Paris

There's no place like Paris.  We returned after our first visit in 2023 and it never gets old. I listed all the things I loved about Paris in my first post:  the sidewalk cafes, the amazing food that you eat at all the sidewalk cafes, the beautiful trees and parks, the shopping, the architecture and fairytale-like buildings, the people watching because the women dress so chic and so do a lot of the men. I loved watching people with their dogs, too, because there are a lot of dogs in Paris and they are so well behaved and relaxed, just like their people. This time during our visit, we just wanted to soak it all in. We enjoyed every minute of our time there. First of all, our hotel was right next to the Odeon Theater in the left bank near the Latin Quarter or 6th district (districts are called arrondissement) and we were also just a block away from the gorgeous Luxembourg Gardens.  We could look out our hotel window, which was the size of door and nearly as heavy since we were staying in one of those typical, old French buildings (see me in the window?)

and our view was of the square in front of the theater where everyone would come out during intermission. 

They had a nice outdoor cafe set up just for theater patrons and then afterwards they would put all the table and chairs away, sweep up the grounds and and it would suddenly be all quiet and peaceful like nothing had ever happened.  In the morning we would wake up and look out the window and it was a sleepy, Paris morning with only delivery or service people moving about or an occasional bicyclist on their way to work.  

I told Bruce I could sit there all day and just watch the activity out our window.  One evening there was a film crew working on a film and I really could have watched that a long time.  Finally, all their taxis came to take them back to their hotel.  I hated to think that I was wasting all my time in Paris watching life go by out our hotel window but I was seriously mesmerized with all Parisians doing their thing;  just another day in Paris.  

We like doing Rick Steves walking tours so we did the left bank tour.  It started up by the Seine River so we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens on our way (which we did multiple times whenever we were going anywhere) because they are so beautiful.

The above photo is the beautiful, peaceful Medici Fountain in the gardens where we took a short break to sit in the chairs that are all over the gardens.  

Luxembourg Gardens is divided into English gardens and French gardens.  Between the two, lies a geometric forest and a large pond.  This is the pond that you often see children playing with rented remote controlled sailboats; very fun to watch and it looks very fun to do, too.   

People will sit in chairs all around the pond, like the ones above that I am sitting in but really the chairs are located all over the gardens and in other parks and gardens in Paris.  We were trying to decide which we liked better, the blue chairs of Nice or the green chairs of Paris?  Decisions, decisions, decisions..

After we left Luxembourg Gardens, we passed the Pantheon that use to be a church dedicated to St.  Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, but it was converted to a nonreligious mausoleum after the French Revolution to honor the Champions of French liberty.  The structure looks like any capitol building you would see in the U.S. but in Paris, it's just another building...ho hum.

We headed on up to the Seine River and passed Notre Dame to get to the beginning of our walking tour.  Notre Dame is open to tourist again after the fire in 2019 but there is still some construction going on.  This is a very busy tourist part of town, for sure, and we were eager to get away from this area and on with our walking tour. 

So, we walked along the river

to the Post des Arts which is the bridge in Paris where romantic couples will traditionally attach a padlock to the railing before throwing the key into the Seine River to symbolized their eternal love.

But due to the structural damage to the bridge from the weight of the locks, they've had to remove them now and they put up a glass railing so people can't do it anymore.  They only have few on display so you can see the history of it.  

We watched the sightseeing tour boats go down the Seine River which is a fun tour to do.  We took one last time we were here and enjoyed it a lot. 

We continued walking passed Voltaire's statue who was a famous philosopher.  He was always questioning the ruling class and helped fuel the French revolution.  I guess today, you would call him an activist.  But he was put in prison for it and then exiled from his beloved Paris, poor guy.  However, he is now honored as a French patriot and is entombed in the Pantheon.  

We also passed the hotel where Oscar Wilde died who was an Irish playwright who wore flamboyant clothes and had an outrageous wit.  He, too, was exiled from Paris after having an affair with a lord causing a scandal and he died poor and broke; another unfortunate guy.  It seems everyone loved Paris so much back then that kicking them out was a big punishment. 

There is a plaque above the door that explains that he died here but otherwise it looks like a typical hotel. He now is also buried in Paris at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery along with the ashes of his lover, Robert Ross, so all is forgiven now.  

Just walking the streets of Paris is entertainment without a walking tour to guide you.   

We love to look at all the cute shops and store fronts. 

Our favorite part of the walking tour was a street called Rue de Buci that was full of outdoor cafes that ended at a busy five-way intersection with more cafes and shops.

This is where I found my favorite patisserie of the trip and we returned a few times.  We sort of ended our walking tour even though it kept going because we got so overwhelmed with all the cafes, patisseries, boulangeries, etc.  It was once again time for us to eat!

Our walking tour guide said this was the heart of the left bank so we figured this was a good place to hang out.   We bought a loaf of bread called a Raisin & Sugar Cramique.  It is a brioche type of bread with raisin and sugar pearls that just melted in your mouth, it was so good.  It's the bread above at the far end in the upper portion of the photo.  Here it is from the website:

The bakery is called  Aux Merveilleux de Fred and according to their website they have locations all around the world including three in New York City.  Even David Lebovitz (an American food blogger who lives in Paris and who has multiple cookbooks) talks about this place and it's one of his top bakeries in Paris according to his blog.  This post is especially funny because he bought three mini meringues here to share with friends and then he ate all of them before his friends even arrived.  Just like us, we ate the whole cramique before we even got back to our hotel room.  You just can't stop eating anything that comes out of this place!  Eating is a big part of our trips to Europe but Paris is the BEST.  We had all our favorites:  onion soup

crepes

pastries, almost too pretty to eat...

creme brûlée, of course

                       

and my first meal was my favorite french roasted chicken, this time with tarragon sauce. It just tasted so good after a day of travel, if you know what I mean. 

Their fish dishes are pretty good, too, because they make that meunière sauce with their fish, so buttery with the browned butter and lemon.

I had this dish at one of the oldest restaurants in Paris called Le Procope, established in 1686  This is where coffee was first introduced in Paris known as the new "magical beverage"  that people would flock to. It was the beginning of the Parisian coffee houses. 

Lots of famous people have eaten here including Napoleon Bonaparte, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Voltaire and Victor Hugo to name a few. They still serve coffee in their coffee lounge Monday thru Friday, 3pm - 6pm, no reservations needed.  They also had some pretty good alcoholic drinks, too.

But you don't need to go to Le Procope to get a good cup of coffee in Paris.  Any sidewalk cafe will accommodate you

and we definitely had our share.  Order a fresh baked baguette still hot out of the oven in the morning and they will bring a side of French butter and jam to go with it and there is your typical French breakfast in Paris. It really doesn't get much better than that.