While the day started painfully early at 4:00 am, it’s hard to be cranky in Paris! We took the first Eurostar of the day from London, figured out the Metro (which, for some reason, makes so much more sense to me after living in Chicago), and made it to Hotel La Manufacture where they hooked us up with the only room with a “view” of the Eiffel Tower.
After unpacking, we were able to enjoy a breakfast of café au lait and tartines at a little café. I vowed to use my French as much as possible and, though I fumbled through on more than one occasion, I was able to make it work for the most part. I’m still so in awe of the French language and culture that I’m mortified at messing up but c’est la vie.
Our hotel was pretty far south on the Left Bank so we spent an hour or so just making our way up to the Seine – saw the Sorbonne, the Luxembourg Gardens, and the Musee d’Orsay. From there, we wandered along the river, across the Pont Neuf, and had lunch at Place Dauphine in a sidewalk café full of business people. David tried the beef tartar and, I must admit, it was much, much better than my first encounter with it years ago.
We moved on to tour the Saint-Chapelle (the “jewel box” church), Notre Dame, and Ile St-Louis before taking a much-needed nap back at the hotel.
For dinner, we went to Le Tastevin (highly recommended by Casey) and were not disappointed. David had escargot and scallops and I had a salad and lamb. We opted in for a second bottle of wine, opted out of dessert, and decided that we should check out the Eiffel Tower at midnight. After hopping the Metro turnstile due to a ticket debacle and advice from a newfound friend, we finally made it and were pleasantly surprised by the lack of people. We were unpleasantly surprised by the aggressive trinket salespeople but DC quickly learned a solid French “non”. While we arrived back to the hotel exhausted, it was the good kind of exhausted and well worth it. Bonsoir!
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