We awoke to screaming legs and another rainy
day...no worries though, neither of these things kept us from having a good time! We began our morning with the hunt for internet access on our walk
to the Christmas market at the Champs-Elyeeses. We noticed along the way
many cute bistros and shops that we didn't see on Sunday a) because we had WiFi
tunnel vision and b) because when shops and restaurants are closed (which many
were the day before) they pull down gates and garage type doors so you don't
see them.
We, of course, didn't choose a direct route and
took a walk through the Tuilleries gardens. Even in the winter the
gardens are beautiful with leafless trees and drizzle. I can only imagine
their glory in the spring and summer!
Upon arriving at the Christmas market, we split
a ham and cheese crepe and a nutella and banana crepe because we were STARVING!
We then discovered hot wine, which is sort of a cross between sangria and
cider. Yummy! The Christmas market looked beautiful from afar- tiny
white wooden buildings, twinkle lights, garland, sweet smells and people
milling about. Unfortunately, it did not have the handmade goods I was
hoping for. It was pretty much a repetition of about 6 shops filled with
Chinese goods over and over down the street, interspersed with the occasional creperie or cheese shop. Oh well, it was fun to walk
through!
 |
| hot wine! |
 |
| sausages and kraut on a HUGE skillet |
 |
| The fromage (cheese) hut. These have a, shall we say, notable smell |
 |
|
Our next stop was the Champs-Elysees, which is a
very grand boulevard the extends out from Le Jardin des Tuileries with many LARGE shops- everything from Gap to Louis
Vuitton. The stores are huge and packed
with people from all over the world. To
get into Louis Vuitton, people waited in a line outside for their turn at a
peak of the merchandise that most wouldn’t be buying anyway. I found this waiting in line to go shopping a
bit silly, especially since we soon found another Louis Vuitton a couple of
streets over and then several around town.
The silliest line I saw crept up on me- suddenly I smelled a familiar
smell that I could not put my finger on at first. It wasn’t a bad smell but it didn’t elicit
positive memories really. It smelled like walking past Jr. High lockers. Then I
saw it- Abercrombie and Fitch. Now, I’m
not knocking A&F, I’ve worn plenty of their clothes in my day (before I
graduated high school). I’m just
thinking that for the level of stores on this street this is an odd one to have
a line.
Overall, I found the Champs-Elysees to be a
little overwhelming and very tourist-y. I felt like we would be ripped
off no matter where we went, and of course we were. Our first rip off
came when we went to the Change center to exchange our currency from dollars to
euros. We have heard many times that a Change center in the city will give you a
better exchange rate than those at the airport (although maybe slightly worse than select ATMs) so we thought surely we'd be ok.
Looking back, we now realize that you should only go to a Change center that
has their exchange rates posted by the window. The attendant first
attempted to exchange our money at a .70 to $1.00 and we told him no way.
We ended up settling for .73 Euros to $1.00 but we knew the exchange rate
was .77. That translated to us losing about $40 in the exchange
process...boo! (*NOTE by Russell: after going back to the airport at the end of trip, I noticed that the Change Center exchange rate there includes a whopping 6.5% commission fee. Yikes)
Next, we were starving, ticked about losing
money unnecessarily and still had no internet so we stopped in the first
cafe offering free wifi. We were seated at the very back table with a
great view of trashy American music videos. Russell ordered a pizza and I
ordered bruschetta. We then found out that the internet wasn't working
which lead us to feeling like we should lay in the floor, throw a toddler fit
and demand someone find us an internet connection...instead we sucked it up and
waited for our food. The good news- Russell had a good pizza. The
bad news, my bruschetta came instead as a pizza. We were charged more for
it and nothing was done to fix the mix up (even though our server acknowledged the error unsolicited). Oh well! Got to love the
tourist areas!
We continued our way up the Champs-Elysees to
L'Arch de Triomphe. What a beautiful spectacle! This arch is set in the middle of an enormous roundabout and symbolizes France's Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars as well as honors the "unknown soldier." We loved admiring this
beautiful piece of art and history.
Upon leaving the Arch de Triomphe we stumbled
upon a beautiful wide and quiet street lined with the truly luxurious shops.
We were surprised at the lack of activity on this street since it crossed
the Champs-Elysees. We window shopped at Chanel, Dolce and Gabana, Dior,
Ferragamo, and Gucci to name a few. Don't worry, we didn't go in.
There are big scary guards that stand in front of all of the windows that
give off the vibe that they don't want you to come in. That's ok, we
weren't in the buying mood (and neither were our wallets). One thing that
we have loved about Paris is that in most windows, the price of all of the
items in the window display are discreetly presented in the corner. This
way there are no surprises when you walk in the store. It's much better
to realize that the dress you see in the window is actually a Valentino and it
is around 1800 Euro. I'd hate to walk into a store, go to the trouble of
trying on something beautiful only to find out that it costs more than a months
rent!
On our way home we stopped in this quiet little
park with children playing and couples sitting on benches. The park had a
grand view of a beautiful old church, it was sunny and not too cold so we took
the opportunity to rest our bodies and sit in peace.
 |
| beautiful church seen from the park |
 |
| another attempt at using public wifi |
The next thing we
know there's a HUGE storm cloud sitting over us and we notice everyone getting
up from the park to leave. We feel a couple of drops here and there so we
get up to be on our way...and then the bottom falls out! As we've said
before, coat hoods aren't ideal to keep off the rain. They restrict our
view of the streets and they're not really waterproof either. I will say,
it was pretty cute watching all of the children scuttle around with their
mommies- some laughing and excited about the rain and some a little more
stressed about the situation. We ducked into a little cafe to have an
espresso, a little snack, some hot chocolate...and of course use their
internet!
We headed back to the apartment to get cleaned
up for dinner and to use the awesome Paris Trip Adviser app that I downloaded
on my Kindle Fire (that's right...a little name dropping of one of my favorite
Christmas presents) while we were in the Starbucks the day before. The
awesome part about this app is that you don't need an internet connection to
use it. To this point, it was our saving grace! Click here to check it out.
Oops, sorry for the divergence! Anyway we began looking up places
to eat. Our strategy was to look at things in our area that made at least
the top 200 (there are thousands and thousands that have been rated). We
found an awesome place, Les
Papilles that we decided would be our best option
so off we went in search of it!
As we mentioned before, Paris winds about quite
a bit which makes following directions difficult. We did a little back
tracking and retracing our steps. As our stomachs began to growl we found
the restaurant...and it was closed til mid-January! To be honest, there was
some curse words uttered as we realized that we would have to go back on the
hunt for a place to eat dinner. Out came the Kindle and on went the
hunt.
At this point, my hungry monster evil twin was
beginning to emerge. For some reason, anytime we are hungry we find
ourselves in a sea of Asian restaurants. Don't get me wrong, we love
Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food but something about craving sushi in
Paris never adds up for us. Since we had irrationally chosen mediocre
(terrible) Thai food the night before, I had to surpress the hungry monster and
tell her to be patient until we found the right restaurant. Good thing my
rational mind won over the beast because we found our favorite restaurant in
Paris!
Au Pere Louis was our kind of restaurant from the start! Not
pretentious yet not dive-y, local, cozy, and reasonably priced. It sits in the Latin Quarter of Paris near the Luxembourg Gardens and where many students seem to live. Menus are
scattered about on chalkboards and they also have an English menu available
that they are happy to share with you (some restaurants are a bit annoyed when
you request a menu in English, although Russell gets us by just fine most of the time with his limited French). Their food is seasonal so this time of
year there is plenty of comfort food. The wine is priced well and there's
just enough of a selection that there is plenty to choose from but not an
overwhelming list.
We sat up in a little loft with the perfect combination
of seclusion and views of the restaurant and the street. Our waitress
spoke English about as well as Russell speaks French so their combined skills
made for easy service. We settled on a cheese plate; foie gras with jam;
cassoulette with white beans, sausage and goose; and a bottle of cotes du rhone
wine. Of course there was a never ending flow of bread at our table.
That good, hearty, crusty on the outside and soft and airy on the inside
rustic french bread.
With full bellies and happy hearts we ended the day on a high note and walked home to work off a small amount of the exorbitant number of calories we had just consumed.
Here are some beautfiul shots Russell took during the day
 |
| taken near the Place de la Concorde at the end of Le Jardin des Tuileries and right before the Champs-Elysees starts |
 |
| my favorite picture of the day (Louvre on the left) - courtesy of the hubs! |
