Today we spent our first full day in Paris. We started out the morning with a pre-sunrise stroll. Paris is pretty awesome before everyone wakes up and realizes they have important things to do and see. It was a bit gloomy too, so it made viewing Notre Dame feel much more Victor Hugo-esque than it does midday in the bright sunlight.
We then found one of the few open bakeries (Paris simply refuses to open before 11am, which I just don't get since its tenants are up and about by 8) and enjoyed a pain au chocolat before returning to our hotel for a power nap for me and a second breakfast for Ryan.
We then enjoyed lunch at a local brasserie - croque monsieur for Ryan, croque au poulet for moi. They are both open face sandwiches, his with ham, mine with chicken, and smothered in cheese and toasted - nom nom nom! To burn off the calories, we took a 4 mile walk around the city. We had intended to go to the D'Orsay, the impressionist museum, but the line for it was horrendous. Instead, we went to the Rodin museum. The main museum was closed, but they had one exhibit open, his drawings. Since Rodin is known for his sculptures (think The Thinker), it was pretty interesting to see this other side of him. I actually got to see the original drawing of a print of his that I bought from Ikea ages ago.
Feeling ambitious after all this walking, we decided to just keep going - til we hit the Eiffel Tower. Not sure what to say about it other than it's pretty shiny, and I had no desire to ride from the top. I kind of feel like it is one of those wonders that are best viewed from afar.
At this point we were pretty exhausted, so we took a cab home to relax before dinner. Ahhh, dinner! We asked for a recommendation from the concierge at the hotel. She made us reservations for a nice little provincial restaurant just 5 minutes from our hotel. We didn't eat here.
We tried to, but we showed up 10 minutes before they opened, so they not only shooed us out, but then they locked the door behind us AND refused to unlock the door when opening time came! Worked out for us though - we wandered around the corner and found an AMAZING Moroccan restaurant where the waiters were not only incredibly pleasant, but the food! Oh, the food - no other way to describe it. We started with a pastilla, a crispy pastry stuffed with seasoned ground meat and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. I then had the couscous maison, which came with a variety of meats like lamb and chicken. Ryan had the chicken tagine, which I can only imagine was tasty since he wouldn't share. We ended the meal with mint tea and complimentary almond cookies before stumbling back to our hotel - oh, did I forget to mention the fig liqueur cocktail and bottle of wine we imbibed with the meal? I've decided we are going to Morocco on our next vacation...
More adventures to come!
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