Week 3 - Paris

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Paris

Our week in Paris is off to a pretty good start! We're staying in little apartment in the Marais district. It's very close to Place de la Bastille and central to a lot of sights we plan to see. We couldn't ask for a better location. In terms of space it's a little "cozy", but I think that's a fair trade off for the location. We're really getting a feel for what it's like to live in Paris.



Our fist day was pretty light in activity; we got settled in, Charlotte went to the local Monoprix store to get some groceries and went out to dinner at neighborhood restaurant called Page 35. It's a pretty casual, bistro type place that seem to be popular with the locals. The host was friendly and overall it was a good meal. The kids had a ham, cheese and egg crepe that they both enjoyed. For a starter, I had a really good salmon pate served wtih toasted baguette slices. My main course was a bit of a disappointment; it was a local sausage (Troyes) served in a cream sauce with fries. It must be an acquired taste. Charlotte's main course was delicious! She had a Beef Burgandy Stew with fries. Everyone else was too full for dessert but I splurged; my desert had carmelized apples with green apple ice cream topped with Calvados - an apple brandy made in the Normandy region. It was very good!



On our first full day in Paris, Charlotte and the kids went shopping and I went to see the Army Museum and Napoleon's Tomb. In addition to the tomb itself, the site covers the period leading up ot WWI to the end of WWII. I thought they did a good job of explaining the politics of pre-WWI Europe leading up to the war. The WWII section was interesting but I think the WWII memorial museum in Caen(Normandy) did a better job of detailing out the history of WWII. But it was an interesting afternoon all the same.
Day 2 in Paris (Saturday) was Bastille Day - France's National Holiday. It was pretty cool to be in the Capitol City on their Indepence Day. The main activities were on the Champs Elysees; a ceremony with the French President; but we didn't venture out that way. We were able to catch the parade as in passed along Rue Saint-Antoine a few blocks from our apartment.



After the parade we caught the metro to Musee d'Orsay, an Art museum covering the Impressionist period. We saw a lot of Manet, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh paintings. An impressive collection of art, even for a novice like me.



After dinner we headed to the fireworks show at Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower. There's nothing like watching fireworks with 500,000 of your closest friends. That was the most impressive fireworks show I've ever seen! The show was about 40 minutes long and the theme this year was disco; Village People, Donna Sommer, Bee Gees - a very festive atmosphere. Getting back to the apartment was a challenge, as hundreds of thousands of Parisians descended on the metro after the show. But we all finally made it back to safely around 1:30 AM. Sunday morning we decided to sleep in...
Sunday afternoon we headed to Paris' city center (Ile de la Cite) to see Notre Dame cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle chapel and the Conciergerie which was used a a prison during the Revolution and held Marie-Antoinette before her execution.



Tomorrow we're planning on visiting the Louvre and Monday the Eiffel Tower. We'll cover those in our next post...

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Photos

Place de la Bastille
A few blocks from where we are staying. This was one of the primary execution sites during the French Revolution.

Comments

[London]

It looks like a lot of fun! The fireworks. And tomorrow the Eiffel tower! Have fun! Safe travels

[Jane]

Oh that sounds like fun... not the waiting though! Haha... have fun and come home safe!