Paris Pt Deaux

As we've already been to three cities since Paris, let's get you caught up, shall we?

The fifth day in the City of Lights opened gray and spitting rain. Luckily it was a museum day, starting with a quick Metro trip to the Louvre, where we descended below the glass pyramid to flash our museum passes and join the throngs. The place is enormous and formerly the royal residence of several figureheads including Napoleon. Amazing ceilings. As we had other items on the never-ending list, we were rushed through the museum and still spent over four hours there in total. The mob at the Mona Lisa is a sight to behold; you can barely see the painting from the back. Everyone is in a frenzy to take a crappy picture of a painting they could easily find on the internet in much higher quality, just to prove they were there. Why not check in on Foursquare or something instead?

Braving the rain for the sake of culture.

Look, I know they love the man,
but this is a little bit much.

From the Louvre we headed to the Musee l'Armee in Les Invalides, a collection of buildings housing a variety of museums and exhibits focused on French military history. We practically ran through a (very cool) Charles Degaulle exhibit as we had already covered much of WWII back in Manchester and the musuem was closing soon. Got a nice overview of the Napoleonic era and saw a bunch of crazy outfits and guns. The museum also houses Napoleon's tomb, a comedically large coffin for such a supposedly small man. Like, really huge. Impressive building through with domes and a spooky entrance below to the crypts.

Art piece—a disorienting cave—you can
walk in at the Pompidou.

To continue our Tour de Musee, we returned to the square outside Centre Pompidou and had a snack of wine, Nutella crepe and croque monsieur, successfully ordering in French. Finished off the remaining level of this museum with contemporary modern art from the 1950s and 60s onward. Some thought provoking and just plain wacky material (of course). Headed back to the flat to crash, thankful it had stopped raining about mid-day.

Kept on the museum train by swinging by l'Orangerie in the AM, a museum that houses Monet's 'Water Lilies' series, which just got better the longer we gazed at them. Walked through Tuilleries, the garden stretching behind the Louvre all the way to l'Orangerie, and met a couple on holiday from Littleton, Colorado! Small world indeed. Molly's eagle eye was quick to spot a Rockies hat across the street. She wasn't sure if they would be from CO, but I assured her no one else would be wearing Rockies gear.

Some Frenchmen Are Rude In Fact

In search of coffee and maybe a snack, we decided to sit down at this patio despite the overpriced menu outside. Hey, it had a variety of coffees, right? Though our waiter started off ingratiating, the chubby man degraded fast.

"Nos voudron cafe. Aves vous un drink menu?" we inquired.

"Oui, oui, cafe, deaux cappuccino, no?"

"No, no cappucino, merci, un menu avec cafes."

He brought us English menus and went off to help other people. These menus did not have all of the drinks listed on the first menu we had seen, so we asked again for a menu with drinks.

"No drink menu!" he said, getting exasperated, despite the chalkboard behind him also listing a variety of drinks not on the menus in front of us. After several more attempts, he took away our menus and dismissed us entirely with a "Thank you, goodbye." So be it: down the street we grabbed wonderfully cheap coffee, a tartelet, and a chocolate croissant and ate them on the lawn in front of the Louvre.

Next we wandered to the cinema Pagode, a very cool pagoda style building with a nice garden in front that sadly had no English films at the time. To continue our tour de cinema, we tried to visit the cinema museum, a long trek way across to the east in Bercy, only to discover it was closed—for the next month! This was not on their website. Quite disappointing as they have some great stuff like the head from Psycho and one of the Lumieres' cameras.

Meandered through a nice park in Bercy and along the river back to our flat, stopping to grab salad fixings, the obligatory baguette, and CHEAP wine (3 euro and still super delicious). After dinner I was exiting the bathroom and the precariously balanced ironing board inside fell over, completely blocking the door from opening. Luckily some scrabbling about on the floor and improvised poking instruments averted the crisis.

You Knew These Landmarks Were Coming Eventually

That evening found us atop L'Arc du Triomphe (400 steps or so), after playing Frogger to cross the traffic circle around it that for some reason has no crosswalks despite 12 avenues dumping into it. Excellent views of nightime Paris, with the Eiffel Tower a shining beacon a short distance away. We walked down Champs Elysses and stopped to get our second batch of macarons at Lauderee (not as good as Pierre Herme—but more on that from Molly later). Strolled over to the Eiffel Tower and then on to the Metro, past the savvy dudes hawking bottles of champagne in the park next to the Tower.

The view from les tours du Notre Dame.

The next day we drank our coffee in line for Notre Dame, an incredible building that took over 200 years to complete. Many workers labored for free knowing they would never see it finished. Enjoyed the views from the towers among the gargoyles. Descended and walked to a true highlight of the trip so far: the prix fixe menu at Les Papilles, a small neighborhood bistro close to the Pantheon. The feast started off with gazpacho ladled family-style over fresh goat cheese, bacon, croutons, and accoutrements. Followed by seared duck breast and vegetables in a honey glaze, then a creamy blue cheese course with a sweet date and vinaigrette, and finished with strawberry panna cotta. All accompanied by bread of course. Highly recommend this spot for anyone in the area.

I am drooling just thinking about Les Papilles.

Rounded out our museum visits that afternoon with a walk to the Rodin museum, located at the hotel in which the sculptor lived. Immaculate gardens outside housing his most famous work including the Thinker and the astoundingly detailed and somewhat disturbing The Gates of Hell. Ended the day at Musee d'Orsay, fine art housed in a former train station. In a bit of a rush as usual, but still made it through the excellent Impressionist wing, with highlights including Monet and Sisley.

Rental Cars and Champagne Mecca

Our final day in Paris dawned, and Molly was set to make her pilgrimage to her very own holy grail: the Vueve Cliquot caves in Reims. We rented a car but were behind schedule of course. Upon arriving we requested a GPS unit to stick in our budget rental, but they had none, so we ere forced to upgrade to a Peugot 207CC convertible. Damn. It was an automatic, which was too bad, but it had GPS built in, not to mention the whole convertible bit. We were late though, so we didn't stop to figure out how to put the top down. Nor did the GPS unit even work; failing to find satellites, it displayed us driving through buildings and across streets in a madcap "Unmapped Zone", as we attempted to navigate the insane Paris traffic on our own. Eventually we made it to the highway, no thanks to our expensive upgrade, and a frustrated Molly yelled at Joe when he remarked that the train would have been much less hassle and, after the upgrade and 10 euro in tolls, less expensive, too.

In the Cliquot caves.
I think the bottle glows like that
all the time for Molly.

But we made it, 10 minutes late for our tour but luckily with another one starting in 20 minutes. A suited Frenchman led us through the caverns beneath the Vueve facilities, dramatically lit in places with splashes of purple and yellow lights. The caverns were first carved by the Romans, entirely by hand, to quarry chalk and stone for the city above. They were expanded for hundreds of years and eventually switched to nice neat grid-type tunnels dug by machine. During the World Wars they were even used to transport troops and set up hospitals unbeknownst to the enemy. We also learned a bit about Madame Cliquot, a strong woman business leader even in the 1800s, who was the first to filter champagne and revolutionized the creation of rose.

The tour ended with a tasting of the Grand Dame, a really damn expensive bottle of champagne if you go buy it somewhere. Delicious and all the more so because we found a half-drunk bottle in the next tasting room, now emptied of its tour participants, and refilled our glasses. We grabbed lunch at a boulangerie in Reims and coffee while we wandered around a bit, then figured out how to take the top down and blasted some Justice (because how could you not blast French electronica in France?) while we took the long route home, avoiding tolls and speeding through the rolling French countryside past windmills, farms, small towns, all kinds of scenicness. This made the car rental absolutely worthwhile.

Made it back in time for rush hour (our second of the day), switching to the new Kanye album because it was recorded in Paris, and successfully returned the car. Frozen pizza for dinner and a long wait at the train station for reservations. Up the next day at the crack of dawn to travel onwards to Bordeaux and the coast.