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Published: June 21st 2017
Place Monge Market
Market at Place MongeGeo: 48.8566, 2.35097
We woke fairly early, due to jet lag, and set off for our first breakfast of this trip. We decided to eat at Cafe St Regis as it was less than a minute's walk from our hotel. Hubby had Eggs Benedict and loved them, I had a cheese omelet, together with a baguette and cafe crème. The omelet was delicious but a tad too cheesy for me (and I love cheese!).
We then set out on our self planned walking tour of the left bank, using the City Walks app on my iphone. We used these apps all around Paris, Amsterdam and Den Haag with quite a lot of success. We had a bit of trouble occasionally when the GPS appeared to get its signal blocked, but generally could always work out where we were and where we were headed. When we sometimes got a bit lost, who cares, it is Paris!
We started out heading up Rue du Cardinal Limoine, then Rue Monge to the Arenes de Lutece. This had such an eerie feeling, imagining the gladiators there a couple of thousand years before. There was very little information about the Arena and what there was was written in
Steps Where Wil Was Picked up in Midnight in Paris
Steps Where Wil Was Picked up in Midnight in Paris French that was too complicated for me to follow! Fortunately we had read quite a bit about it at home. I had my iphone but was reluctant to use too much internet at the ridiculous data roaming prices.
Next we went to Place Monge, where we were lucky enough to find one of the roving markets. There was a fantastic array of fruits, vegetables, seafood and cheese and meats, which we got to sample. The most enjoyable thing was – no flies! Coming from Australia we are used to flies everywhere, this was fantastic to be able to have food out in the open without needing to protect from flies.
We continued up to Square St Medard and then walked all along Rue Mouffetard, just stopping to browse and look at shops until we reached Place de la Contrescarpe. We stopped in a cafe here for a coffee and some people watching. We continued walking until we reached Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont. I have to say we stopped here to see the street that Wil was picked up in, in "Midnight in Paris", but it turned out to be a beautiful church in its own right.
Arenes de Lutece
Arenes de Lutece We followed this with our first use of the Museum Pass at the Pantheon and then a walk around the Luxembourg Gardens. At this point we were getting hungry and my husband said he felt like a crepe with chicken and cheese. Now we had seen this advertised at a couple of cafes on Ile St Louis, and had eaten it before at Esmeralda on Ile de la Cite, so we thought it would be easy to find. Wrong!! We spent at least two hours going from cafe to cafe to crepe shop. We could find crepes everywhere but no-one would fill them with chicken and cheese. Finally in desperation we stopped at a final cafe, deciding to eat whatever they had and lo and behold, they had crepes with chicken and cheese! To be honest, I didn't think the crepe was that good, but hubby was happy, he loved it.
We then did a tour of the Cluny Museum, again using the Museum Pass. It was beautiful, particularly the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Sadly we couldn't take photos to show the family back home.
It was getting late in the afternoon by then and Gary
Rue Mouffetard
Rue Mouffetard (my husband) wanted to walk some of the Champs Elysees. I had done this before and wasn't impressed, but he had never done it. We caught the metro to Concorde and firstly had another look at the Obelisk and the plaque where Marie Antoinette was executed. We were also interested in the meridian line, particularly as we had just been to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in January this year. It started to rain more heavily so we purchased a couple of cheap umbrellas and walked the length of the Champs up to the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't bother to go inside the Arc as we were there only nine months ago. We actually spent some time in the car showrooms to escape the rain. Gary loved this, me, not so much. We finally got back to the Louvre area around 6.00pm and were totally exhausted. We had planned to pop into the Louvre – got to love the Museum Pass! – but were just too tired so went to the Cafe Marly and sat with a bottle of wine people watching for an hour or so. Lovely.
We returned to Hotel St Louis, changed and freshened up, and
Different Sized Doors in Place de la Contrescarpe
How Door Heights Have Changed Over Time - Place de la Contrescarpe had a late dinner at Au Bougnat (Ile de la Cite), which is highly rated here on Trip Advisor. I had Pork Loin and Gary had risotto with prawns. Good food, good atmosphere, but probably not as great as the reviews implied. The bill came to €113 including predinner drinks and wine. Back to the hotel for a much needed rest. Day 3 to follow.
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