Paris

Sunday, March 29, 1998

First day married!

Jill doesn’t have shoes and has to go barefoot through the hotel
lobby. She has blisters on her chest from the "sticker bra." Keith
carries his tux in a plastic bag.

We have mimosas for breakfast at Jill’s mom’s. Keith’s mom could
only handle one after the post wedding party at the Country Inn.
We opened presents and then Jill’s dad and Becky and Jill’s mom
and Fred send us off from the St. Louis airport.

Monday, March 30, 1998

The ride to Paris is greatly helped by Excedrin PM and a few bottles
of Chardonnay. We land atop 10 am and clear customs and immigration
and get in line for an ATM, only to discover Jill’s missing her
fanny pack with all her credit cards. Thankfully, after a 45 minute
wait at the United counter, the plane is searched and the bag
is found, and we’re on our way into the city.

Hotel de Fleurie is a pleasant little hotel with a bustle of activity
around it. It’s in the heart of Paris in the 6th arrondisement,
St. Germain.

We had an hour before we could get into the room so we wandered
out for a bite to eat. We have our first frustration with Frommer’s
when the restaurant is not where they say it is (we later found
it a block away.) So we just find a suitable looking cafe and
went in. Looking at the menu, we figure out it’s a West Indies
/ Caribbean restaurant. We still eat French though : we both have
Salad Nicoise and glasses of Muscadet wine and share a plate of
compti cheese.

We return to the hotel and are told we have to wait 15 more minutes
for our room to be cleaned. We sit on the couch in the sitting
room and quickly fall asleep. Jill wakes up to Keith snoring!
We head up to our room – it’s pleasant and the windows are pulled
open letting in fresh spring air. After a short rest and hot showers
we set off to explore.

We walk from the hotel across the Seine to the Louvre, the world’s
most famous museum. We pass some interesting shops along the way
– some pastry shops, wine stores, etc. The Louvre is a pleasant
walk from the hotel. It is much larger than any map makes you
believe. It’s a very impressive place. We walked through the main
courtyard to the pyramid entrance and stood in line behind a lady
from Monet, Missouri. We went through the Denon and Sully portions
of the Louvre, seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

We might have lingered longer if the signs had English translations,
but we finish about a quarter of the Louvre in an hour. With sore
feet, we sit in a cafe in the museum with 2 cafe creme’s. Keith
and I started discussing evening plans, sightseeing and dinner
and how to get there – and Jill falls asleep with her head on
her arm at the table.

After Jill’s 20 minute nap at the Louvre and a couple more cafe
cremes, we’re on our way again. We master the metro and find our
way to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to go up while it was dark
but it’s already 7:20 and not dark yet and we’re hungry. We went
to the second deck of the tower – Jill wouldn’t go to the third
– what a great view of the city! By the time we come down, the
tower is lit up and we get a picture of the outside (sorry, didn’t
turn out to well..)

We eat at Fountain de Mars, not far from the Eiffel Tower. The
place was recommended by Frommer’s. We shared a bottle of rouge
(red, for those Texans reading) wine and both have the scallop
risotto for a starter. Keith had the crispy duck and Jill the
braised chicken special. Both were very nice. We topped the meal
with vanilla creme brulee and black / white chocolate terrine.
The waiter was very pleasant and even gave us an English menu.
We head home via the metro with a quick stop at a wine shop for
a bottle to take home. We finally go to bed around 11:30.

Tuesday, March 31, 1998

Both of us are playing catch-up from the wedding and jet lag,
so we sleep in until 10 or 10:30. We hit the streets around 11:30
in search of food. The sit-down restaurants weren’t open yet for
lunch but we found a adjoining cross streets with street vendors
selling fruit and baguette sandwiches and all sorts of food. We
browsed a formage (cheese) shop and a meat shop and settled on
a warm Quiche Lorraine. We ate that walking down the street, then
stopped at a stand up bar for 2 cafe creme’s.

After breakfast we walked to Isle de Cite to see the Cathedral
Notre Dame. The cathedral was neat although half covered for restoration.
The inside was impressive stained glass and can hold 6000 worshipers.
We also go below the Cathedral to look at the foundations of buildings
going back to the first settlement of Paris.

We were blessed with a beautiful spring day. Sunny and breezy
and in the 70’s. After Notre Dame we walked south across the Seine
and into a greek section of town with amazing smelling food. We
settled on a French cafe for lunch and ordered the set menu. We
both had French Onion Soup for the starter (excellent!) Keith
had steak in pepper sauce and Jill the pork kebabs – both with
french fries (of course). For desert : chocolate mousse and crepes
with chocolate sauce. And wee split a small bottle of Muscadet.

From lunch we took the metro up to the Arc de Triumph which also
has a great city view from the top. However, the 284 steps are
a challenge – all spiral.

After the Arc, we walked down Champs de Elysees and sat on a park
bench for a while enjoying the nice sunny day. Another metro ride
got us back to the hotel for a break.

We consulted the tour guide on dinner locations and went looking
for one of the bistros around 7pm. We didn’t have reservations
but Parisians don’t eat until 9pm so we were very early anyway.
We wondered about, not able to find the place and went into a
wine store to browse and discuss strategy. The owner was American,
having been in France 15 years after flunking out of chef school
for his non-rising souffles. We asked him if he knew Cafe Muniche
and he told us it had moved, but he hated "places like that."
He sent us to one of his local favorites : Bistro de Henri. He
even placed a call to see if we could get in and the owner joked
that his food must be horrible – the place was empty! Of course,
it was only 7:30. We got seated (the only two people in the small
bistro) and looked blankly at the menu which we understood little.
We ordered 3 kir’s as aperitifs and a bottle of wine and got the
waiter to explain the menu in the little English he knew. Keith
had white beans with garlic for the starter and Jill the avocado
with shrimp. Both were good but potent. For the main dish, Keith
had veal sausage in tomato sauce ("cooked all day") with buttered
noodles which was so good it popped our eyes open with excitement
with every bite (Jill’s words). Jill had roast beef with buttered
mash potatoes which was good but didn’t come close to the veal
(luckily Keith shared.) Creme caramel with two spoons completed
the meal. (The place did fill up completely on the stroke of 9pm).

We walked up to the river, now quite familiar with the streets
in the neighborhood, and considered a river cruise. However it
was 9:30 and they may have stopped and they didn’t look to exciting
anyway. We wondered with a stop for another bottle of wine.

Wednesday, April 1, 1998

With a half day left, we head to Jardin de Luxembourg, but it
was cold. We both also had sore feet. We stop for a couple of
cafe creme’s and pick up a ham and cheese baguette and the leftover
Muscat wine from the night before and head to the Jardin (garden).
Cold and without a hotel room (we checked out and left our bags),
we next head to the Hotel de Invalides for a look. We found our
way back to the Greek section for lunch and both have gyros with
fritos (french fries.) We make it back to the hotel in time for
the taxi to the airport. The taxi was a few francs less than we
expected, so we bought some postcards and mailed them. We had
a small bottle of California Merlot leftover from the first flight,
so we split it waiting for our flight. It’s an hour late because
of congestion. The Lufthansa 737 is quite nice (leatherish seats
and cheese or salmon baguettes and wine.) Got to Munich and ran
through the airport to make our connection only to find out we
were on the same plane to Rome and it would also be delayed.