Paris, France (Part Two)

November 22, 2017

Paris, France (Part Two)

After dinner, we walked about a block, past our apartment and the metro station, across the busy intersection and past a few vendors with Eiffel tower trinkets for sale.

And there she was - the famous Eiffel. We took a selfie and sat down on the edge of the fountain facing her. As the sun set, the air became cold and my skirt felt thin. I cuddled into Isaac's side and we watched people come and go, taking selfies and videos or just standing to gaze at the Eiffel against the night sky.

We watched the elevator in the Eiffel going up and down - and wondered what the restaurant inside the tower is like and what the perspective is from the view inside.

On the hour, the Eiffel sparkled. It was reminiscent of fireworks on the forth of July - a crowd watching and waiting. And then, the exclamations and cheers once it began. One of my favorite and most iconic memories of Paris. :)

The next morning, Isaac took me to Angelina's for an unforgettable French Brunch.

(http://www.angelina-paris.fr/en/)

Angelina's signature pastry is the Mont Blanc

(meringue + whipped cream + chestnut cream vermicelli)

Isaac got the Tarte Citron.

Angelina's hot chocolate - the most amazing I have ever had. I've been craving it often on cold fall evenings. It was the perfect thickness and the deepest and richest chocolate flavor and just - ahhhh!

We admired the pastry case for a long while - Each pastry was so beautiful. If only we could have tried them each :)

After Angelina's, we went for a long walk through the Tuileries Gardens and past the Louve Museum.

We passed this intriguing shop and stopped inside. It was small and the shopkeeper was helping another customer search for a particular map. Isaac and I were looking around and I guess that I was attracted to everything in the shop NOT for sale - the shopkeeper kept watching me and saying things to me across the store (in French) and I just kind of looked at her sheepishly and gave Isaac some panic-y ("what should I do!!??") expressions.

It didn't take long for her to realize that we didn't speak French, but thankfully she had very good English. She explained that this was a map shop and that only the maps were for sale - I had been worrying her because I seemed more interested in all of her decorations and antiques throughout the store which were not for sale! :)

Despite how much I was intimidated by her at first, she ended up being a very kind woman and we just loved the idea of a whole shop of maps! Customers would come in and request maps of certain towns or countries and she had so many specific places.

We wandered down Champs Elysees towards the Arch de Triumph and stopped in at Laduree for a croissant.

(https://www.laduree.fr/en/)

At the end of the afternoon, we stopped at a street market to pick up some things for dinner that night.

We couldn't resist the fresh squeezed orange juice!

After dropping off our food at home, we headed to the Louve for the evening. The Louve is open late on Fridays and we had heard that the crowds are often lower that night than during the day. It was SO true and one of the best tips we received - and our short few hours at the Louve were amazing - at times we felt like we had the museum to ourselves.

The Louve really was the most amazing art museum. The actual building (which used to be the palace) was just spectacular.

We had kind of assumed that seeing the Mona Lisa won't be possible because of the rumors we had heard of the crazy crowds surrounding her. We went just before the museum closed and to our amazement there was nearly no crowd - just about 10-15 people. It was so special!

We left the Louve with inspired hearts from all beautiful sights we had seen and went back to our airb&b to enjoy our little dinner of bagette, peaches, apricots, cheese and wine.

Our last day in Paris, we went to some street markets and enjoyed a few more hours of wandering streets.

Before catching our flight back to Berlin, we stopped at the same bakery we had two days before for bagette sandwiches. We sat on a park bench at a little park in the Jewish quarter to enjoy our lunch and our final moments in Paris.