massive

One last Stohrer quiche breakfast, then out into the world. Maybe a little later than we wanted for our last day in Paris, but it is what it is.

First stop today was Partisan, hoping to get the nice “coffee and sit” that we had been robbed of on Saturday. It was definitely less crowded on a Tuesday afternoon but still a little busy, and the only table we could grab was right by the door. Still, I ordered an espresso tonic which was delightful, and we split a piece of lemon pound cake.

It just set us up to get hungry, though — quiche and a croissant are good but don’t really fill you up — so we decided to wander deeper into the Marais to see if we could find a lunch spot. (And to try and see the Liberté Egalité Beyonce graffiti, which H believes must have been destroyed since the construction walls where it was written have been taken down, and that’s sad in and of itself, as it was “of a time” that I have fond memories of.) We did walk past the Centre Pompidou which I have much affection for — and also got to find some Space Invaders that I hadn’t flashed yet.

First lunch attempt was L’As du Falafel, which didn’t appear to have been impacted by the fact that it was a Tuesday or that it was pretty cold out, as it had a line for both takeaway and indoor seating, so we decided to pass. I like L’As du Falafel (as much as Lenny Kravitz does, probably) but I’m not emotionally attached to falafel and there are other options in the area.

(or so we believed)

Next attempt was Schwartz’s Deli across the street, which had literally just closed its doors for lunch. We looked at the menu of Chez Marianne which looks cute, but nothing really moved us. We then excitedly decided to check out Les Philosophes … and then we got over there to find out they were closed for a winter holiday. That left us with decidedly fewer options, so we wandered back towards Pompidou (maybe there was an Italian place we had tried once that way?) but ultimately abandoned Italian to try out a place called Little Café. Food was surprisingly good and I’ll keep it in my back pocket for those “weird closure hours” the next time we’re in the area.

Full and warmed back up (it’s Paris, of course we had wine with lunch), we thought coffee (again) might be next. H waned to try out Noir (a new-to-her and new-ish coffee roaster that has popped up spots all over town) and we knew there was one on Ile St Louis, and now (again, somehow) we weren’t far from the island at all, so we decided to head that way. We stopped along the way at Aux Merveilleux de Fred, bought a sampler pack of merveilleux (little meringue-based towers that look kinda like those pink coconut-covered snowballs? but are fifty times tastier), then crossed the bridge onto Ile St Louis.

We sat in Noir for a little bit and nursed our coffeee, then decided to stop at the St Regis again on the way back out to get a snack. (Neither of us were hungry but it never pays to drink on an empty stomach.) Then another pleasant stroll along the Seine back towards the apartment to end the night.

It was a short stay in Paris for sure, but we know we’ll be back, so I never feel like I need to cram a bunch of stuff in. And now it’s very likely we’ll be back this summer, as Pokemon announced that there would be a big event in June in Paris — so we’ll change up some plans to make sure we have Schengen days to stay a couple weeks then.

Stohrer breakfast this morning was accompanied by a little mushroom soup! I had left Stohrer and was heading back to the apartment and noticed that the greengrocer at the end of the street had two little terrines out front, self-service soups steaming away, and they both smelled amazing. I opted for the mushroom — the other was potato artichoke if I remember correctly — and it made for a nice warm complement to my usual quiche.

Today is our (first) day with a reservation into Notre Dame. (I thought I had made the reservation for Tuesday and we were planning on doing it then, but I got an email this morning saying my reservation was today, so I panicked a little and made one for tomorrow, and then we decided it would be ok if we did it today anyways.)

It was a pleasant stroll down Montorgueil, through Les Halles, across Pont Neuf and then down the left-bank-side of Ile de la Cité. We paused for a little sit on the benches at the edge of the courtyard in front of the cathedral — we were a little early for our reservation. It’s kinda crazy that all the facades covering up the construction that blocked most of the view in ’21 are all gone now.

(I’m beyond happy that all the repairs were able to be completed and that this church is reopened. I know I’m not super religious any more, but Notre Dame is more than just a church — if you watch any interviews with the artisans who worked on the restoration, they all pretty much echoed that Notre Dame was the center of the city, and I agree. It’s the heart of Paris, more than the Eiffel Tower, more than the Louvre, for me anyways.)

We cashed in our QR codes and hit the entry time a little early. I will not be able to do the restoration justice with words (nor will I try) — I took a lot of video inside and I’ll get it edited some day and put up on the Youtube channel. Suffice to say it’s no less magnificent than it was the first time we went inside — the reconstruction with accurate materials and techniques, the cleaned stained glass, the white marble columns, it’s truly an awesome sight to behold.

(I lit a candle for Grandma. I like to think she would have liked that.)

I think we were in there for close to two hours. Afterwards, we crossed over to the left bank to go into Shakespeare and Company (I was looking for a book that I decided I wanted to read but wanted to wait until Paris to buy, but unfortunately I couldn’t find it) and then we got coffee in the Shakespeare coffee shop. (I say “we got coffee” but I got a hojicha latte. I’m branching out after my enjoyment of all the chai drinks this past fall.)

Nice view.

We crossed back over to Ile de la Cité and walked along the side of Notre Dame, heading towards Ile St Louis. The construction walls are still up along that side. We still had a little time before Grand-Mere opened for dinner, so we stopped at Le St Regis and toasted H’s new job with very appropriate glasses of champagne. Very proud of this next step in her career.

Dinner at Aux Anysetiers du Roi was the full affair. Carafe(s) of wine! Boeuf bourguignon and cassoulet! More wine! Tarte aux pommes and chocolate mousse for dessert.

It was a long cold walk back to the apartment but very much worth it, as we walked back along the river and enjoyed the prolonged view back at the Eiffel Tower.

(I’m writing this after the fact and I honestly can’t remember if I got up and got Stohrer this morning or not. I didn’t check in but I feel like I did do this Every Single Morning. And why would you not?)

(H’s checkins thankfully say I did.)

The plan, I think, was to get out and start at Partisan and try and get a good “sit” there, but as we started moving and remembered it was still le week-end, we put it off until a weekday and instead tried out this little Indonesian coffee roaster we had seen last night called Le Maung. I think in retrospect I should have gotten something with a little more panache (I just got my usual cold brew) but the coffee was very good and the place was comfortable. I wouldn’t say no to a return visit in the future!

After we finished there, we strolled down Montorgueil (ostensibly to go to Motors for a second coffee) but we got around Les Halles and remembered there was a big Lego store there, so after a quick restroom stop at the Starbucks there, we did a little shopping inside the mall. The Lego store there has a very large Arc de Triomphe and a pretty good sized Notre Dame (in addition to the smaller-but-still-substantial one in a box you can buy) and some other fun Frenchy custom builds. H noticed that the build-a-minifig island had rats that the minifigs could hold, which tickled her to no end, so we built a few to take home — my professional wrestler with a cool purple mohawk is the best of the bunch, no question.

Feeling hungry and cold and wanting to get away from the crush of consumerism, we checked to see what was around us that would be yummy, and settled on a noodle place that we had checked out in ’21 called Tran Tran Zai — but it was 4 o’clock by that point and lunch had ended, and they wouldn’t open back up for dinner until after 6. We remembered that there was a fondue place nearby that we had skirted the last time but ultimately skipped, and fondue is perfect for this kind of weather, so we walked over to see if they would still be open.

I don’t know now if I could have told you what the name was then, but I know now it’s called Les Marmottes and we were able to get a table for an early dinner. The inside was a little dark and a little “all in” on the marmot decorations, but they do fondue and raclette, and I watched the big family at the table across from us with their giant pots of cheese and giant wheels of cheese and could only imagine how fun that would be with a big group.

We decided on the “basic” fondue (just cheese and baguette, really) and ordered a tartiflette to go with it. And a bottle of wine. (H would later say that that was one thing that she noticed was different this year, that I was content to share a carafe or a bottle of wine with her, rather than drinking beer, and I am definitely enjoying it. I don’t want to say Greece or Albania broke me of beer — the variety last year wasn’t great — but I will say that after going deep in the wine cups at Diodos and a few other places last year, that I’m looking forward to more of those experiences, so maybe I am drinking a little more house wine.) Fondue was excellent, tartiflette was good as well but “fancy” in a way that made it just a little “less” than the shovelful from the giant vats in the Christmas markets. Definitely a new favorite and I will be looking to take a big party there some day in the future.

We took back out into the cold night air and decided to walk down to the river to see the Eiffel Tower. We passed by a home goods shop and decided to wander in, and H found a Stanley tumbler knock off made by a company called YACK (complete with yak-shaped logo on top) and after much giggling, we added a Yack to our growing souvenir contingent.

We did finally make it down to Pont Neuf and watched the tower sparkle for a little while. Wandered into Samaritane on the way back towards home and bought a new tote bag or two. And after getting some choux at Odette and restocking our soda and salty snack supply, we turned in for the night.

Today is the date of the Great Train Fiasco and I will discuss it briefly and then we will never speak of it again. 😉

The flight was miserable. The plane itself was great – “most legroom in coach in cross-Atlantic flights” is something that JetBlue actually advertises, and was completely true, so much so that I’d definitely fly them again. The services overall were great – there’s no hot meal but that didn’t really matter, as the meal we did get was probably better than the hot stuff you’d get on Delta or wherever. Plenty of options on the entertainment system – I watched the first of the new generation of Ghostbusters movies. No, what really made the flight miserable was Mexico-City-levels of turbulence that made H’s flight a little white-knuckled and even left my stomach rolling. Needless to say we were both pretty happy to be back on terra firma.

The plan had been to grab the RER in from the airport into Les Halles and then walk the two or three blocks to the apartment. In theory, it should have been an easy transport — we had done the same thing in ’21 when we came for H’s 50th birthday. After we had grabbed the suitcases, though, I had seen an update that there was work on the trains, and that there was going to be an interruption in service that would require transfer by bus between some stations, and H suggested we should just grab an Uber into town and be done with it, and through some miscommunication and stubbornness probably borne out of exhaustion from not sleeping on the flight … we did not do that.

We should have done that.

What instead transpired was a haul across CDG looking for the train station, only to find out that the train wasn’t even running out to CDG, that instead you needed to keep walking to find a bus AT the airport, but first you needed to get a ticket for the train you weren’t even getting on; the bus would take you to a train station out in the ‘burbs where now everyone local AND everyone from the airport was trying to cram into this tiny train station not meant for this level of occupancy, that you were now going to have to stand the train ride into Les Halles, and then walk out to the apartment …

Yeah we’re just going to get an Uber back out to the airport next week.

We got into the apartment without much issue, pulled the luggage up the flight of stairs, then went back out to find lunch since that breakfast pastry on the flight was a long time ago at this point. We went and got oeuf mayonnaise and steaks and wine at our favorite local bistro from ’21, Le Compas on Rue Montorgueil, It’s not going to show up in anyone’s recommendation list but it became our “local” last time and a big part of why we’re staying in Montorgueil this time is because of the location, so I’m happy to have it be our “local” this time as well.

We left full and maybe a little boozy and decided to finish the day off with a coffee and a sweet treat from Partisan, a coffee roaster nearby that was open comparatively late. We wandered through some passages that Google Maps doesn’t take into consideration when giving you directions — I kinda love the narrow specialty stores that survive in these 19th-century Parisian strip malls. Partisan, however, decided to be insanely packed with humanity when we arrived — we did grab coffee and a couple of cookies and sat outside, but eventually the weather caught up to us (it’s unusually cold in Paris this week) so we called it a night and made our way back to the apartment.

(After a short stop for some supplies — namely Diet Coke and roasted-chicken potato chips.)