Finally, a full night of sleep! And how blissful it was – after I convinced myself that 12:30 a.m. is not the time to wake up for the day (in defense, James hadn’t reset his watch yet so I thought it was 6:30 a.m.).
We woke up early this morning, struggled through making breakfast with one pot and one hot plate, and then walked along the Seine to the Louvre (about 3 miles from where we are staying).
I am not going to lie, walking around on a Sunday morning before anyone else in Paris is awake? Glorious. Being pooped on by a bird five minutes after you’ve stepped outside? Not so glorious. This bird managed to poop in my hair, down my coat, all over my purse and on my sunglasses. Needless to say I was less than pleased.
We arrived at the Louvre around 9:15, and waited in line for free first Sunday of the month admission. 25 minutes later we were in, and free to roam wherever we pleased. This museum is so incredibly massive. A quick trip to see the Mona Lisa (she hasn’t changed since the last time I was here!) and we were off to explore the rest. If you want to make going to a large museum very easy, don’t speak or read the language of all the placards and don’t get the audio tour. We spent about two and a half hours wandering around – taking in famous masterpieces.
Afterwards, we headed to NoGlu – a gluten free bakery that does brunch in Paris. It was about 15 minutes from the Louvre, and I had been looking forward to this all morning. Except that within the last week or so, they no longer are open on Sundays. This was something I reviewed very carefully before making plans. Sundays in Europe are like before 11 a.m. on Sundays in the U.S. but all day long. Quiet, very few stores and restaurants open. It was tragic, and all I had to console myself was some freeze dried peas with ranch flavoring.
We wandered the streets, desperate for something to eat (well me at least, James had stopped and enjoyed an eclair before we left the museum area). Finally we stumbled across Le Petit Machon, a restaurant with a chalkboard menu, no English menus (always a good sign) and waitresses who spoke about as much English as we spoke French. Perfect. I had duck with some sort of orange sauce. James had a whole fish (we think it was sole, the waitress said salmon but that was the only fish she knew in English!). We both – get ready for it – had espresso afterwards. Yes, James had his first espresso. Did he like it? He said it got him through the day.
We continued to walk around the area, with intentions of going to Ladurée Royale for their famed macaroons. We purchased eight and sat on a bench at a nearby park (next to some delicious smelling flowers) and enjoyed all eight in one sitting.
We took notes when eating them, and because this is the best stream of consciousness from us both… here they are (unedited):
- Coffee tastes like its supposed to
- Green apple definitely tastes like fake green apple
- Cherry blossom tastes like buttery perfume
- Chocolate was hoping it would taste like a brownie and it didn’t
- Marie Antoinette refreshing and like a tea party
- Pistachio favorite one so far – like that Italian paste I can’t remember what it’s called and rainbow cookies
- Vanilla now this is my favorite like birthday cake with homemade frosting that makes your teeth want to fall out
- Salted caramel is even better like my grandmas homemade caramels
That Italian paste is marzipan in case you were wondering or knew. We ultimately voted for the salted caramel which instead of having a layer of frosting had a thick smear of buttery rich caramel sandwiched between the two macaroon cookies
It wasn’t until our walk back home that our feet really started to protest. Luckily today was a sneaker day because we ended up going 15 miles. Tomorrow our week long train passes will go into effect, which means we have no excuse to do that.
We spent the rest of the evening at home, making dinner (it was a slight improvement over the previous!), drinking rose (me) and watching Broad City.