Another day started with a hot cup of café au lait and today a pain aux raisins at a Jewish bakery near our hotel. Then we slowly made our way over to Place des Vosges. This beautiful square is laid out symmetrically with brick and stone facades. This was Paris’ first planned square commissioned in 1605 by Henri IV. One this particular morning, the square is almost empty with the exception of a couple of joggers and some small children with their well dressed mothers. We pick a café facing the square and have an espresso each.
We then walked over to Museum Carnavalet at 22 rue de Sevigne. Open 10am – 6pm Tuesday – Sunday. Admission is free. This lovely 16th century house goes through a chronological history of Paris. Some highlights include prints and memorabilia from the French revolution, items belonging to Napoleon, and Proust’s cork-lined bedroom. It was a great place to visit early in the trip because you can see scale model of neighborhoods and see paintings and other depictions of Paris at various times in history.
At this point, my husband says he’s really not feeling well so he will head back to the hotel to rest.
So I decide to walk over to the Pompidou Centre. I love this building; the inside-out concept (air condition, pipes, elevators and escalators are all on the outside) leaving the interior completely open and free. I knew that my husband would want to join me in going inside so I just sat at the café across the street and admired the exterior. The building is almost like a maze and I loved trying to "figure it out". From there, I made my way over to "G. Detou" (58, rue Tiquetonne) a tiny food shop crammed floor to ceiling with sweets and savories at prices more reasonable than the Bon Marche food halls. I stocked up some salty caramels and chocolates and made my way back to the hotel to see if he was feeling better to accompany me for lunch.
It turns out that he was feeling better, so together we headed to Chez Janou for lunch.
Chez Janou is a Provencal bistro serving mussels, scallop risottos and over 50 kinds of pastis on their menu. We shared a 50cl of white house win and I had the risotto with scallops (the scallops were plump and juicy; just the way they should be) while my husband had entrecote. We ended our wonderful lunch with a shot of pastis.
After lunch, we decided to walk off our meal by ‘hiking’ up to Montmartre. It was a beautiful sunny day and it took about an hour, as we walked and wandered through the very diverse 10th arrondissement.
Montmartre was of course swamped with tourists and touts. We didn’t go in but admired the extravagance of Sacre-Coeur from the outside. The place du Tertre at the top of the hill was alive with portrait painters and café staff beckoning customers. We picked up some prints of Toulouse-Lautrec posters as souvenirs for friends back home.
We walked back down to Blanche metro stop where we quickly popped into the Monoprix across the station to pick up some bath mitts (our hotel had these and I had to bring some home). Taking the metro back to Hotel de Ville where we ended up back at "L’as Fallafel" for dinner, eating inside this time. After another delicious meal there, we headed back to the hotel where we watched CNN and BBC for a while before dozing off.