France - Day 3

Mark and I again got up at around 7am. We headed to Starbucks to buy coffee and tea. Mark preferred Starbucks over what they served in cafes. Oh well. We passed by an excellent patisserie/boulangerie and picked up our croissants and pain au chocolate for breakfast.



We then brought breakfast back to the girls in the apt. and woke them up. We headed off to the Marche de Creation. This is an art market. Talented artists displayed their works there. It is very small and took us 5 minutes to go through.

After that, we headed on the metro to Bastille to go to the Richard Lenoir Blvd market. It was an easy market to spot out. Good one, and the girls found many souvenirs to take home.







We had lunch at the Cafe Bastille. It was OK. Just a place we found and popped into. Just a couple of pics that I took:



The we got on the nearby Hop On/Hop Off bus to get us to these museums: Le Conciergerie, Sainte Chapelle, and Notre Dame. Sainte Chapelle was absolutely breathtaking.

Le Conciergerie:




Sainte Chapelle:






Notre Dame:




After touring the museums, we strolled through all the touristy shops and looked through all the art that was being sold by street vendors. We bought some art after some haggling.

Then time to head back to the apt after a long, exhaustive day of museum hopping and sight-seeing. We ate a take-out dinner in the apt.

France - Day 2

Mark and I got up early at 7am. I threw a load of laundry into our washer (side note: I love having the washer/dryer in our accommodations). Then we headed to the the rue Cler market street to pick up some croissants, pain au chocolate, and crepes from the patisserie and coffee from a cafe. Here are some snaps of the rue Cler market street as I walked along:









Then Mark and I headed off to our first Paris market - the Saxe Breuteil market. This was a small one in the 7th arrond. but still very interesting with the fresh produce, boucherie, boulangerie, patisserie, charcuterie, poissonerie, etc. I loved the flowers, and spent some time looking at the shoes and scarves. Here are some pics of this market:

After we got the girls going back at the apt., off we went to the President Wilson market. This was very big with the food, clothing, purses, scarves, soaps, spices and herbs, etc. We bought some souvenirs, and cooked food (paella, cooked chicken, and green beans) to bring back to the apt. for lunch. Here are some pics of the President Wilson market:













After lunch of the paella and chicken (see above pics of the guys cooking the food in the big cauldrons), we headed to the Eiffel Tower for our reservations. It was so busy. The crowds were out, and the sun really beat on us. We went midway, took some snapshots of the city from our vantage point, and were happy that we had the Eiffel Tower experience.







We then got on the Hop On/Hop Off bus to get the lay of the land in Paris. Unfortunately for us jet-lagged bunch, we fell asleep for most of the ride. Let's just say there was very little "hopping off". By early evening, we hopped of the bus at Saint Germain de Pres and headed to the covered market. It was not as good as I had hoped - maybe most of the artisans are on holidays in August??

After that, we headed to our dinner reservation at Bastide d'Opio. It was good and service was really nice. Here are some pics of our dinner:







After dinner, we walked across the street to Amorino, an ice-cream place, to pick up dessert for the girls. These guys at Amorino don't just scoop ice-cream - they make flowers out of your ice-cream. Check this out:





We walked back home to our apt by 9:30pm. Still feeling the effects of jet lag, so an early night for us. Stay tuned for Day 3.