February 1 Friday
Our plan today was to tour the Left Bank, where we have not spent any time yet on this trip. Our first destination was the Ile St. Louis, where we wanted to have lunch at the St. Regis Cafe. This place was named by actor Tony Shalhoub as his favorite breakfast choice in Paris (he just spent a fair amount of time here filming season two of Mrs. Maisel). We walked through the Marais and overshot our intended path, but that was okay as we were enjoying the walk. We saw an impressive library. The Marais was a neighborhood for the wealthy Parisians, so there are a lot of palaces; most of which are now repurposed into other uses (like libraries!). The Cafe St. Regis was very nice and we both had “chicken burgers” (grilled chicken sandwiches). They were pretty good. A neighboring table of Americans was enjoying French onion soup with escargots — what a cliche!
Lunch now over, we crossed over to the Ile St. Louis, looking at the back side of Notre Dame, then we continued on to the Left Bank. Our first stop was the Pantheon, a monumental building dedicated to the heroes of France. We didn’t go in, just took a few photos. Then we proceeded to the Luxembourg Gardens (and palace). We strolled through this nice park for a while also. Then we proceeded down toward the Boulevard St. Michel, down the Rue Racine, where we saw the horrible restaurant, Polidor (still uninviting and crowded for some reason), and the place where Rigodon, the "dolly" shop formerly stood, now a tailor. Stopping at Starbucks for a bathroom break, Roy lost his eyeglass case for the second time, yet found it on the ground — first time was at the top floor of Westminster Abbey, also found on the floor. Boulevard St. Michel was quite crowded, and we saw the exterior of the Cluny, then we walked through the pedestrian area that we remembered from 1994 with the large crowds of young people at night having fun. Our destination was the book store called Shakespeare & Company, one of the world’s best book stores, according to many lists of such things. Inside it was cramped and musty; we didn’t linger, mostly I just wanted a photo of me in front!
Then we made our way to the Fountaine St. Michel, which according to the guidebook, is a popular tourist destination, but I didn’t recall seeing it in the past. However, when we got there, we recognized it immediately. This was near the place we visited so many times in 1994 because Olivier’s restaurant, L’Alsace a Paris, was located nearby. Wow, how could we have forgotten? Then we walked to the little square where the restaurant had been. We felt sentimental being here, yet cannot recall exactly where the restaurant was. We continued walking along Boulevard St. Germain, another busy avenue. We were just wandering at this point and took a detour down a side street where we found really delicous cookies with chocolate and framboise (raspberry), yum! Roy again realized his eyeglass case was missing, seemingly this time for good. However when we walked back to the Fountaine St. Michel, Rob miraculously found it on the sidewalk!
We didn’t have any definite plans at this point, so we decided to visit the Louvre, maybe go in (our museum passes will get us in for free), so we proceeded along the river to the entrance point. We took a lot of pictures of the exterior, watching police on feet chase a group of young black men (what was that about?), then went into the museum. There was no line, but the exterior of the museum has roped off sections that illustrate how long the lines could be in summer. Inside, we made our way directly to the Mona Lisa. It was not in the same place as we remembered, but in a much larger room with a much larger crowd. We pushed our way to the front for our photos. I also took a selfie! Why not?
The path in and out is through the statuary area, so we made a short detour to look at Winged Victory. For some reason, the museum was very hot, so I felt the need to exit quickly. The exit surprisingly routed us into a very nice underground mall (when was this built?). Might as well take commercial advantage of all the people who come through here. Not so easy to find our way out, though.
The weather continued to drip on us, so we decided to take the Metro back. Fortunately, it was not too crowded for a Friday rush hour. We had a little time before we are due to meet Jimmy and Barry for drinks and dinner. Jimmy is a former colleague/friend of our friend Sam Taylor. We were looking forward to meeting them.
As previously arranged, we met Jimmy and Barry at the bar, Bear Den, at 7 PM. Boy, was this place packed. It seemed that the little bar couldn’t hold any more people, and yet more kept coming in. We arrived first, then Barry and Jimmy came (we had previously exchanged pictures so we could find each other). We then stood outside in the drizzle with our vodka drinks and umbrellas. Next up was the bar Quetzal, where we enjoyed another round of drinks. Their Parisian friend Pierre joined us, and then we proceeded to dinner. Dinner was at the restaurant Cafe des Musees, whose specialty was Boeuf Bourguignon, which we all enjoyed — it was excellent. Roy started with champignons with escargot and Rob started with a terrine de compagne (poultry). It was all good, and when we left at around 10:30 PM we were practically the final customers. We had a good time and sent a photo to thank Sam Taylor for bringing us all together.
Lunch now over, we crossed over to the Ile St. Louis, looking at the back side of Notre Dame, then we continued on to the Left Bank. Our first stop was the Pantheon, a monumental building dedicated to the heroes of France. We didn’t go in, just took a few photos. Then we proceeded to the Luxembourg Gardens (and palace). We strolled through this nice park for a while also. Then we proceeded down toward the Boulevard St. Michel, down the Rue Racine, where we saw the horrible restaurant, Polidor (still uninviting and crowded for some reason), and the place where Rigodon, the "dolly" shop formerly stood, now a tailor. Stopping at Starbucks for a bathroom break, Roy lost his eyeglass case for the second time, yet found it on the ground — first time was at the top floor of Westminster Abbey, also found on the floor. Boulevard St. Michel was quite crowded, and we saw the exterior of the Cluny, then we walked through the pedestrian area that we remembered from 1994 with the large crowds of young people at night having fun. Our destination was the book store called Shakespeare & Company, one of the world’s best book stores, according to many lists of such things. Inside it was cramped and musty; we didn’t linger, mostly I just wanted a photo of me in front!
Then we made our way to the Fountaine St. Michel, which according to the guidebook, is a popular tourist destination, but I didn’t recall seeing it in the past. However, when we got there, we recognized it immediately. This was near the place we visited so many times in 1994 because Olivier’s restaurant, L’Alsace a Paris, was located nearby. Wow, how could we have forgotten? Then we walked to the little square where the restaurant had been. We felt sentimental being here, yet cannot recall exactly where the restaurant was. We continued walking along Boulevard St. Germain, another busy avenue. We were just wandering at this point and took a detour down a side street where we found really delicous cookies with chocolate and framboise (raspberry), yum! Roy again realized his eyeglass case was missing, seemingly this time for good. However when we walked back to the Fountaine St. Michel, Rob miraculously found it on the sidewalk!
We didn’t have any definite plans at this point, so we decided to visit the Louvre, maybe go in (our museum passes will get us in for free), so we proceeded along the river to the entrance point. We took a lot of pictures of the exterior, watching police on feet chase a group of young black men (what was that about?), then went into the museum. There was no line, but the exterior of the museum has roped off sections that illustrate how long the lines could be in summer. Inside, we made our way directly to the Mona Lisa. It was not in the same place as we remembered, but in a much larger room with a much larger crowd. We pushed our way to the front for our photos. I also took a selfie! Why not?
The path in and out is through the statuary area, so we made a short detour to look at Winged Victory. For some reason, the museum was very hot, so I felt the need to exit quickly. The exit surprisingly routed us into a very nice underground mall (when was this built?). Might as well take commercial advantage of all the people who come through here. Not so easy to find our way out, though.
The weather continued to drip on us, so we decided to take the Metro back. Fortunately, it was not too crowded for a Friday rush hour. We had a little time before we are due to meet Jimmy and Barry for drinks and dinner. Jimmy is a former colleague/friend of our friend Sam Taylor. We were looking forward to meeting them.
As previously arranged, we met Jimmy and Barry at the bar, Bear Den, at 7 PM. Boy, was this place packed. It seemed that the little bar couldn’t hold any more people, and yet more kept coming in. We arrived first, then Barry and Jimmy came (we had previously exchanged pictures so we could find each other). We then stood outside in the drizzle with our vodka drinks and umbrellas. Next up was the bar Quetzal, where we enjoyed another round of drinks. Their Parisian friend Pierre joined us, and then we proceeded to dinner. Dinner was at the restaurant Cafe des Musees, whose specialty was Boeuf Bourguignon, which we all enjoyed — it was excellent. Roy started with champignons with escargot and Rob started with a terrine de compagne (poultry). It was all good, and when we left at around 10:30 PM we were practically the final customers. We had a good time and sent a photo to thank Sam Taylor for bringing us all together.
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