If you want to receive an email when we post, please email chezmurrell@gmail.com and we will take care of it!
Last day in Paris
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
I started the day with breakfast - yet another excellent French croissant, a cup of cappuccino, and a piece of quiche. Vicki's quiche is better, but I have yet to have a croissant that is as flaky and buttery as those here.
That last row on the right was mine.
After some time in the apartment, we headed to lunch at a fondue place. I have loved fondue since the seventies, when my parents had plug-in fondue pot and Germantown had a Melting Pot. We still have a fondue pot; it is rarely used.
It was wonderful, I got my monthly quota of cheese, and we had some really nice discussions.
On our way back, one of us had to make a pit stop. Paris has very nice rest stops on the sidewalks occasionally - free. And as you can see below, they are self-cleaning between uses.
Also on our route was a portrait of me. I didn't even know they knew me.
We have ridden the metro several times. It is usually very quick, very punctual, and metro stops are fairly close to wherever you are. It's more expensive than it used to be. One can see all sorts of people on the metro and they are carrying all kinds of things.
(Vicki here. Lemme say this about the metro: It’s dependable for sure, and they have upgraded from the single-use tickets that ended up littering the floors to a card that you pay 2€ for and recharge. Until tonite, I thought that these were a pretty good idea. However, when your card doesn’t work and you put more money on it and it still doesn’t work and then you use your husband’s to recharge, because his worked to get him through, and he and Cody are on the other side of the stiles and then his doesn’t work and then the machine won’t take the 10€ bill and then it does and then his card still doesn’t work and you yell “fuck!” and scare the woman just behind you and then you have to go to the service desk and they tell you to “go go go hurry” through one stile while they are pressing a button, it seems like the idea may not be such a good one.
Back to Dan’s photos.)
Really? A saddle?
Quick detour here: Brigitte Bardot died today. Guess whose poster is in our apartment?
Next was a ride on the Seine. More specifically, on a Bateau Mouche. I never knew what that meant. It literally means "fly boats." However, Wikipedia tells me that "the name arose because they were originally manufactured in boatyards situated in the Mouche area of Lyon."
Lots of photos from the cruise:
Then we set off for Notre Dame. This is a group playing on one of the bridges.
Notre Dame was crowded, but amazing. We were here two weeks before the big fire in 2019, and we added Paris to the itinerary primarily to see her now. And she is beautiful.
After Notre Dame, we wandered into a nearby neighborhood in search of a wonderful little pastry called a kouignette. I remembered them fondly from our 2019 visit. We found the patisserie - I was a happy camper.
What I had not had on this trip was a crepe. So we looked for a restaurant to take care of that. We found one*, but it was not a fresh crepe and the rest of the food was lousy. Cody even waved off one couple who came in. I was proud of him.
*(Me again. We found one, but it was next door to the wrong one which I said was the right one.
Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe the Metro issue was quick karma.)
We were therefore still seeking crepes when we left - and we found them just down the street.
Delicious!
It was time to head home, but on the way we ran into another holiday market. And one stall was selling raclette. For the uninitiated, it involves melting raclette cheese under a heat element, then scraping that cheese onto good french bread. Sometimes there are other accompaniments, but tonight we just went for the plain cheese version. Also delicious!
~~~~~
This is Vicki. I don’t have much to add except some photos
You have made me very hungary with all the food talk and photos/videos. I had an OWL bakery croissant this morning, but it can't compare to what we had in Frannce. I also notice none of the food preparers were wearing gloves. Definitely less regulations there. I am off to eat some cheese!
Hey, friends. Yes, we are about to set off on another travel adventure. We leave Dec. 2. (BTW, the first person who comments with an answer to why this blog has such a weird title will have a special little something sent to them! Be sure to leave your name when you comment.) This trip started as simply a river cruise on the Danube, floating from Passau to Budapest, seeing all of the Christmas markets on the way. Then we decided that since we had not been to Prague or Budapest, we needed to include time to visit both places. Then because Dan and Cody have wanted to see southern Germany, we invited Cody to join us in Frankfurt, where we will rent a car and tool around Germany, Strasbourg, the Black Forest, and Munich. Then we thought about Paris. We were in Paris, staying diagonally across the street from the Notre Dame about two weeks before it burned. Taken from our hotel window in April of 2019 We simply had to go to Paris to see the renovated and rebuilt Notre Dame....
Today started (for me) with a trip to the hotel breakfast buffet, which was huge. I tried out a few things, but did not try the pickle fish eye with onion. Not the breakfast of champions, at least not this one. Out host, Jonas, picked us up and took us from the airport to the city centre. Prague is like any other big city - until you get into the centre, where the buildings became more beautiful. Jonas' family owns the apartment we are renting, as well as the restaurant next door. We went out to see the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square . We first ate brunch/lunch in a cafe directly across the street, then climbed the clock tower for a wonderful view of Prague. The clock was originally built in 1410, with other features added later. Impressive. After the tower, we wandred in the main Christmas market in Prague . Lots of things to eat, but we were told by Susan Murrell that we had to try a chimneycake . These seem to be as ubiquitous as funnel c...
Well, here we are in Passau on this fancy boat where people anticipate your every whim. It’s disconcerting, to say the least - at least for me! There are a lot of things that I was born to, but this sure as hell wasn’t one. We tooled around the town this morning, looking for distilled water for Dan’s CPAP (only to find that the cruise line provides it…. WTH???) and saw lots of markets for river cruisers. Some had some interesting stuff, like this needle-felted skirt. But Dan said that he wouldn’t wear it, so we passed it by. Passau is a town that was established in the medieval times as a trade city and an ecclesiastical center, so there’s lots of old shit. . One of the places that we visited was St. Stephens, a Catholic cathedral with the largest pipe organ in Europe. There was not organ playing, however, because the organ is being cleaned. At a little before 15:00, we boarded and got to our rooms to unpack and settle in. Dinner was with a fun Aussie...
You have made me very hungary with all the food talk and photos/videos. I had an OWL bakery croissant this morning, but it can't compare to what we had in Frannce. I also notice none of the food preparers were wearing gloves. Definitely less regulations there. I am off to eat some cheese!
ReplyDelete