(December 25th, 2012) Morning bells are ringing, the tourists are stirring, and...the city is alive and bustling, as if it's just another holiday. Contrary to the American vision of towns on Christmas morning, where we tend to sleep in, not worry about shopping till at least noon, and enjoy a relatively quiet (at least those of us without young children) morning, Paris was overflowing with people out and about, shopping, sight seeing, eating, and just soaking up the ratatouille of Parisian culture.
We started our day as any other vacation day (once the gifts were exchanged and fawned over of course) by heading out to Rue Montorgueil, which we took down to Les Halles and stopped at the first suitable cafe, La Pointe Saint Eustache.
Following brunch, we strolled through the underground mall of Les Halles, where we learned that even McDonalds in Paris sells macaroons...
Next off, across the Seine to the Ile de la Cite
and Notre Dame
Despite it being Christmas, we got our first unpleasant taste of Parisian culture. There's a reason why people from France kept telling me not to judge their country by the uncouth manners of the Parisians, and I understand why now. To enter Notre Dame, you had to wait in line. It looked like a long line, maybe a block long, but it only took about 15 minutes. Not bad, really. But, for some reason, Parisians felt entitled to not have to wait in line, so as you approached the front, there were countless numbers of people trying to cut in front of you. This, as you can imagine, is the sort of thing to annoy me, even on Christmas. So, when someone tried to cut in front of us, I politely pointed out the line to him, and told him to go wait in it. Well, it worked, kind of. He got in line behind us. It's a start, I suppose...but the line cutting in Paris was prolific to put it nicely...
Inside Notre Dame...
I bought a candle for Dad....it's the one with the Carolina blue sheen, I'd like to think...
After Notre Dame, we started walking South towards the Latin Quarter, stopping at parks along the way...
Then up towards the Mairie
and the Pantheon
In wandering through the sculpture gardens of DC in my youth, I was always amused by the appearance of something like an angry plant monster posing as a metro entrance. Well, twenty some years later I realize that this is actually what the entrances to the Parisian metro do look like:
As night started to descend, we headed back past Notre Dame
to one of the Michelen star restaurants that we had made reservations at, Le Reminet. Below, our first bottle of French wine in France, Chateau Mac Carthy.
What started out as a nice, quiet evening in a romantic, cellar like dining room, quickly turned into something much more memorable, but not in a good way. The couple that sat down beside us had similar thoughts in mind regarding the romantic nature of the restaurant. As you can see in the picture above, the tables are very close together, so there's not much privacy in this intimate dining room. The guy decided that that would be the perfect time to propose (and she said yes). I can't blame him for that, but it meant that the remainder of our meal was taken up by a conversation with them that started off innocently enough about him, but soon turned to her hyperboles about how surprised she was and how he must have dropped some serious cash on that ring...at which point it turned into him bragging about the finances behind it. Yeah...so, it went from cute, to okay, that's nice, but we'd like to get back to our conversation, to seriously?
Anyways, the food was fantastic, so it quickly distracted all four of us from this conversation...
Chestnut cream with mushrooms espuma and deep fried scallops in noodles "kadaif." The presentation was incredible, with the bird's nest of noodles topping the delicate chestnut and mushroom soup.
A thin tart with figs and pears, roast escalope of duck foie gras and galangal caramel.
Scallops a la plancha, "venere" rice risotto with emulsion and smoked bacon.
Duck "pot au feu" with poached foie gras and roast duck breast.
Following dinner, we slowly strolled back through the Latin Quarter, now mostly deserted as people had settled in for a Christmas evening,
past Notre Dame, now devoid of crowds,
past the Hotel de Ville, mentioned more than a few times throughout the course of any of Dumas' novels,
and it's ice rink that was now empty. It was time for us to turn in as well, we had a few big days ahead of us!
We started our day as any other vacation day (once the gifts were exchanged and fawned over of course) by heading out to Rue Montorgueil, which we took down to Les Halles and stopped at the first suitable cafe, La Pointe Saint Eustache.
Following brunch, we strolled through the underground mall of Les Halles, where we learned that even McDonalds in Paris sells macaroons...
Next off, across the Seine to the Ile de la Cite
and Notre Dame
Despite it being Christmas, we got our first unpleasant taste of Parisian culture. There's a reason why people from France kept telling me not to judge their country by the uncouth manners of the Parisians, and I understand why now. To enter Notre Dame, you had to wait in line. It looked like a long line, maybe a block long, but it only took about 15 minutes. Not bad, really. But, for some reason, Parisians felt entitled to not have to wait in line, so as you approached the front, there were countless numbers of people trying to cut in front of you. This, as you can imagine, is the sort of thing to annoy me, even on Christmas. So, when someone tried to cut in front of us, I politely pointed out the line to him, and told him to go wait in it. Well, it worked, kind of. He got in line behind us. It's a start, I suppose...but the line cutting in Paris was prolific to put it nicely...
Inside Notre Dame...
I bought a candle for Dad....it's the one with the Carolina blue sheen, I'd like to think...
After Notre Dame, we started walking South towards the Latin Quarter, stopping at parks along the way...
Then up towards the Mairie
and the Pantheon
In wandering through the sculpture gardens of DC in my youth, I was always amused by the appearance of something like an angry plant monster posing as a metro entrance. Well, twenty some years later I realize that this is actually what the entrances to the Parisian metro do look like:
As night started to descend, we headed back past Notre Dame
to one of the Michelen star restaurants that we had made reservations at, Le Reminet. Below, our first bottle of French wine in France, Chateau Mac Carthy.
What started out as a nice, quiet evening in a romantic, cellar like dining room, quickly turned into something much more memorable, but not in a good way. The couple that sat down beside us had similar thoughts in mind regarding the romantic nature of the restaurant. As you can see in the picture above, the tables are very close together, so there's not much privacy in this intimate dining room. The guy decided that that would be the perfect time to propose (and she said yes). I can't blame him for that, but it meant that the remainder of our meal was taken up by a conversation with them that started off innocently enough about him, but soon turned to her hyperboles about how surprised she was and how he must have dropped some serious cash on that ring...at which point it turned into him bragging about the finances behind it. Yeah...so, it went from cute, to okay, that's nice, but we'd like to get back to our conversation, to seriously?
Anyways, the food was fantastic, so it quickly distracted all four of us from this conversation...
Chestnut cream with mushrooms espuma and deep fried scallops in noodles "kadaif." The presentation was incredible, with the bird's nest of noodles topping the delicate chestnut and mushroom soup.
A thin tart with figs and pears, roast escalope of duck foie gras and galangal caramel.
Scallops a la plancha, "venere" rice risotto with emulsion and smoked bacon.
Duck "pot au feu" with poached foie gras and roast duck breast.
Following dinner, we slowly strolled back through the Latin Quarter, now mostly deserted as people had settled in for a Christmas evening,
past Notre Dame, now devoid of crowds,
past the Hotel de Ville, mentioned more than a few times throughout the course of any of Dumas' novels,
and it's ice rink that was now empty. It was time for us to turn in as well, we had a few big days ahead of us!
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