Paris, France

Celebrating old age in Paris

Voila! I'm 3 decades old!! So we decided to go somewhere where (old) age is celebrated ... aged cheese, wine ... Paris!

After an uneventful day at work, we headed to Waterloo station, not to go home, but to the Eurostar terminal where our train was waiting to take us to Paris.

Travelling by train is so much more relaxing. First of all, check-in is only 30 mins prior to departure, and I love snacking on trains. We didn't buy enough snacks from Marks and Spencers, tho so we had to dribble whilst the other passengers continued to eat throughout the entire trip ...

We made it to our apartment in 3e later that night (in Le Marais , which we've only *just* discovered to be a gay neighbourhood). Our apartment was right next door to a gay nightclub ...

We grabbed dinner at Starcooker² , a lusciously decorated gay restaurant, complete with round bed with fur!

With the waiter's help, I ordered a grilled fish with potato mash and Muffin had a mushroom risotto (soooo delicious!). As I didn't have a birthday cake today, we ordered the Starcooker dessert platter :D You can tell that a restaurant has good dessert by it's menu. Almost half the items in Starcookers' menu were desserts!

Musée du Louvre

We woke up in the afternoon, and decided to have a lazy day. We wondered towards the Louvre and grabbed lunch at one of the cafes near the Louvre. I had a set meal of ham (jambon) omellette with fries and salad, while Muffin ordered a Salade niçoise (pronounced nee-swah, not nee-coys, as corrected by our waiter). We also ordered some espresso to give us a bit more energy for our museum visit ...

The Louvre was a fantastically huge and grand building.

 

We started off from the lower ground floor of the Richelieu wing ...

I found a statue that reminded me of Yoghurt from Space Balls ...

 

 

We were buggered after only checking out one wing (Richelieu) so we had to stop for coffee at Cafe Denon. The cafe was surprisingly quiet and had views of a garden.

Tired, we did the rest of the museum in a disorganised fashion (initially we had applied the left-hug algorithm in the Richelieu wing). Of course, we saw the obligatory well-known pieces such as the Venus de Milo. The Mona Lisa was a surprisingly small and unassuming painting, surrounded by a horde of tourists and a cordon, protected by a watchful guard.

 

Later that night, we wondered over to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We had crepes for dinner and dessert! Then we went over to MK2 Odéon to watch Bug . Cinema tickets here were much cheaper than in London at 6.70EUR each ...

The Cathédral de Notre-Dame

We walked over to Île de la Cité after waking up in the afternoon to visit the cathedral. There were quite a few tourists doing the rounds as well. Later on, we went up the towers in the cathedral to look at the gargoyles and to check out the views of the city ..

 

All that sight-seeing made us really hungry, so we decided to head to Paris' chinatown for some pho. (We stopped in a bakery for some snacks and coffee in Quartier Latin along the way).

After getting lost in a small shopping complex at Porte d'Italie while trying to look for the cinema (which was closed down), we pressed on and made it to Le Bambou (70 rue Baudricourt) where Muffin had his grande pho and I ordered a petite pho. I had some mung bean / ginger / coconut dessert. It was refreshing to not have to eat cheese, butter or creme for a while!

We stopped by MK2 Odéon again on the way back and watched Le dernier roi d'Ecosse (that is, The Last King of Scotland ).

The Catacombs and Arch de Triomphe

Woke up in the afternoon, and headed to Montparnasse to visit the Catacombs. Had breakfast / lunch / coffee at the nearby cafe first -- I had a Croque Monsieur (pronounced crock, not crokey!) and Muffin had a Quiche Lorraine .

After eating, we took a deep breath (and hoped that we wouldn't lose our lunch) and descended into the Catacombs ...

The bones of 6 million Parisians have been moved here when the cemetaries were overcrowded. The skeletons of several noteworthy French have also been neatly piled here, after facing their bitter ends at the guillotine ...

 

At the end of the tour, we popped out what appears to be an unsuspecting street and made our way to the Arch de Triomphe .

 

By now, we were quite bored of monuments ... but still had the obligatory visit to the Eiffel tower to do. So we made our way there, stopping by a really nice pastry shop for some Pain au Chocolat and Pomme tart and coffee ...

 

We decided to have a nice French dinner tonight, so we went to Les Fontaines, near Luxemborg Metro. The nice waiter helped us with our order ... and we had: Onion soup and cheese platter for starters, duck with hand-cut chips and lamb with a creamy sauce and rice for mains; and even managed to squeeze in desserts of Creme Brulee and a apple pudding.

Uncomfortably full, we waddled home and saw the Notre-Dame from the river, which looks quite eerie at night!

Some shopping, Pompidou Centre

Woke up in the afternoon and went to the corner pub/cafe for some coffee and to catch some rays! It certainly feels warmer and sunnier here than in London ...

Went window shopping in Forum des Halles and I managed to find the green tea perfume I'd been hunting for in the L'Occitanes everywhere ...

Decided to look for the stamp market in Marché aux Timbres but they were closing by the time we got there :(

We stumbled upon a really expensive shopping street in Madeleine. Don't think we can afford anything here!

Ate at a bakery called La Brioche near Gare St Lazare. Had some apple pie and berry tart with our teas and coffees.

After that, we decided to check out Pompidou Centre near our apartment. For dinner we walked to Higuma (a ramen restaurant) near the Louvre for some ramen (had enough of cheese and butter!).

Marché de la rue Montorgueil, heading home

We stopped by the markets at rue Montorgueil on the way to Gare du Nord, had our last French coffee, and stocked up on cheeses. There is food EVERYWHERE in this market. We found a long queue at a bakery and joined it, and bought a really tasty baguette, some croissants, some jamon and gruyere baguettes, and half a dozon chouquettes.

Too soon, it was time to head back to London.