Day 2: Paris, France

Paris, France

Jet leg does exist (we stayed up until about 3:45AM local time), but managed to still get going near 8:45AM to make the most of day two in Paris! Today was very leisurely, yet we still managed to see many more of the “must sees” this city offers. We started the day with exploring the Latin corridor at the Fountain of St Michael. Here we grabbed pastries and cappuccino to go and strolled to a gated park/Fort to enjoy breakfast. I tried a canele, which was a unique spongey texture with a pleasant anise/licorice taste. Along our walk we saw many street vendors, the University, Le Pantheon and another gorgeous church, Eglise Saint Etienne DV Mont. As we started to grow hungry for lunch, we saw a large garden on the map ahead and decided we’d grab a seat in the park and look up the best spots for a picnic lunch…only to find the Jardin Du Luxembourg was THE spot to be to relax in the grass and have a picnic or afternoon nap. We had fun walking through the picturesque landscapes of the park, from open grass areas to benches and garden chairs covered by a canopy of trees. It also had quite the activities for kids (playgrounds/horse riding) and adults (tennis courts/volleyball), and a small replica of the Statue of Liberty! The pound at the center of the park reminded us a little of the reflection pond in Washington DC and nicely framed the path leading to the Palace of Luxembourg. We decided to find a local grocery and bakery to pick out lunch and return to our lunch spot! We had the bakery slice our French baguette for us, but if we could have gotten a photo of it whole I think it was nearly a yard long and cost us a whopping 1.2€ (sarcastic). Thanks to our cab driver’s recommendations from last night on his favorite cheeses, we picked out Caprice des Dieux, Reblochon De Savoieto, and Boursin (all three of us love this and couldn’t pass it up) to go with a collection of prosciutto, salami and capacola, olive tapenade and champagne. What an experience…perfect, sunny 76* day to lounge amongst the locals and unwind (also helped us deal with jet lag). Wish this could be a weekly, weekend routine! From here, we wanted to be sure to visit the Arc de Triumph (Paris’ tomb of the unknown soldier) and walk the Avenue Des Champs Élysées. We grabbed an Uber over to the Arc and laughed at the crazy street that circled the Arc (no lanes or traffic signal/just a total free for all). Our driver was not able to get us to the inside of this traffic nightmare, so we instead quickly found ourselves in a real life game of frogger that we witnessed several other tourist win at…only to find out there is actually a tunnel that goes under the road for safer crossing! I guess we’re all allowed one “stupid American” moment! At least we made it, needless to say we received our share of explicits and hand gestures for the year. After safely crossing via the tunnel we made our way down the avenue and saw a mix of high end and average stores, and a street market. This area felt very touristy and reminded us of Time Square. Glad to have seen it, but thankful we did not stay in this area. We then decided to walk down the opposite side of Le Seine (river) we had been on yesterday and got to see a classic car show lined up by the Grand Palais and Petite Palais, also near the modern art museum. Both are such impressive buildings lining the street with a straight view of the Assemblee Nationale (gold domed building). We also spotted a view of Winston Churchill’s statue. At this point it was nearing 6:30PM, so we grabbed another Uber back to our hotel. Time to freshen up and catch the sunset at Sacre-Coeur followed by dinner and a fun evening out in the Red Light District, and 11PM show at Moulin Rouge! Looking forward to sharing our stories about this evening tomorrow! Au Revoir for now!