Paris and the Heart of France
Day 0 - Arrival & Pre-tour
We landed in Paris mid-morning and grabbed a taxi at the airport. The taxi was 55 Euros (fixed price to the left bank) and was easily paid using our credit card with chip. Our taxi driver took us to our hotel B Montmartre (6 Rue PayLécluse) near Place Clichy. I had already contacted the hotel to let them we would be arriving early, and they said if our room wasn't ready, they would watch our luggage for us. Our room was ready, so we were able to drop our luggage off, go to the BNP ATM across the street, and then we headed out to explore nearby Montmartre.
We took the metro to Montmartre to save a few steps. I had already researched the best prize winning bakeries in the area, so we headed straight for Le Grenier à Pain (38 Rue des Abbesses, 75018 Paris, France). We got a simple ham & cheese with butter on baguette, a slice of pizza and a couple chocolate croissants. While these items are common throughout France, we were immediately struck at how good they were. In fact, I don't think we had any elsewhere that were better.
We left the bakery looking for a place to sit down and eat and unintentionally ended up at "la mur des Je t'aime," the wall covered with "I love you" in many different languages. The park is right next to the Abbesses metro stop, one of the few in Paris with the original Art Nouveau glass roof.
After that we headed up towards Le Moulin de la Gallette, Le Consulat, Place de Tertre and the Sacre-Coeur Cathedral. After walking through the cathedral, we debated about whether to climb up the stairs of the cathedral for perhaps a better of Paris. We decided to just enjoy the view of the city from ground level and save our steps for the dome tour of the Pantheon.
We walked down the stairs, and visited the Lindt chocolate boutique (13 Rue de Steinkerque, 75018 Paris, France). The air conditioned store has a number of sculptures made entirely out chocolate, including the impressively sized Notre Dame Cathedral, and the biggest meringue we had ever seen.
We walked by the souvenir shops down to the Anvers Metro stop, and traveled over to the Latin Quarter for a walk to the Pantheon. I had hoped to be able to get on the dome tour for spectacular views of Paris. Unfortunately for us, they had ended the dome tours earlier than normal. They recommended always calling ahead of time (on the actual day) to confirm dome tour times. C'est la vie.
After watching a parade of mounted ceremonial guards, we stopped for Italian gelato at Amorino (22 Rue Soufflot, 75005 Paris, France). You can find Amorinos all over France, and we visited quite a few of them during this trip.
We walked across the street to see the Marie de Medicis fountain and stroll through Luxembourg Gardens. I had planned to take a city bus back to our hotel to get a sitting tour of Paris, however due to traffic and construction, they had apparently re-routed the buses on that line. C'est la vie. So after waiting a substantial period of time, we gave up and took the metro back to our hotel.
For dinner we went to the nearby Little Italy restaurant (5 Place de Clichy). The lasagna was excellent as was my wife's salad.