Paris! Part Une.

While many people think having to travel for business is a drag, with us living in Europe it comes as a nice perk since everyplace is really so close. Carlo gets sent to cities for meetings, and as the supportive wife I am, I tag along to make sure he's dressed sharply and has fantastic company during dinners. He gets a loving send off to work, while I tour around for the day. Win-Win!

So this past Monday and Tuesday Carlo had meetings in Paris, so we decided to extend the trip to leave Milan Friday evening after work and come back Tuesday night. I have been excited for a couple months now researching places to visit and eat (duh, food always comes first), knowing this trip was coming up and having never been to Paris, but I really didn't have too many expectations for the city. My overall impression of Paris was fantastic! It was an extremely clean, beautiful city, with lots to do and see and plenty of the little meandering streets we love exploring. We stayed in the Trocadero area in District 16, right across the river from the Eiffel Tower, at the Hotel Palais De Chaillot, which was an adorable, clean hotel that had the most comfortable bed and pillows and was a block away from a Metro station and the Palais De Chaillot, which is directly across the river again, from the Eiffel Tower. The only downside (if there even was one), was that our room was quite small, but we were hardly even in there so it was not an issue. Would highly recommend it to anyone going to Paris! After writing just about Friday night and Saturday, I realized how long winded I am, so I'm going to break it into two posts! We also provided links to the sites and restaurants so you could see/read about the different things we saw/ate. Enjoy!!!!

Friday Night we got into Paris late, so as soon as we checked into the hotel we set off on foot to see the Eiffel Tower. Had a lovely stroll, people watching tourists and locals alike, hanging out on the lawns of the Palais De Chaillot with their bottles of wine, cheeses and bread under the moonlight and twinkling Tower. As you all know, Carlo and I aren't exactly the most romantic couple out there, but this was the quintessentially romantic, even to us. Finished out our walk with a delicious crepe slathered with chocolate and didn't even get any chocolate on me! Perfect introduction to Paris!!!
(Please note, I will be talking about our food a lot, so you may want to eat now if you're hungry :)

Pont Alexandre III

Pont Alexandre III

Saturday morning we woke up and had a whole day of walking planned out to see the highlights. We started by walking from our hotel to Arc de Triomphe, down Avenue des Champs-Elysees, past the L'Obelisque towards the Louvre. Beautiful tree lined, wide sidewalks street with upscale shops which I read many Parisians consider the most beautiful street in the world. Beautiful, yes. Most beautiful, not convinced. We at one point made a quick detour over to the river to see Pont Alexandre III, which is arguably the prettiest bridge, before ducking back in to the Louvre park (Jardin des Tuileries). Anyways, after we meandered through the Louvre grounds, we followed along the Seine river banks (which actually smelled like urine and the 2nd most unpleasant thing we encountered) to the Ile de la Cite to see Notre Dame. Overall, we were underwhelmed by Notre Dame. It's not nearly as big, grand, or intricate as the Duomo in Milan, but it was still a beautiful cathedral. From there we continued on our walking tour down Rue de Rivoli, heading to a crepe restaurant I found online Creperie Bretonne, although as our luck would have it, they were closed! Thus we ended up at nearby Le Bistrot du Peintre.

Arc de Triomphe

Now here's the thing. I am learning Italian. Not French. In fact, I don't speak a lick of French, and Carlo's French is quite rusty as he has been out of high school for so long now (aka- he's old. French was a long time ago!) Saying that, looking at a menu in all French and not a speck of English to be found, ordering is like playing Russian roulette. Carlo was safe with his sausage- good, but not great. I on the other hand, had the gun go off in my face. The waiter brought out what looked like a rather large sausage, and when I cut into it, it actually looked somewhat like bits of meat- maybe pork?? Let me also say it didn't smell great, but I thought what the hell, I'm in Paris, I'm going to give this a go. The more I ate, the worse it seemed to taste to me, so I really started to dissect this 'sausage' at that point. As soon as I did, I had that oh no moment, finally realizing the little pieces were actually accordion shaped....not sure how many of you find this as a clue, but let me go a little further with a hint and let you know Parisians tend to like what the culinary world calls 'awful'. For those of you that have not pieced it together yet, this mystery meat was tripe. Eww. Yuck. I guess I do not like tripe, so moral of the story, if you see Andouillette on a menu, order at your own risk. You've been warned.

Au Rendez-Vous des Amis

After the disappointing let down of our meal, we decided to head towards some canals we saw on the map, as Milan also has canals and we were curious about Paris'. Stumbled upon a market on our way up Boulevard Richard Lenior, and found the canal to be very charming, complete with locks to assist the boats up and down the grade. From there, we headed up Boulevard de Magenta, which we dubbed wedding row because of the unusually high amount of wedding/formal wear shops on the street. Seriously almost every store for blocks was wedding related. Heading for the direction of the Montmartre neighborhood. Read about a cafe that was said to be nice to stop and grab a drink, so that was our new destination. Au Rendez-Vous des Amis. Although it definitely had more tourists then what guides said, it was still a cute place, on a corner, with cold beer. Win.

View over Paris

Basilique du Sacre-Couer

After knocking back a cold one, we hiked up the hill to the Basilique du Sacre-Couer. We both loved this cathedral! It's perched on the only hill in Paris with amazing views, and has beautiful architecture. We decided to go inside also to check it out, and loved the fact that we timed our visit in the evening to when the nuns were singing prayers.  We both actually liked it better then Notre Dame. The only downfall, was all the people. Lots and lots of people.

Little Winding Streets

We had about an hour to kill between the Basilique and dinner so we explored the little windy streets of the hill stumbling upon the only vineyard in Paris proper, and one of the two windmills. Our feet were starting to get tired again, so we popped in a little cafe for a glass of wine. Struck up a conversation with an Australian couple next to us when they witnessed Carlo stealing a piece of baguette from the counter (I was mortified), but it was fun to have a conversation with them on the stereotypes of different cultures and countries. Finally, we were off to dinner!

L'homme Tranquille was the restaurant I had found that we decided upon, so we were ecstatic to find the type of place that you picture when you daydream of a Parisian restaurant. The inside was dimly lit, tired old walls, candles on the table, relaxed and comfortable. Again in our broken French we pieced together what we wanted to order. Carlo started with a French charcuterie platter with various salamis, and then some sort of pork with a delicious sauce over cous-cous. I had a salad with balls of fried chevre cheese and green apple, and then a coq au vin cooked with white wine instead of red and baby sized grapes. Of course we washed it all down with a bottle of red wine. We both concluded at the end of the trip, this was our favorite meal.

Full and tired, we decided to head back to the hotel. We walked as far as the Opera de Paris, but as we looked at the map we realized how far we still had to walk, so we haled a taxi to end our walking tour. Had to save some energy for the Palace of Versailles the next day!

Opera de Paris