I am unsatisfied with my Field Reports. Years from now, when I look back and want to recall my adventures, they will not do the job… so here I go again using maps, our pictures (including the ones I posted on Facebook), and my memories before they fade!
We started the day by heading out of town to Vincennes.
Not knowing what to expect, I thought we’d tour around and have lunch there after visiting the Château de Vincennes, turns out the visit only took about an hour. We walked all the way around it, then wandered the grounds – c’est tout! it’s no Versailles, but I still think it’s worth visiting – in my opinion it has great historical value. For place with relatively nothing to do, we took a ton of pictures; the place is impressive.
When we were done, we thought we’d go to the other extreme - literally and figuratively - from the 700+ year old Château de Vincennes at the eastern terminus of metro line 1 to the ultra modern La Défense at the western terminus.
Turns out however that because of renovation work on the 7 stations that run through the heart of Paris, the metro stopped at “Châtelet” and we were forced off. I thought it would just continue without stopping though the closed stations. Guess not!
So we dumped our plans, got off and just did more wandering! We retraced a lot of our steps, walking along the Seine, through the grounds of the Louvre, down the Jardin des Tuileries, around Place de la Concorde towards the Champs-Élysées ultimately with the goal of seeing the Palais de l'Élysée.
That’s when I realised I left my map at the hotel so we had to go by memory. We got the intersection right – but not the building… ha! only a few days later did we realize our mistake.
From there, we explored the back streets soaking in all the sights, eventually ending up at Place Saint-Augustin. Realizing we were close to the Brasserie Printemps (we skipped it for lunch on Sunday) we decided this would be the day for lunch under the Dome.
The Printemps department store (next to the more famous Galeries Lafayette) is a complex of three buildings and the Dome was interestingly hard to find! You’d think such a nice place would be a little more heavily marketed, but perhaps they don’t want to be overrun with tourists? We actually ended up on a roof-top café at a neighbouring building. Great views of Paris… and the Dome we were searching for!
A little after noon we were where we wanted to be and MAN OH MAN was it ever amazing! You really don’t get the feeling in the pictures for just how HIGH it is!! I wonder if that’s the purpose of the balloon hovering in the centre; to help judge the scale?
Such a beautiful room! This picture might help give you an idea what it’s like to sit there.
The tables were cleverly mirrored so you could admire the Dome without craning your neck:
Also practical for gazing up your companion’s nose. ha!
Sadly my meal was awful. I had a salad and it was no good. It was just lettuce, chicken, and a ton of mayo. A far cry from a good Caesar Salad.
I had some cheese for dessert as a consolation…
Because the sky was nice and blue with only a few clouds, we decided after lunch to go up to the Montparnasse Tower observation platform (essentially the roof / 59th floor) of the tallest sky scraper in Paris (until 2011).
The weather was great for this activity; such beautiful views that we took over 30 pictures from up there! Could not stop clicking.
It was a about 3PM by now, time to stop and have a drink. We walked to the Eiffel Tower area and found a café around 4PM and settled in just when it started raining.
The rain was not letting up, and knowing Lou had planned to see the Arc de Triomphe that afternoon, we texted him to say we’d head out that way to meet up with him.
After a few confusing text messages, he finally met us at “Le Général” around 6:30 – Delicious meal!
I was not ready to call it a day after diner, so my husband and I set out to walk along Champs-Élysées and planned to just jump on the metro whenever we got too tired. Lou’s leg was hurting so he took the metro home right after dinner.
Still wide awake while my husband was fading, I managed to convince him to stop for a night cap agreeing that afterwards we’d go right back to the room. We ended up in a strange place - very hip and pink and loud – not the most enjoyable atmosphere, but I had my night cap and made the most of it.
I had a glass of champagne and look at the cute way they served it – with it’s own mini ice bucket.
The best part was this dog “sitting” next to me – I think he had a long day. Adorable!
After as promised, after our night cap it was back on the metro and straight home.
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