Where did that jetlag come from??

 

Hello, and I am reasonably sure that today is Wednesday in France, although I certainly wouldn’t bet the house on it.  

 

Louvre Pyramid

We both slept for something like 8+ hours last night, but I find that my “sleep bank” (which Robert doesn’t believe in) is still overdrawn.  So … up this morning with the alarm about 6:30 am.  Sunrise occurred this morning at approximately 7:54 (!) am; winter has arrived in France, that’s for sure!   

Into my beautiful bathtub and out about 7 am and dressed and ready for breakfast by 7:30 am.

Margaret with Near Eastern Lion

Downstairs into the cellar for a very nice beginning of the day:  Croissant, chocolate 

croissant, cheese, juice and hot chocolate (coffee for R).  We were out of the hotel about 8:15 am and over to the 21/27 bus stop to get to the Louvre by opening time at 9 am.  We had, of course, gotten our tickets on-line as well as our reserved spaces, which seems to be important this Covid.  We decided to enter through the Carousel du Louvre (the shopping center next to the Louvre) and found that there was no one else there waiting.  Our vaccination cards were checked, and we were scanned through the usual metal detectors and we were in! 

  

We wanted to drop our coats, although the Pyramid entrance was open and it was really chilly, so headed to the cloakroom – which was totally changed!  Now, instead of waiting in line and dropping things off, they have a very large room with all different sizes of lockers for free self-check-in!  Very handy and convenient.   They all have clear glass doors, making it very easy to return and find things and the instructions were printed in several languages.

M with Lamassu

 

We headed first to the Near East rooms (surprise!) and found that many changes have been made since we were here last.  We very much enjoyed our visit, although for us, it was fairly short – about 3 hours.  I’m figuring that we’re way out of practice touring museums, as we usually spend hours and hours.  However, that was about the time that jet lag reared its ugly head!  Wow!  It hit us both about the same time.

 

We had planned on having lunch at the Carousel du Louvre’s food court, but when we got there, there were only a few restaurants open!  Very strange!  Decided then to head back up towards our hotel in the 5^th Arr. and go to Bistro Gay Lussac, which is right across the street from our former wonderful apartment.  We took the #27 bus and got off less than half a block from the bistro.

You can even seen color on hat!

  

Great lunch!  We both had the same thing – open-faced grilled ham and cheese on wheat bread with a salad underneath, dressed in the wonderful mustard vinaigrette dressing.  It really was cold outside and our nice waitperson asked me if I was cold, to which I replied that I was – and she brought me a very hot glass of water to hold – so sweet, and it really was a help in getting my perennially cold hands warmed up!  Lunch was excellent, as were the glasses of Bordeaux we had with it.  It cost about 59 € for everything, including our usual large bottle of sparkling water.  (Prices going up everywhere on food!)

Louvre has great ceilings!

Then a short walk back to the hotel and upstairs to room #15 … and total collapse, at least for me.  (I know R had a nap, but I think he got up before I did.)  

Venus di Milo

Once we – or rather I – woke up, Robert downloaded yesterday’s photos into the computer, and I was able to get them posted, captioned and then sent out to our blog list.  Hopefully going forward, I will be able to keep up with posting and photos and get everything off at the same time!  It is a hope! 

So, now, out for our first truffle dinner at Un Jour a Peyrassol near the Bourse!  Here’s to a great meal!

 

More later!

m

I had very cold hands!

xxx 

Fabulous lunch!

Wow!  Jay, dinner took approximately 2 hours 20 minutes, give or take 10 minutes or so! 

 

Okay … so, we took the 27 bus, which unfortunately stopped at Rue de Carousel, far short of our goal, but we were able to fairly quickly find a 39 bus that took us up to Petit Champs.  From there we made our way to Rue Vivienne and Peyrassol, arriving just in time for our 7:30 pm reservation.   It’s in a really old but lovely building, but very difficult to maintain anything like a social distance, that’s for sure.  As this was definitely a truffle kind of place, it was really enjoyable going through the menu to decide – which of the three kinds of truffles will we order, and what will they be on or in?  In this case, we were first presented with a small plate of thinly sliced but truffle infused salami, which was delicious.  From there, the manager talked about the three different types of truffles on hand for the evening, presenting us with small glass-domed plates with the three different truffles.  Well … also were able to taste two kinds of wine prior to ordering; very nice!

 

Note how close tables are!

We started dinner with an appetizer of a large piece of burrata di buffalo with shaved winter truffles on top, served with toasts.  Great!  From there, we both ordered the specialty of the maison, which were gnocchi.  R had his with fall truffles and I had mine with winter.  The dish was absolutely wonderful, inducing R to say that he was going to learn how to make gnocchi!  That will definitely be fun!

Burrata for two with truffles on top!

 

After that, R had a glass of 10-year old Tawny Port from Porto for dessert, and I had their excellent chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream with truffles shaved on top … what a way to end a meal!  Fabulous!  

After the burata!

We were finally able to get the check about 10:15 pm and head out the door.  As it was really late for us (although obviously not for a lot of Parisiens, as there were quite a few restaurants still open and serving as we walked down Rue Vivienne.  It was quite cold, though, and as we hit Comedie Francaise, we were able to get a cab back to the hotel!

Gnocchi with truffles!

Chocolate cake, ice cream and truffles!

R fading faster than me, but we’ve got to get the pictures done so that he can get to sleep.  I plan on NOT setting the alarm clock tomorrow morning, even though we have quite a lot to see tomorrow! 

R and port!

So, closing now, with all love and good wishes!

m

xxx