Paris- Round 2 January 24, 2009

 

Carousel and Sacre Coeur in Montmarte

 

clouds break over Paris

looking down from Sacre Coeur

me in Paris

 

the amazing chocolate pistachio croissant (cheers Megan)

Eiffel Tower from a distance

Eiffel Tower in chocolate

 

painters in Montmarte

windmill in Montmarte (think Amalie)

my glove fell in love at the Louvre

Saint Honore

 

French maid storefront

lavender honey chocolate

Paris galleria

French cheese

 

chocolate bark

Obama shirt

Pompideau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 20, 21 & 22, 2009

Our hotel room at the Best Western Lorette Opera was absolutely great! The place is beautiful and a great deal for Paris. Two small perks our room didn’t have were a tea kettle and refrigerator, but we were able to keep things cool outside our window. I definitely recommend this place to anyone going to Paris.

We went our own separate ways for the afternoon and wandered around Montmarte. I found a great little shop with fresh baked goods and picked up a pocket of food. It was sort of like phyllo dough but a little more moist and inside was potato, french cheese and tomato. It was delicious. I also picked up another new item, a pistachio chocolate croissant, which was amazingly delicious and also picture worthy. I took it with me on my climb up to the Sacre Coeur, a large church on top a hill overlooking Paris. The sun broke through the clouds for a moment and dramatically lit up the Paris skyline. It was a favorite moment on the trip… kind of a deep breath.

After walking around Montmarte, Tara and I watched Obama become inaugurated on CNN. What a trip to watch it from France! The French here seem to like Obama or at the very least have hope like we do for what he will do in the near future. One thing is for sure- They don’t like Bush too much. One person in the Metro started talking to me about how Bush is buddies with the President of Columbia, who the Frenchman didn’t like. Another told Tara and I that Bush put a $3 tax on a particular type of French cheese coming into the U.S. just because he didn’t like the French. Most are hopeful that Obama will be better. I hope so too.

Tara and I spent the last day of our trip wandering around Paris. We started out heading down to the Louvre (don’t laugh) to look at the bookstore. My glove fell in love with the Louvre and decided to stay there. It’s since been replaced with an Italian version (more later on that). Afterwards, we wandered up to Saint Honore, a street with high end designer stores, and window shopped. My favorite display was a French maid’s outfit in a lingerie store window… It’s as classic French as it gets. Next we decided to head in the direction of the Bastille, although we never got there. Instead, we found ourselves absorbed with pedestrian streets in the 1st Arrondissement lined with chocolate, cheese and cute stores everywhere. We ended up in the Pompideau bookstore for awhile. Then I had to leave to buy my train ticket to Florence for the next day. I met Tara back at the hotel later and we went back to Montmarte to sit down for a cafe and debrief our trip.

The morning of January 22nd, we were up very early to say goodbye. I headed to catch my early train to Florence, while Tara headed off to the airport to fly back to NY. Aurevoir la France!