating them in a little park we happened upon.

The streets here were good for shopping, and I picked up most of the souvenirs that I wanted to get on this trip. 

The cheese shop, XXX, was great. We picked out four cheese, and I kind of braced myself for the price when she rang it up. It was only 13 euros! So we decided that maybe we could bring home a couple more cheeses.  After we bought our selections, she vacuum packed them all together. We stuck this package in the fridge when we got back to our apartment, and it traveled well in my luggage back home.

On our walk, we happened upon a street full of cafes. We decided to stop and look at the listed menus and possibly find a place for dinner.  We found three that had good options for David, and we planned to return later that night.

We then went to Napoleon's tomb. It is a big tomb. Note the people in this picture for scale.

This was someone else's tomb in the same building. (I think he was a relative of Napoleon's.) I just liked the window, and thought the whole room was very pretty.

After this, I was falling down from lack of sustenance, so we stopped at a (sadly, Italian) cafe, which made us too late to get to the Archealogical Crypt at Notre Dame before the cut-off time. (Note: not closing, cut off time. There is at least a half-hour difference here.) We walked back to our flat to pack up for our return trip. But at least we got some pictures of Notre Dame along the way, with the dramatic sky in the background.

We also crossed over a lock bridge, one of the oldest ones we saw, we think. Lovers write their names on the lock, lock it to the bridge, and throw the keys in the Seine. This bridge looked particularly old for locking since we couldn't really see any of the structure of the bridge for the locks.

We had dinner at one of the places we scoped out before. I had onion soup (they leave off the word "French" here), frog's legs, and chocolate mousse, in addition to pastise and wine.

Then we went to another place to have hot goat cheese on toast and another drink because it's our last night. We still had plenty of time to catch the last boat for a Seine boat tour.

Except that we had to pay in cash, and we no longer had any. So there was some running to a (kind-of far away) ATM and back, and we made the boat with like 4 minutes to spare. Whew.

This gave me the chance to take dozens of blurry pictures of the Eiffel Tower, and a few good ones. I also had the hiccups for about half the tour (see drinks and running, above), but they finally stopped.

We felt like we had thouroughly used our last day in Paris, so we went home to bed knowing we had to get up early the next day.

Paris Day 8:

 

We got up early, checked out of our Air BnB, and headed to the airport. It was an easy trip, and the airport wove us around for a while, but the signs were all clearly labeled with where to go. Back in the US, we had to go through the customs declarations line because of the cheese, but they didn't question us at all or even want to see it. Easy. 

 

Usually when I get back from a foreign trip, I'm relieved to be back home. This time, meh, not so much. I could have easily stayed longer and been just fine. Although it was nice to get home and see the cats again.