France 2026 - Day 16 / Paris

Steps today: 24 347

That's it! Last day. Happy and sad at the same time. Sad to see it all come to an end, but ready to go home.  Frank was more ready than me to leave, his cold got a little worse and he was feeling very sweaty.

We started the day with a walk to breakfast - I had somewhere in mind but in Paris all the blocks are triangular so when you make a wrong turn you can really veer off in the wrong direction. I call it being triangled.

We ended up here instead, good enough!

After, we kept heading to where I originally wanted to go: Église Saint Sulpice. It's been a few visits where I didn't visit the inside, so it was my idea to do that.  This time it was the outside that was blocked off for pictures so I didn't get any of the exterior.

       

This is when Frank really started to go downhill. He started feeling so miserable he didn't know how he could go on. It came on hard and suddenly.  After about 30 minutes he was finally able to get up and we went back to the hotel via the Luxembourg Garden. 

I think the slow walk in the fresh air did him some good because he started feeling much better and believed he could go on with the day.  We took the metro to cut down on the walking time to a café we both like near Notre Dame for a drink: Les Deux Palais.

Frank was feeling better and more energized by the minute.

Lunch was a no brainer: Le Relais de l'Entrecôte. Originally we had reservations to go to Le Train Bleu which is the Grand Daddy of beautiful restaurants (we went together in 2012, and I went with my mom in 2017) but when we reviewed the menu neither one of us was turned on by anything. If we were going to spend that much money we wanted to be excited about it, so we cancelled the rez and went with a sure bet. We love R.E.

It was meant to be, this was the first time in my life I did not have to wait in line! We just waltzed right in like royalty.

We strolled around some more after lunch, crossing the Seine and passing by the Louvre

Then we needed a pee break, so we stopped for drinks - how could we pass up a chance to have our blast ensured!

Next a walk though the Jardin du Palais-Royal next door

Passage Choiseul

And eventually Place Vendôme

Next was the Église Saint-Roch...  which I am not sure I've ever visited before. I think I remember saying that it was always closed every time I walk by, but can that really be true? 

After this, back to the Place du Carrousel where I had fun editing with A.I.  What do you think?

We went for drinks at Bonaparte expecting them to be cheaper than the near by Deux Magots or Café de Flore...  nope! one beer and an Aperol Spritz cost us a small fortune.

What to do for supper on this last day? I wanted to eat Aligot (cheesy mashed potatoes) but the place I had in mind was too far for our mood.

We decided on Café Danton near by which we both know and like... and guess what the plat du jour was? you guessed it: Aligot! 

It looks liquidy in this picture, but it's not. Think pizza cheese but that's not what's used in Aligot. 

The traditional recipe calls for Tome fraîche cheese

And so ends another great vacation. The next morning we had a nice breakfast at the café across the street from the hotel, and made our way to the airport for the long journey home.

Thanks for following along!