After an uneventful flight (except for an inedible breakfast), we arrived in Paris at 6:45 Friday morning, totally sleep-deprived. But the beauty and liveliness of Paris exhilarated us and made us forget our fatigue. Maybe it was the perfect croissants and cafe au lait breakfast on Rue Cler
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or the beautiful foods displayed there - like perfect fruits
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and hundreds of cheeses
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and the freshest fish and food to go
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and huge luscious cepes
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- that made us forget our lack of sleep.
Walking by the Eiffel Tower (made more imposing by a new paint job),
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some women getting their exercise by boxing,
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and the Ecole Militaire we took shelter from a sudden rainstorm in a tent of a lively festival somehow related to sports and arts activities of handicapped people.
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Passing the gold dome of L'Invalides where Napoleon is entombed
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and some interestingly clad celebrants,
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we went back to our modest but entirely adequate hotel (Hotel l'Empereur), with a comfortable bed and well-appointed room before venturing out for a Metro ride to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur. Somehow neither of us had been there before.
The Abbess subway stop had about six winding staircases, each with a colorful mural "enhanced" with graffiti.
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Outside, the wonderful Art Nouveau entryway.
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Montmartre was the typical Parisian mix of tourist schlock and the charm of old buildings and the lingering memories of Picasso, Monet, Renoir et al. The sheer number of portrait artists at work and copyists of Utrillo-inspired scenes was amazing. Dozens of would-be artists and hundreds of tourists milled about the colorful old buildings and narrow, winding, hilly streets.
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We took the funicular up to Sacre Coeur for a view over the city and then walked down to the Metro.
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Paris on Friday was cold and rainy in the morning and sunny and very warm in the afternoon and stifling in the packed Metro to Saint Germain. We found a couple of perfect round frames for ancestor pictures in a charmingly overcrowded frame shop.
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Then we walked to the Seine and gawked in the windows
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and at the book stalls
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and boats along the river and the Louvre across the Pont des Arts.
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Exhausted, we found a bistro with French-North African flavors open at the ungodly early hour of 7 PM! After finishing a pleasant dinner of tagine of chicken with preserved lemons, and duck with foie gras sauce, and good French wine we stumbled to the Metro back to our hotel and collapsed for a good night's sleep.
