What a great, great day in Paris. Following a good night’s sleep, we got up and out by 11 a.m., slowed down by blogging Dad, and took the Metro to the Opera stop.
Our mission — our once-every-trip experience with Orange, the French mobile phone company. We had three phones left over from our last trip, and in order to revive them (and thus be able to let the boys go out on their own), we had to wait in line at the Orange store in order to get new SIM cards for each. These little cards, which are good for 6 months, let you have a number and then buy talk time as you need it, at any Tabac. While waiting for our name to come up, we walked across the street and accomplished something I had hoped to accomplish, which was to retire my old Parisian shoes (which I’d bought in 2008, and which were in a sorry state, almost sole-less) and buy a new pair of shoes. Which I did, from a young male salesperson who was bored and almost rude until he asked us where we were from and we told him California, which caused him to start talking about a trip he’d taken there three years ago and lighten up considerably. My new shoes (picture to come tomorrow, can’t wait can you?) are incredibly comfortable; they feel like slippers, but with support.
The Orange experience was passably OK. Between our French and the clerk’s English, we accomplished the transaction fairly simply. Then we went down one of the Grands Boulevards and took a drink break at a restaurant. Then … oh, this is wonderful … the boys went off (their new phones in hand) to visit one of their Parisian friends, and Suzie and I had the rest of the day to yourselves.
Let me repeat that, it sounds so good … Suzie and I had the rest of the day to ourselves.
We wandered for a short while, then Suzie had a great idea: To go back to one of our favorite restaurants, Le Reminet, which we’ve gone to each time we come to Paris, and which was the very first nice restaurant we ever ate in in Paris. A very small, excellent, reasonably-priced place located on a small street, the Rue des Grands Degrees across the Seine from Notre Dam, we had the menu for 18 euros, Suzie having fish, me having a beef dish, both simple and delicious. Here’s a happy Suzie exiting, and a couple of her dishes, which she forced me to take pictures of with my phone:
The leisurely meal over, we needed coffee, and so decided to walk to another of our favorite Paris places, the Cafe Danton near the Odeon Metro stop. The walk felt a little like old home week for us; when we stayed in Paris during the sabbatical, Suzie had a gym membership at a place on Boulevard St. Germain, and there were also a FNAC and a Darty electronics stores nearby, plus Cafe Danton, so we ended up spending a lot of time walking up and down that particular street. Along the way we were treated to an interesting view of the dome of the Parthenon (one of the most splendid things about Paris is that, like San Francisco, you are likely at any random time to be treated to a surprising, beautiful view).
Arriving at Cafe Danton, there was a huge line waiting to get into to a movie at the adjacent theatre; we sat at the window and watched the people go by, trying to figure out which of the couples were new and which were more seasoned. Some views from our seats (taken after the line had passed):
Suzie asked me why I loved this spot so much, and I’m not sure I really know, except that it’s got some greenery and some neat buildings and there seem to be a higher percentage of Parisians than tourists passing by. Mostly it’s the memories, though; Suzie and I used to go to Cafe Danton frequently; the service is great, the coffees are good, and you can get light food (e.g., an omelet) fairly inexpensively.
I overcame my shyness and asked our very funny waiter to take our picture:
No stress there at all.
After coffee, Suzie wanted to walk over to the Jardin de Plantes. We’d originally planned on walking along the river, but got side-tracked and ended up walking down the Rue des Ecoles instead. Which turned out perfectly. We first came upon the Université Rene Decartes.
Seeing the door open, we went in, and were treated to this interior view:
We walked upstairs, to the library.
Suzie attempted to get in, but said that the young man at the desk, after giving her a look of “why would anyone want to?”, told her that it was reserved for medical students. So off we went again, past the Sorbonne, finally stopping at a lovely small park, where we sat for awhile and watched boys playing scooter, and regarded the pretty hanging garden (don’t know what happened to the light on this photo, though):
From there we continued toward the Jardin des Plants, walking past the zoo and onto the main promenade:
And then up past one of the several natural history museums at the site:
At this point we decided to return to St. Michel, where we had arranged to meet the boys (to give them money for dinner and to check out their plans). We walked through more gardens, including one containing this statute of a rather evil-looking something-or-other regarding a bound-up smaller man rather lasciviously. Suzie wanted me to take a picture of it, so I did, although now I am starting to wonder why:
We next walked under a long tree tunnel, made of trees with mottled bark and spooky branches, looking like something out of an old horror movie.
Then back to the river Seine, walking along a car-free path. For a while we stopped and took in the view, all the while listening to an older man, speaking English, apparently American, talking to (lecturing really) a younger woman about meditaion or Buddhism or staying in the present (all of which I appreciate, I really do), but in such a B.S., jargon-y, utterly pretentious way, to the point of hilarity, all of which I translated as “I really, really, really want to sleep with you,” and which Suzie said ruined her enjoyment of the spot, but which I found highly entertaining. The B.S. man is just off to our right in this photo.
Finally we came back to the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame, which is so beautiful as to require you to photograph it no matter how many times you have before:
We cut south again for a while, and walked along Boulevard St. Germain, coming across a chocolate fondue store, which pulled Suzie in and resulted in a purchase. We eventually met up with the boys, gave them money (they were with a friend they’d met last time, a very nice kid named Daniel), then walked to the Metro station, very, very tired, and came home.
We had the feeling all day of being home. So odd, yet so certain.
Here’s a link to a map of our wanderings during the middle of the day. It says it was only four miles, but I’m sure it was more (we didn’t, after all, go in a perfectly straight line). Plus it doesn’t include our half-mile walk both ways to the Levallois Metro station, nor our wanderings around the Grandes Boulevards. We think it was, all told, around 7 or 8 miles, judging from the soreness of our feet by the time we got home.
On the way home, we found a great Monoprix grocery store nearby. Levallois seems to have developed even more since we last stayed here; there’s a pretty plaza that was really hoping when we walked through it on the way home. By way of orientation, you can see the location of our apartment at this link; zoom in or out for more detail.
Today, the Tour de France arrives in Paris. We can’t wait. We’re just as happy as we can be.
Categories: Travel -- France
Tags: France, Levallois-Perret, Paris