Paris Weekend

Eurostar
Last weekend, Joe and I jumped on a late Thursday night Eurostar and headed to Paris for the weekend. Two hours and 15 minutes to Paris from London. It's great, but I'm still amazed that the food offerings aren't any better than Amtrak's.

Since the train is the perfect place to have a meal, we bring our own. There's a great Marks and Spencer's Simply Food at St. Pancras in London. Gare du Nord in Paris is a bit more challenging, but once you are inside security there's a Paul (it's way in the back) for sandwiches and the Godiva store has a great selection of upscale cheese and luxury treats for a picnic.

I rendezvoused with Joe at the St. Pancras Grand Restaurant. It's a great place to meet. Across from the St. Pancras Grand Champagne Bar, which rarely has seats, the restaurant has tables and couches along the front with a full view of the glass roof and a lack of people that makes finding others easy. You do need to plan on buying a drink, but a glass of champagne before you head to the continent is always nice. Joe and I had the May special, a glass of summer champagne and a plate of chilled British asparagus with herbed mayonnaise.

The Five Hotel
We stayed at a wonderful boutique hotel called The Five which is located on the edge of the 7th arrondissement (near the 13th). Really nice bed and some of the nicest, biggest, softest towels I've ever had anywhere in Europe. The rooms, typically small, were clean and designed to the highest standard of detail. The fiber optic lighting included a wall of starlight in the shower and a shower head that had color LED lights.

The front desk staff were great. Excellent language skills and really helpful. It was about a 10 minute walk to mass transit - either the RER or the Metro's 7 line - and then 10 to 20 minutes to get to the heart of Paris. Despite the closeness, the neighborhood was outside the main tourist zone. Plenty of cafes, restaurants and grocery stores, populated mainly by Parisians.

We arrived about midnight and wanted something to eat. The guy at the front desk sent us a few blocks away where we had falafel sandwiches and fries. Right away we knew we were in Paris. The bread was incredible, the fries extraordinary and the place, literally just a tiny sandwich shop.

The 7th Arrondissement
We spent most of Friday wandering around the 7th Arrondissement. After breakfast at a cafe watching people go by we bought our carnet du dix (10 tickets to ride the Metro or RER, the most cost effective way to go) and and road down to the Jardin Des Plantes. The gardens and trees were beautiful. From there, we walked to the Seine and along it for awhile, just enjoying the amazing weather - it was sunny and in the mid-70s all 3 days we were there.

We turned back into the neighborhood and stopped at the St. Etienne du Mont church which contains the shrine to St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. From there we walked across the street and went into the Pantheon. Impressive architecturally, but not as impressive as Rome's Pantheon. Perhaps it's because the one in Paris was built in the 18th century.

We eventually made our way through little streets over to the Boulevard Saint Michel where we found a cafe and had a bottle of wine and some salad while watching the Parisians go by.

After a nap at the hotel we headed into the heart of Paris for dinner. My foodie friend Janine had recommended Le Souffle, near Place de la Concorde. Joe and I both had the flight of three souffles with salad. I had cheese, mushroom and rose. Joe had forest mushroom; ham and cheese; and chocolate.

I am a bit of a souffle snob so I do have to say the souffles were more formulaic than gourmand. However, if you don't make (or eat) souffles often, you'll be very pleased to have someone else whip the egg whites. The only negative I would share is that the staff pushed hard to turn the tables. Our four course, one hour 15 minute dinner could easily have been 45 minutes if we hadn't gently pushed back.

After dinner we walked along the Seine which was packed with the people of Paris having picnics and enjoying the first hints of summer weather.

Montmartre
Saturday we were off to Montmartre. On the way to the RER we walked through an amazing farmers market on the Boulevard de Port Royal, between our hotel and the Port Royal RER station. Great stuff for making a picnic, unfortunately that wasn't our plan for the day.

On my Mom's first trip to Europe she lit a candle at Scare Coeur and prayed that her children would get to tour Europe one day. I had lit a candle in thanks in 1988, my last trip to Paris, and wanted to honor the tradition by lighting another one.

After visiting the basilica we walked around the side streets and stumbled on a great restaurant, Chez Plumeau. Even though it wasn't out plan, we ended up having a long, long lunch. We sat outside under an old grape arbor full of leaves to provide shade, listening to the nearby street musician and enjoying the food. The staff were great and our fellow diners were a mix of Parisians and travelers from all over the world. Joe started with an excellent French onion soup while I had beet root carpaccio with basil sorbet. Next we both had sandwiches, but that fails to adequately describe these toasted, open face combinations of vegetables and cheeses with sides of fruit and salad.

We had watched amazing desserts come out throughout our meal so we indulged. Joe had the "crazy macaroons", two small scoops of ice cream with four different macaroon cream sandwich cookies on a skewer and I had an apple tart. Excellent, I highly recommend it for a quick cafe and dessert or a full meal. They had several worthy vegetarian options and were happy to make my sandwich without the meat.

It took us most of the rest of the day to stroll and sip cafe and wine back to the Seine and on to our hotel. After a quick nap, we found a little Italian restaurant on Avenue des Gobelins, just about the Metro stop of the same name called Cesars. Good pasta and, though we didn't have one, the pizzas looked incredible.

After dinner we headed over to the Tour Eiffel to see it all lit up. No easy feet as this time of year it doesn't get really dark until after 11p.

A Paris Sunday
We still had a full day in Paris before our train left at 8:45p. After sleeping in, we checked out, left our bags at the hotel, and headed out toward the Musee D'Art Moderne. I was particularly interested in seeing their Cubist collection. Unfortunately the museum was closed for no apparent reason. We weren't the only ones caught by surprise. A couple of Parisians wandered up and seemed a bit miffed too.

We didn't care, the weather was amazing and so we went for a walk down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees and then through the Jardin des Tuileries. From there we crossed the Seine and window shopped through the gallery district, stopping at a couple of cafes. Before heading to get our luggage we stopped in a little touristy street and had a great crepe at L'Eloquence, 6, Rue Gregoire de Tours.

Back on Boulevard Port Royal I was surprised to find the chocolate shop next to our hotel open on Sunday afternoon. Patisserie Sadaharu AOKI had the most amazing window displays and I finally succumbed. I bought some beautiful tea cakes and a box of chocolates that look like pastels. We have some company coming from the States in a couple of weeks and I'm saving this little bite of Paris to share with them.