Wed 13th Aug
Our Paris apartment: here
It was a fairly long day of travel with a morning flight from Heathrow to Paris and then a car transfer into the city but we arrived at 4 pm for check-in at our La Sorbonne district (5th Arrondissement) AirBnB apartment. We were delighted to find it was a huge space, by Parisian standards that is, well located, modern and clean. There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms and air con throughout, which was great as it was a very muggy 300C outside, and it had a functioning modern washing machine. Huge wins all around! Our apartment building was located on a narrow pedestrian-only lane way and surrounded by cafes, bars and restaurants but, as we were to find out later, it was surprisingly quiet during the day and night.
We stepped out to pick up some breakfast items and then turned around relatively quickly to go and soak up some of the Parisian atmosphere before our 7 pm dinner booking at Grains Nobles et Plus. This was a great dining experience from the moment we set foot inside the door; the aroma emanating throughout the restaurant was amazing. The staff spoke little English and we spoke no French but this wasn’t a problem at all. We got the gist that there was to be 4 courses, courtesy of whatever the chef had prepared that day, that could be taken with or without paired wine options. That was it. So, of course, we chose the wine pairing option and we were treated to 4 courses of delicious food and 4 delicious wines. The last wine, a dessert style wine but not too sweet, was so good that we purchased a bottle to take to have with the family in Provence. This is a restaurant I’d highly recommend if you’re ever in Paris. We were exhausted by the end of our meal so wandered the 2 minutes home and collapsed into bed.
Thurs 14th Aug
We were a bit slow this morning given the one hour time difference jet lag from the UK (said tongue in cheek of course) which had us wake at 7.30 am instead of 6.30 am. It was forecast to be a clear and sunny 300C day and we had two walking tours booked so we skipped taking an early morning walk.
Our first activity for the day was a 2.5 hr walking tour of historic Paris at 10 am. We’d done a similar tour many years ago but thought it would be a good way to be guided around the city and reminded of key places and events, and, that it was. Jason, our guide, took us to a few different places that we had not encountered before so it was a great way to refresh ourselves about Paris, as well as to learn some new things, and is a tour I would recommend.
One thing we can say after our morning outing was that Paris was packed to the brim with tourists. I think it’s the busiest I’ve ever seen it. It was glorious weather but quite a challenge with the 30° midday temperatures, although the sun here is not as blisteringly hot as you find it back home in Sydney. The reduction of the ozone layer at across Australia clearly making the difference. The morning history tour ended near the Louvre just after 12.30 pm so we walked back to the apartment to have a bit of a rest before our afternoon activity which was a 2.5 hr food tour of the Marais with Devour Tours at 3.30 pm.
The afternoon food tour through the Marais was only ok. There was a lot more walking in this food tour than others we’d done and I was exhausted by the end. We had covered 6 km with our morning walking tour and we clocked another 6 km with the food tour. There were eight stops along this tour and only a couple of them would be places you’d seek out to make a return visit. One such area was the Jewish Quarter and the other was a marketplace called Marche Des Enfants Rouges. This market dates back to 1615 and, before that, it had been an orphanage where the children had to wear red ribbons around their neck; hence the name. It was a quirky little area, busy with patrons enjoying the bars and cafes, and is somewhere I would suggest worth a visit. I did learn on one thing of interest on this tour and that was that the word ‘Boulangerie’ is regulated in France and means the produce was fully made on site from fresh ingredients and not frozen. Our guide suggested that such places should be the only ones to visit when in Paris to purchase bakery items.
We did have a lovely small group, with just us and 3 other women on the food tour, although the one older lady from Florida was singing the praises of Robert F Kennedy Jnr for all he was doing with eliminating artificial coloring from foods. The rest of us just rolled our eyes and bit our tongues! She was very friendly and chatty though so I did my best to overlook that one, albeit rather huge, transgression.
It was 7.30 pm by the time we got home and I collapsed in a heap and Mark collapsed on the couch with a glass of wine. We had a lot of walking to do tomorrow with a tour of Notre Dame and a visit to the Louvre so we were going to have an early night.
