The Big 30 in Paris Day 4: Will Walk for Food
Did I mention how much I adored our first full-day in Paris? It was one of those dream like days that pictures, words, and even memories won't do justice. We woke up this morning still flying high off an incredible start to this quick trip to Paris. For today's itinerary Jenn had booked us on a food tasting tour, something we did in Barcelona and decided it would be fun to try it in Paris. By the time we woke up a little over an hour before the tour was going to start at 11AM we decided unanimously that there was no way after the previous nights seven course meal that we were going to be able to enjoy the tour. We called their office and they were incredibly gracious and just moved our food tour to Berlin in September when we go on our Ultimate Europe 2016 trip. Crisis averted.
Instead we spent a little extra time in the morning recovering from the big night before. Sadly we just don't recover as fast as we used to. I went for a run a little before 11AM and grabbed a cappuccino at Starbucks around the corner afterwards. I came back to our hotel room and we got ready for the day. It wasn't until a little after 1PM that we finally left the hotel and went exploring Paris. It's amazing how quiet Paris gets on Sundays, nearly all stores and a lot of the restaurants are closed. It made walking around the city even more enjoyable as there were several streets completely deserted. Our general direction was the Louvre but we weren't in any hurry so we just walked and got lost in the streets of Paris.
On our way to the Louvre rain appeared out of nowhere and came down pretty good for five straight minutes. We took refuge in another Starbucks where Jenn got a hot chocolate and we waited out the rain. Once the rain subsided we were back on our way.
We stumbled into a small cafe a little after 2PM, a couple blocks from the Louvre. We got a nice table slightly inside the cafe and slightly on the street giving us a great view of both patrons of the cafe as well as people walking by. Jenn went with a spaghetti with tomato sauce (didn't take her that long) and I had their duck. The pasta was really incredible and the duck was great, but the potatoes were phenomenal. One thing we've noticed is the Parisians love for mustard, they told me to use it with the duck and I did and it was great. I ended up loving their spicy mustard so much I used it with the potatoes and bread as well.
At this point it had been a long time since our seven course meal and Jenn was just getting her appetite back so we decided to go crazy and order dessert. We went with a chocolate and banana crepe that was out of this world. It had just the right lightness that you want from a crepe that you really can't get anywhere but in Paris.
After our bellies were full we made our way from the Cafe to the nearby Louvre. We decided given how late it already was not to go back and tour the museum but instead we walked around the nearby area before plopping down in two lawn chairs in front of a pond.
When we talked about coming back to Paris (which happens a lot) we always said that the best part of coming back would be to enjoy the city rather then running from one landmark to the next. This was one of those moments that we did just that. We watched kids play with ducks, people running in all directions, while for us we sat back and just took it all in.
We walked back from the Louvre to our hotel and once again navigated the streets of Paris stopping when something caught our eye. It was a little after 5PM by the time we got back and Jenn immediately took a nap while I worked on picking photos and writing the previous days post. Jenn had picked a dinner spot for tonight which was a fondue restaurant. We jumped on the metro a little after 7PM and got to the restaurant at 7:30. Sadly although their website said it was open the restaurant had been closed most of July and wasn't re-opening until the end of August. Gosh do we wish we had the amount of "holiday" that the French do.
We looked for nearby restaurants but nothing really stood out so we took an Uber to take us near a hot spot for restaurants near the Notre Dame. We found an Italian restaurant after looking at least a twenty menus and even sitting in a couple of places before changing our minds. The restaurant we did choose ended up being fantastic. We both started with glasses of Bordeaux. Jenn had their spaghetti carbonara (trust me I know she's fallen down the pasta well again) and I went with a pizza with ham. After four straight French meals it was nice to get a little variety.
We finished dinner a little after 10PM and walked the couple of miles from dinner to our hotel. This is another day where we walked for nearly 10 miles (or 25,000 steps) and enjoyed every single one of them. The nearly two mile walk took us through the streets of Paris getting us back to our hotel right around midnight. We had so much fun on a beautiful summer night in Paris, laughing, holding hands, and soaking up every second that we have in Paris. We just don't want it to end.
