Our last full day in Paris!

Hello on Friday early evening – although truthfully, it starts getting really dark around here by 5!  Busy day today … now I just have to remember what we did!

Eiffel Tower from our hotel

 

First of all, while I got to sleep by 10 pm last night, I didn’t wake up until 9 am!  Incredible!  By my count, that makes for 11 hours of lovely sleep … I guess I really needed it, but it was even rough getting up then!  Oh well!  Into and out of the tub (it’s really lovely, with lots of hot water), but it’s not that easy to get out of as all the faucets etc. are on one side, and need to be cleared to get in and out!  Down to breakfast about 10 am and out the door about 10:30 am.  

 

And as seen from below!

Headed first to the Tour Eiffel just to make sure it was still standing – and it was!  A clear plastic/glass barricade was built all around it at the base, which was new, at least for us, but as it has been a few years since we were in Paris, not sure how old/new it is.  We had thought about going up to the top this trip, but honestly, we just ran out of time.  Paris is truly one of the most wonderful cities on earth, and there is SO much to do and see!  

From Champs de Mars, we caught the bus to Monmartre.  They used to run a tiny bus all around the Monmartre/Sacre Coeur area, but that was no longer working, and the #40 bus – not quite full-sized, but definitely an improvement over the Monmartrobus has taken its place.  Honestly, though with the crowd of tourists, traffic, delivery vans that are clogging those streets, it’s amazing the bus ever gets through! 

Boats coming and going on the Seine!

  

Our first stop was Sacre Coeur, and it was lovely being inside once again.  They do have some beautiful stained glass, and quite a view from the front of the square, although today was a lot hazier than it has been.  

 

Imagine driving a bus through this?!

From there we walked through the central plaza to look at the artists as they painted, but either they are taking some time off for good behavior, or have decided that it is way too cold to paint, there weren’t nearly as many painters in the square as we have seen in the past, and we actually didn’t see anything we really wanted to buy!  (I did pick up a few souvenirs, though – some embroidered hand-towels and a Paris apron or two…can never have enough of those!)

 

Headed back down the hill, and we have to admit that the #40 bus is a great improvement in getting around the area.  Back to Place Pigalle, and voila, the #30 was waiting to take us back to le Tour Eiffel.  And that’s where it got interesting!

Sacre Coeur from the side

 The first night we were here, last Tuesday, something was going on around the Paris Opera Garnier, as the streets were blocked off and lots of sirens and police everywhere.  Basically, our bus just stopped and everybody had to get off!  Well, it happened again, this afternoon!  We were back at the Eiffel Tower spot, and here came our 82 bus, which we planned to take back to Luxembourg!  Problem was, the 82 was only going one stop further on, as there was some sort of police activity that was closing the streets!  What now, we continue to ask ourselves?!

 

Interior of Sacre Coeur

So, we walked to the RER C line, which basically traces the left-bank of the Seine for a distance … but that didn’t really work out either, as the train was only going as far as Les Invalides, which was something like one stop!  So … followed the signage up and out and toward taxis – only to find that these streets were blocked  too – so not only were there no taxis available – the buses here weren’t running either!  Good grief!

  

So … back down into the underground, and caught number 8 Metro train as far as Le Motte-Piquet where we were able to transfer to line 10 to finally make it back to our neck of the woods at Cluny-La Sorbonne.  Thankfully, the streets there weren’t closed by the police, for which we were very thankful!  I was starving by this time (as we hadn’t eaten since 10 am!) so we stopped for a sandwich and Coke before catching a number 27 bus a bit farther up St. Michel.

Some lovely stained glass

 Wow!  We haven’t seen such disruption since the time we were in New York City when the United Nations was opening its session and, to add to the chaos, the Pope was visiting.

 

R napping for another half an hour or so, when he’ll need to run through the shower and change clothes before we meet our friends and former landlady (from the wonderful apartment we rented for a month in 2006!) Graciela and her husband, Alain at La Coup de Torchon for dinner tonight!  

View from the front!

Dinner later!

Much love,

m

xxx

 

Allo!  Just back from our wonderful dinner with Graciela and Alain!  It was SOOOOO great to see them!  As near as we can figure, we haven’t seen them in almost FIVE (5) YEARS!  Way too long to not see good friends!  

 

We had been to La Coup de Torchon several times with them for dinner, and it has always been wonderful!  But tonight – even better than we remembered!  We got there a few minutes before 7, and it was SOOOO good to see them!! (I know I am repeating myself, but it was!) The only problem is that it was after we separated – them to the train back to St. Leu-la-Foret and we to our hotel – that it occurred to either of us that we didn’t have a photograph together!!  Darn!! 

 

So … dinner!  Alain started with a wonderful-looking onion soup, and R had a salad with avocado, asparagus, peppers, shrimp and other things – not a bite left over!  For mains, Graciela and I ordered their boeuf bourgignon – and it was terrific!  

Locks all over the place!

Alain had veal for his main course, and R got Duck.  (R has never been able to find good duck in the U.S. and he feels it’s because they always use frozen, not fresh).  Here in France, that doesn’t seem to be the same problem – and he very much enjoyed it!  For dessert, Graciela, Alain and I had their tarte citron – excellent, and R had their crème brulee, which he very much enjoyed!  

Wonderful Boeuf Bourgignon

Time passed way too quickly, but it was fun to catch up – they now have three grandsons, 13 years, (Charly), 4 years (Sasha) and 9 months!  It sounds like they spent a goodly amount of time with the boys, and are kept very busy!  Graciela’s son-in-law apparently is a proficient rock climber; we are very much hoping that we can persuade he and Carla (who live in Georgia) to visit us in Tucson at some time with Graciela and Alain – Arizona definitely has mountains to climb!  (The son of our dear friends Marc and Renee is also a rock climber, so I’m sure we could get some good tips to share!)

Robert's duck

At any rate, we had a really lovely evening, and were so sorry to have to say good night!  A visit to St. Leu-la-Foret is definitely in our future!

R's creme brûlée

To bed now, as we need to get repacked in the morning to catch our train to Lyon!  

Fabulous Tarte Citron!

Onward and southward!

Love,

m

xxx

One final comment!  

Our friends Katy and Hilary are very much into textiles and cloth; they both make brilliant things on a regular basis!  I just remembered that they would love the wall coverings in our room -- and here are two photos!  The "paper" is basically fabric with things glued to it; stunning but an amazing amount of work!

Love,

m

xxx

Wall coverings in our room!

 

 

 

Thursday night dinner!

Fortunately, it was only 4-5 minute walk to return to the hotel, and we are now cozily ensconced in our lovely – and warm – room.  I am SOOOOO missing my winter coat; I was so cold in the restaurant that I put on Robert’s coat – which is MUCH warmer than mine!  Hmmmm…might have to do something about that!  I was wondering if it might be possible for Jay to box it up in a U.S. Post Office “If It Fits, It Ships” box, but wondered how long that would take to get to me, and if it would be worth the price…R says I should buy a new coat, but that would definitely be overkill.  Kicking myself all the way to Lyon, Carnac and back to Paris over not bringing it in the first place!  Oh well, I think I can always put it down to lack of travel practice, which is certainly true! 

Almost our last full day in Paris!

 

Clearly, I did not plan enough time for Paris!  We have been able to revisit some old familiar places, but honestly, there is SO much to see and do in Paris, that I should have scheduled at least a week here!  Oh well!  We’ll just have to come back – which I hope we can do, fairly quickly!

 

Thursday night dinner –

 

Wine and Popcorn!

We asked the attendant at the hotel for a recommendation for tonight’s dinner.  He suggested Le Port du Salut, which I actually had seen many times in the past, but never visited.  Well, that was indeed a mistake!

We headed out about 6 pm to have a glass of wine before dinner. [Also need to mention that we first stopped at our old Huit a Huit (translates to “8-to-8”, the local version of “7-11”), which is now a Carrefour Express to get some water for our room.]  

Our reservations at Salut were for 6:40 pm, so we first went to Gay Lussac and had a nice pre-dinner interlude with two glasses of Bordeaux, while also enjoying their home-made olives and veggies as well as a portion of excellent popcorn!  Who knew?!

Starter of Salmon and avocado

 From there, we headed back up-hill to Salut where we were seated in the ground-floor room right next to the piano!  The menu looked really good, but they had a special for two people for 60€ – Grilled steak (1 kilo!) with potatoes Dauphanoise, as well as arugula dressed in a mustard vinaigrette.  Sounded too good to resist – and it was fabulous!  

Yes, that is a lot of food!

R's mango/strawberry cheesecake

We both ate our fill – and it came with a great cheese sauce for the steak.  Really a great dinner, served with an excellent bottle of red wine from Bordeaux.  For dessert, which of course we didn’t need, R had a mango cheesecake with strawberries, which was fabulous, and I had profiteroles with hot chocolate – also wonderful!  Yum!

My profiteroles with ice cream...

Our piano player w/iPad!

On to tomorrow, Friday the 12^th!

m

xxx

A VERY Lazy Day!

Hello!

As it turns out, we were both more than a little jet-lagged – which showed itself as an inability to wake up this morning.  After the wonderful meal we had last night, I think I felt like a bear hibernating … not going very far or very fast.  The only thing scheduled on the program was lunch at Maison de la Truffe at noon today, and we couldn’t even make that!  So … from the top!  Up this morning about 7 am – only to decide that we both felt a little extra sleep time sounded good – to re-awaken this morning after 9 am, which is REALLY late for us!  At that point, R headed into the shower and we were able to make it down to breakfast about 9:30 am.  

We were actually out the door a bit before 10 am, to find the bus stop behind the Pantheon to get us down the hill.  I wanted to see for myself how Notre Dame is doing, as we hadn’t been there since before the fire in April, 2019.  

View from the back of Notre Dame

Picked up the 47 bus and got off at Pont Neuf.

Charred timbers and stone 

Wooden brace for pillars being put together

Wow … that was really an incredible fire.  There is quite a structure built on and around the cathedral now – with razor wire on top, if that’s not deterrent enough.  The entire cathedral is covered in scaffolding and reinforcements everywhere, and the boards around the cathedral are covered by information in several languages with lots of photographs.  I’m thinking that really, for most of the workers and for just about everyone else, this is the first time there is a chance to see a cathedral being built in their lifetimes.  

Note wooden braces within arches

Just about every cathedral I can think of was built hundreds of years ago – but now, because of the fire, craftsmen – artisans – will have a real opportunity to assist in something being constructed from the ground up.  

  

M in front of Notre Dame

It’s like having a very old house that constantly needs to be cleaned/restored/replaced – and now having to do everything from the inside out and all at the same time.  The intensity of the fire was so great that basically everything above ground level needs some sort of attention.  The gargoyles and statues and rosettes which were carved decades ago suddenly need to be completely recarved – new rosettes created – and today’s craftsmen will see their work go up for the generations coming after us.  I can’t even really imagine how that would feel! 

 

There are stone cutters, masons, three architects, restorers, glass workers (all the glass in the cathedral has had to be taken down for cleaning and restoration and reframing) – you name it, and there is probably somebody doing it either on-site (where they can) or in other churches and warehouses around the area.  

M with hot chocolate

 The one thing I do regret, though, is that younger people – those not lucky enough to have truly decades of experiences with and around Notre Dame, may not actually live to see it’s completion and re-dedication!  They won’t know about the wondrous Gregorian Chant concerts that we were lucky enough to hear and see; they won’t be able to climb to the top of the towers to get fabulous views above the Seine and take pictures of the boats going by!  The predictions are that it will be completed in 2024, but somehow, seeing the enormity of the job, I don’t think that’s really likely.  Especially when Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona is still years away from completion!  We can but hope!

After our tour of the exterior, and a few minutes sitting in the sun in the plaza in front, we decided that warm beverages and bathrooms were sounding really good.  So, into a small bistro across the street and on to Ile-St.-Louis; good coffee for Robert, and a lovely cup of hot chocolate for me!  

 

Love the Armor!

From the bistro, we walked down the main street on Ile St. Louis talking about the different times and hotels we had enjoyed on the island and meals we had there.  It was great fun, but in the shade, it was really COLD!  The local weather indicated somewhere in the area of 37-39 degrees F … I REALLY wish I had brought my winter coat from home!!!  Oh well!

 

Finally, we popped out the far end of the island, and headed to the bus stop to catch a 21 bus over to the Rue de Rivoli and Samaritaine!  Samaritaine is a very large department store in Paris where we once had a very lovely lunch in the restaurant.  It was closed, however, about 16 years ago for renovation but we thought it would never open again.  It was originally constructed in 1928 in the style of Eiffel with his characteristic wrought-iron Art Deco appearance.  Now restored, it is absolutely stunning, and dressed for Christmas; it is very, very beautiful!  Not necessarily the place we would ordinarily shop, but wow – amazing!

View of end of Ile St. Louis

From there, we bused up the Avenue de l’Opera to our favorite Monoprix – where we used to do some of our grocery shopping when we were renting our apartment.  Did not find too much

Interesting to look at now, but it was fun walking through it just the same.  And then – finally – back to the hotel for a rest up.  We’re still not sure what or where we will be going for dinner tonight – but as we’re in Paris, I’m sure it will be wonderful!  Although I’m still not sure that we’ll even be hungry after last night’s dinner – can it be that one meal is good for an entire two days?  We shall see!

Renovated exterior

 

Beautiful lighting!

Top floor with restaurants and bar

Looking down from top floor

Oh!  I was just reminded that I had a thought that I wanted to bring up here.  It seems that America really does have a lot to answer for!  When we first started coming to Paris, it was truly the most cosmopolitan city either of us had ever seen!  Classy Frenchwomen dressed from tip to toe in black and all looking amazingly stylish (something that I never will achieve, regardless of my age or time spent here!) xI did notice, though, that men and children of both sexes were wearing more and more tennis shoes … and I wondered what that might mean for the rest of the population.  Well, that time has come!  Suddenly – we are seeing everyone – regardless of age, in tennis shoes, and many of them are white!  It looks very odd but also very comfortable – signaling that obviously those children we saw years ago have come of age and decided that being comfortable may actually top being stylish!  At any rate, I feel certain that America is to blame!  Just a thought…more later!

Love,

m

xxx

 

 

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

We MADE it!

 

Wow, today has been a really, really long day, and I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to stay awake!  I can NEVER, repeat NEVER sleep on airplanes!  So … up on Monday morning about 4 am, bathed, showered and out the door a little after 5 am.  You really never know about the traffic going on The 10 to PHX, so we wanted to be there early…. So … actually not much traffic at all, and we gassed up the rental car and returned it to the rent-a-car center for PHX and were at the PHX itself about 7:35 am.  We dropped off our one checked bag with a lovely agent who printed our boarding passes all the way to Paris for us, and we headed to security.  Believe it or not, we had our very own TSA agent to check our info and then –- really, truly – there was NO ONE in front of us to scan our luggage!  Wow!  Great deal!  So, while we didn’t leave until about 11 am, we had a great experience to start, which is always a good sign!   

Our room!

Made it to the gate and found that the computers were shut down in all the shops – great, as I was definitely in need of water, and about an hour or so later, we were all advised that the power in general was out to a portion of the airport, which might cause flight delays!!??  The Shake Shack was operating somehow, and we had some excellent grilled hot dogs (no onions, alas…) for breakfast!  However, as our plane had already made its way to the gate, we had no 

problems, and actually pushed off about 15 minutes early!  Easy hour-long flight to LAX, and other than the fact that this was a VERY tiny aircraft (E175, I believe, if anyone cares…) all went

well.

Nice, Comfy seating area

 

Landed at LAX at Delta’s chaotic terminal – it reminded us of a few years ago when the Southwest terminal was being renovated and was a zoo… So … we followed signage, expecting that we would have to leave Delta’s terminal and head to Bradley (is it still called “The Bradley”?), where we would get our Air France flight – but NO!  They actually have a shuttle bus that took us across the runways and inner part of the airport to put us in the new International Terminal and - VOILA!  NO second check from TSA!  That was a true PLUS for sure!  The only drawback was that they didn’t have any real restaurants in the B Terminal, so we had to make do.  They did have several areas where you could get sandwiches, salads and drinks, or you could somehow use the QR code and order on-line for someone to magically, I suppose, appear with your food!  We opted for the pre-packaged, which was definitely easier.  I had an excellent Chef Salad, and R had a very acceptable ham and cheese on whole wheat sandwich.  They also had a GREAT CUPCAKE vending machine – called Sprinkles!  Wow!  (I did get the sprinkle-filled cupcake with matching frosting, but Jay --  they weren’t a patch on yours – but they did happen to be handy!  Very nice and quiet places with tables and benches; very comfortable.

Big bathroom!

 

We boarded our Air France plane right on time, about 2:30 pm for a 3:45 pm departure.  Again, we did manage to leave almost half an hour early!  We had the last two seats in the front section of economy, which was lovely – just the two of us, while all the other rows had 3 seats across.  Not full airplane, but definitely more than I had expected to see.  We also had a great tailwind and made it across in something like 9 hours and 45 minutes.  I do have to say, though, that while the Air France food was basic “airline food” their entertainment selection was fabulous!  Old movies, new movies – TV; it was great!  I did manage to watch Jungle Cruise three more times, as well as The Meg, an old friend.  And just like that, we were in Paris!

Love "my" tub!

 

I do want to say that as most of you know, not traveling internationally has been very difficult for me these past 2+ years.  As we were flying over France, I started crying, so that R ended up with a soggy, sorry mess on his hands.  I guess I never really believed that we would see Paris 

again – and now we’re here!

Pantheon, as we exit/enter our hotel!

 

There was absolutely no line at all to process through immigration, and – our one checked suitcase was the very FIRST suitcase off the plane!  How great is that?!!  Then we were on our way to our hotel!  R has decided that because of his advancing years, we were taking a cab into Paris rather than taking the usual RER B, which goes very close to Les Grandes Hommes.  Now, anyone who has ever been to Paris knows that Paris cab drivers are notorious for doing all sorts of strange things – we’ve seen them back up on a one-way street, speed through lights and lanes like nobody’s business, and yet our particular driver – if he hit 40 mph the ENTIRE way into town, it would be something!  Got us right to our door safely, though – although I really do think that some of the views from the RER B train into Paris – Stade de France, Sacre Coeur, Tour Eiffel – were better than on the perpetually clogged and occasionally underground highway.

 

Front view of the Pantheon

  

So … our room was ready for us in about half an hour, which was lovely!  We have frequently stayed at Les Grandes Hommes, which is situated directly next to the Pantheon, and most of the rooms have lovely views. This time, however, I opted for the larger room with HUGE bathroom and a nice terrace out the back.  SO nice having room to get everything organized.  One thing we have noticed in many countries, is that the hotels don’t really have the wonderful American equivalent of DRAWERS or drawer space.  Our room does, however, and we are really pleased. 

Katy/Hil - first photo with wine!

I got us unpacked and organized, and R set up the computer.  Finally, we both crashed about 3 pm for a nap until about 4:30 pm.  Then up and refreshed and out to look for something to eat.

First stop, though, was to the Luxembourg RER station, so that we could see about getting new transit passes.  I had brought our old passes with me, but as the Paris metro/RER/Bus etc. organizations have changed their traditional way of doing things, I was thinking they were probably expired.  They were.  However, we were able to purchase new passes, which then needed photographs to validate.  Being accustomed to the Luxembourg station, though, we quickly made our way to the self-portrait machine.  We were actually able to make it work, although we had our doubts for a while!  We paid for R’s photos, but we didn’t know where they went!  Turns out, rather than coming out inside the little booth, they came out in the front!  Who knew?! Wonder how many times a day that happens…Went back to the ticket counter, and the lovely man there actually cut out our pictures and put them into place, and then by ingenious folding, secured the entire pass together and put it in the holder!  We are good to go on Paris transit!  YEA!

Delicious vegetable soup

 

So … on to dinner!  We caught our old friend, the #27 bus, exactly where we have caught it for years.  Our plan was to head to L’Ecluse Madeleine for dinner.  #27 got us part of the way – across the Seine, but then there was some huge police activity (no idea what!) on Avenue de l’Opera, so everyone off the bus!  Walked from there to the Madeleine and found our restaurant.  It seemed, though, that we walked past dozens of really up-scale stores – Fendi, Gucci, Louis Vitton – you name it, they were open and in business!  Some of the stores also have Christmas

 lighting up, and it looks really wonderful!  

R's Durade with sauce and rice

 

The young man at L’Ecluse checked our health cards and led us to a table.  They have the QR codes listed so you can take a photo of them on your phone and get to the menus on line.  Lovely meal!  We had some wonderful Bordeaux wine (by the glass) and both started with their wonderful vegetable soup.  It was great and, as it was a COLD evening, just hit the spot!  For mains, R ordered Durade, a fish dish, which actually came without all the bones!  Yeah!  I ordered their Boeuf Bourgignon, and, while not up to Julia and Robert’s efforts, was very good and I enjoyed it very much.  No room even for dessert, so we decided to head back to the hotel.

My boeuf bourgignon!

Caught a bus in front of the Madeleine which took us down the Champs Elysses and off at Roosevelt stop.  From there we went down into the Metro and went Roosevelt to Chatelet and then right on the RERB to Luxembourg, and voila, we were back at the hotel! 

 

It is now almost 10:30 pm, and has been a really long day, so I am going to post this through the blog without the photos – don’t worry, we’re back to food pictures again, and I will add them and re-send them tomorrow when the world slows down a bit!

 

Love to all –

SO glad to be back in France!

m

xxx

 

PS – Robert told me tonight that until I expressed myself through tears on the plane this afternoon, he hadn’t really realized how much I missed traveling.  I thought he already knew!

m

xxx