Our last full day

On our very first day in Paris, we found ourselves in this quaint garden just outside of Saint Julien de Pauvre. It was a quiet respite from a long journey.

A place where you could sit and enjoy your morning coffee and croissant. A place where you could contemplate your day ahead. A place that allowed those less fortunate gather and meet their friends. While still others found a place to sleep away from the prying eyes of the public who might otherwise judge them as many do when seeing a homeless person sleeping on a sidewalk.



Its difficult to see by the picture, but the grey 'tree' on the right that seems to be holding up the tree trunk on the left, is in effect cement and is holding up the tree. There's a story behind it I'm sure but I didn't get a chance to find out what it is. Many visitors exiting the church, stopped and admired the tree with reverance. Some even photographed themselves with the tree. There must be some amazing story behind this cement support.









It is this place we found ourselves on our last full day in Paris. As we munched on our pain au chocolat and sipped our coffees, we were silent. Full of thoughts of the day ahead and of our very long journey home.

We brushed off the crumbs from our food and sent the pigeons and finches off in a cloud of feathers.

We made our way back up to the Pantheon. We almost unknowingly retraced our steps backwards from the Sunday before. Back the Pantheon, back towards the Jardins de Luxembourg but instead of going there, we turned down Saint Michel, briefly visiting the currently under construction Sorbonne.

We made our way through the streets of the Saint Germain district to a wine shop where my husband bought a pricey bottle of wine to bring home.

We passed 'L'Hotel' where Oscar Wilde spent his last days. We even stopped at a Starbucks for a coffee. The prices were almost the same there, only in euros..now that's one pricey cup of joe.

Back to the hotel to reorganize and relax. We had planned an early dinner at a fondue place my husband found on his way to find a grocertia but alas, it didn't start serving dinner until 7pm. We knew we had to be up and out of the hotel by 6am to make our flight to Munich so that place was out.

I know my husband really wanted to eat there, perhaps it was because it was called Alexander's. Next time we visit Paris we will make an effort to be there for the 7pm all you can eat fondue.

We wandered back through the maze of streets and restaurants while we pondered what to eat for our last meal in Paris. We hadn't done a lot of pricey French places and this trend would continue. We opted instead for the smaller bistros and cafes. It was back to a pizzeria that we ate our last meal.

We nibbled on our pizzas while we watched the last of the book sellers and tourist swag hawkers pack up their goods and store them in the big green lockers until next weekend when again they would bring out their wares.



We headed back to the hotel full of pizza and post meal caffeine. We packed up our luggage and prepared for the very long day ahead.

A little known market and a find worth its weight in gold

I wanted to experience a Parisian market, ideally one where I wasn't going to be harassed to buy stuff or worry a lot about the bands of travelling panhandlers that came with more tourist oriented markets.

I found in a guide book, a market that fit this bill, le Marche d'Aligre. Along the way to get there, we also past another street market filled with lots of fresh produce and goodies. My husband stopped to get a Mille Feuille pastry.

Now, I hear you ask, where are the pictures? I don't think its fair to take pictures of people doing their daily lives. For me, there is a certain level of privacy that comes with a resident of a tourist oriented city. How would you feel if you were headed to the local farmers market and someone is in your face taking pictures of you buying tomatoes?

After we hit the market, we had one last thing we had promised ourselves we would look for in Paris. We had two noticeable spaces on our livingroom walls. As long as we've lived in this house, my husband has always envisioned having maps framed on these two walls.

We were able to purchase a large map print that hangs over the staircase to the basement we haven't found one he likes for the living room. Ideally they would match or have some similarities since they are in the same room.

Along the Seine, there are these huge green metal containers. Right along the edge of the cement railing. For a while I didn't know what they were for. Now, I do.

On the weekends, the sidewalks along the Seine become one big flea market. Artists sell canvases, antique maps and books among other tourist oriented items. It was among this stalls we found our maps.

We have been looking for these maps for MONTHS. We thought we had made a choice but if we were to get them ordered, framed and shipped, it would cost well over 250$. We got 3 maps for about 30€ (45$US) so after they are framed, we will be well under that cost.

That purchase was well worth the weight.

Welcome to the MOULIN ROUGE! pt. 2

We arrived at the Moulin Rouge, only to be asked about a dozen times if we had a reservation. Yes, we did, we answered every time.

I had to surrender my camera to the coat check because no photos are allowed. Fine.

We were guided to our seats, which weren't very good. We were at the far left of the stage and really couldn't see much.

Other guests had come to enjoy dinner and the show. They were being entertained by a warm up act. Those tickets were twice what we paid.

After a couple of minutes and speaking to the waiter to tried to take our drink order, we realized that we were in the wrong spot. We were quickly moved up to the upper and cheaper sections. We were more than happy to go as those seats were far better than where we had originally been seated.

Now, there were some who sat near us, who weren't too happy to have to seat is what they believed to be the nose bleeds. We tried to explain that these were pretty good seats considering it was Paris on a Friday night. We had not doubt that the really good seats had been sold out for weeks.

The show was amazing. Yes, there was a lot of boobs. It was the Moulin Rouge for pete's sake. But the performances were really good and between the acts, we were treated to a couple of variety acts which were far superior to warm up act who did a very bad rendition of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's Islands in the Stream.

Was it worth 180€ (about 270$US)? It was something that is synonomus with Paris, so it was. Would I go back? Not likely.

Welcome to the MOULIN ROUGE! pt. 1

Unfortunately, we would not be enterained by Ewan McGregor...damn I'd pay to see that! Just kidding, okay maybe not.

My husband decided he wanted to head over to Montmartre early (around 4pm) so that we could have an early dinner and head to the Moulin Rouge for 8:30-ish because we had only reserved the tickets and he wasn't totally certain of the procedure to be seated etc.

We had to find a quiet place to sit down to call home and see how things were going so we found a bench in the Montmartre Cemetary. Charming, right? Actually it was. It ressembled the cemetaries I've seen from New Orleans where you just have above ground family mausoleums, at least in the section we were in.

We called home and of course, all was well. T didn't miss us at all. Mind you, the grandparents kept her very busy with outings, puzzles, colouring and reading lots of books. I can't forget the trips to the park.

We decided to try to find a place for a snack, so we grabbed a beer at Corcoran's before heading off in search of a baguette to tide us over until we could find a restaurant that was open early for dinner (remember the French eat dinner much later than us North Americans generally do).

We knew from our Sacre Coeur adventure that if we headed east of the Moulin Rouge, there wasn't much else aside from a lot of sex shops and they don't sell the types of baguettes we were looking for.

We walked and walked and found nothing. Finally we opted to try a grocertia and found a baguette. We headed back down the street back to the area near the Moulin Rouge and grabbed dinner.

About this time last year, my husband was sent to Toulouse for business. There, he came across a meal called Entrecote. Basically, its a beef dish made from the meat found between the ribs of the cow. He kept saying I needed to try it however the opportunity didn't really present itself until Friday night.

We ordered from the formules available. One of the items my husband ordered the foie gras. It was something I wanted to try and will likely never eat again. I got to try French Onion soup in France (it was much better than a lot of versions I've had) and the entrecote. The beef was decent enough but not something I would rush out to have again.

So finally we were off to see the Moulin Rouge.

Porte de l'Arsenal

By Friday, we needed a quiet day. We had played tourist really hard the first few days and now we started to really feel it.

We had booked tickets for the Moulin Rouge Friday night so my husband wanted to take it slow. He wanted to walk over to the Bastille monument and then walk back. He wanted a quick rest and then get dressed for the night in Montmartre.

We headed over the Bastille. There really isn't much to see, save for a monument. It seems the French like their fountains and their remembrances of days gone by.

We ended up walking along a part called the Porte de l'Arsenal. It was a very calm place with a few pigeons, boats and a small garden. A quiet place for a quiet day.

It was like watching a train wreck in progress..

Okay, I was raised in a rural community. That being said there are some things in life that you can be raised in a small town but you still know not to do. Such things might include not insulting your boss, going out in public in your underwear and touching a piece of art at the Louvre.

My husband and I were walking through the Grecian marble exhibit at the Louvre when we saw a train wreck about to happen.

Now, I've done some bad stuff. I nearly knocked over a candle stand at a church we visited but I recovered fast enough to overt an international incident. The North American tourist (I know this because we were close enough to hear them speaking North American english) we saw in the Grecian exhibit, errr not so much.

We were strolling along, down the centre of the exhibit. Along each side were various busts and sculptures. Security politely strolled through the exhibit but honestly, you were rarely aware of their presence...until this happened.

Just to the right of where we were, we spotted a couple looking at a torso sculpture. It had no head or arms, just a torso. To our left, we saw a security guard patrolling. The couple decided to take a picture. Totally allowable.

What is not allowable is to touch the artifacts, which is what the man (of the couple admiring the torso) was about to do. He was about to put his arm around the statue. Oh no you didn't! Oh yes, he did.

For whatever reason, he changed his mind and decided to take off his hat and hold it above the torso's non existent head. Oh dear, this is going south really fast.

Barely a second after he took his hat off and placed it over the torso's head, the security guard pounced. Both my husband and I cringed and had to look away. Thankfully, all that was said was something like "Please sir, you are at the Louvre and that is an original."

It was uncomfortable just to watch.

The Eiffel Tower at night...

...is far nicer than during the day. There are still the crowds and still the security but its just prettier at night.

Wednesday night we headed over to the Trocadero neighbourhood opposite the Tower to have dinner. It turned out to be one of the better meals we had in Paris. We had steak with pepper sauce, veggies and creme caramel...drool.

I got to wear one of my French scarves, too. All in all a great night.

These two shots are the Trocadero neighbourhood as the sun is setting (the Eiffel Tower is behind us and this neighbourhood is on our left as we crossed the bridge)

S and I took turns trying to get a decent shot of the Tower with the lights on