Epic Europe Trip 2014 Day 18: A Long Line on a Cold Paris Day
How do you follow-up a lunch at Le Jules Verne and seeing the Moulin Rouge? You sleep and then you sleep some more. Jenn and I are not anything close to resembling night owls. We enjoy our sleep maybe a little too much. After an incredible day yesterday the best way we could have ever followed it up was by sleeping so that's what we did. We woke up a little after 9AM this morning and were in no rush to get the morning started.
We ended up heading down to breakfast close to 10AM. This morning breakfast was served in the main lobby bar/restaurant rather then Cafe M. The lineup of food was the same. This time I went straight to a cappuccino and Jenn stuck with her orange juice and scrambled eggs with bacon. I ended up getting an omelette today which was a nice change of pace.
After breakfast we went back up to our room and got ready for another adventure. Today our plan of attack was to go to the Notre Dame. In 2008 we went inside but we never climbed it and Jenn said it was worth doing. So we jumped on the metro and made our way to the Notre Dame. It only took fifteen minutes or so and the Metro brought us within a block of the Notre Dame. We took some pictures in front of it and then searched for the line to go climb to the top.
When we found the line we found out really quickly that it was going to be a long, long wait. The line was probably 150 people deep and was not moving. They only let people go up in groups of 20 and you have to wait for people to leave in order to climb. So fifteen minutes goes by and then thirty, and sure enough almost an hour goes by until we're let in to then pay to go up to the top. Then when we go pay to go to the top we have to wait again for someone to let us start the 400+ step climb. We make it about half way up to the Notre Dame to some gorgeous lookout points when we find another stop point that we have to wait for clearance to keep going higher. At this point the weather is 50 degrees with a nice breeze cutting through our jackets and we wait close to twenty minutes before being cleared to go up the last 100 stairs or so to the very top. We've climbed a lot of buildings/towers in our time and a couple 100 stairs to the top just didn't seem worth it so we took a right turn and headed down and out of the Notre Dame. I'm glad we went I only wish they could have got the pace moving a bit.
After almost two hours at the Notre Dame we made our way to the beautiful Pont de l'Archevêché also known as the lock bridge. If you remember we put a lock on a bridge in Venice a couple of days back, well the real inspiration for this was for Paris. We bought a second lock specifically for Paris and today was the day we got to use it. We made our way to the Pont de l'Archevêché bridge and found a spot in the middle of the bridge to put our small lock of love. It was pretty neat being part of the phenomenon except even a few minutes after we put it on the bridge we had a hard time finding it.
We then made our way back to the Metro station to go towards the Louvre. One of the places I wanted to visit in Paris was called Angelina's. Two of my co-workers said Angelina's had the best hot chocolate in the world so I wanted to have Jenn and I check it out, especially since Jenn is something of the hot chocolate connoisseur. We made our way on the Metro to the Louvre and found Angelina's with ease. It was the one with the giant line. I went to the back of the line while Jenn investigated. Ten minutes later Jenn came back with the news that it would be an hour and a half wait to get a table at Angelina's and that we could do take-out with no wait. So we went in grabbed a hot chocolate, some macaroons and an eclair for the road. I have to concur with my co-workers, this was some amazing hot chocolate. Jenn thought it was too rich but I thought it was like drinking a really expensive chocolate bar.
We took our hot chocolate and snacks and began the fifteen minute walk back to our hotel. A few minutes after reaching our room and Jenn took a nap and I started finishing up some previous day posts. At this point in a three week trip we're just beginning to really feel not only the trip but our bodies wind down.
At around 7PM I woke Jenn up from her midday slumber to go grab some dinner. There is a French restaurant that's right around the corner from our hotel that we'd been eyeing all week. Today was the day we were going to try it. We walked there and had a great table that gave us great views of the street. We started (well mostly just me) with escargot. I know many think its gross to eat snails and that people just eat them to say they do. I genuinely have always enjoyed snails since my first experience with them on a cruise as a kid. I love the chewy texture and that they're dumped in garlic and butter. These escargots were still in the shell which was new to me and I was given a set of utensils I had no idea how to use. Jenn asked the waiter for me and luckily I just needed to use a fork to get them out. They were delicious. For our main course Jenn got neapolitan pasta and I had duck with mashed potatoes. Both were really great. My duck was super tender and had a ton of flavor.
After dinner we made the short walk back to our hotel. On the way we passed a real-estate office that had listings in Paris that made Jenn's mind start to spin. Have I mentioned how much we love Paris? We sure would love to live here. Time to start saving up our pennies so one day we can buy that dream flat out here. Until then I will keep making Jenn have us travel to Paris as much as possible.
