paris, day 2

Day two!

We slept in a little bit before hitting the streets to find some breakfast. We went to the closest bakery we could find that would sell us carbs and coffee and then parked it at a table outside. That was one thing we noticed about a lot of the bakeries - there was little to no seating inside and even though it was cold, patrons still sat at tables on the sidewalk. I didn't mind, though. It made for some good people watching. And my tart was so good that I would have eaten it while sitting on the ground.

After we fueled up, we made our way to The Louvre, stopping to enjoy some of the sites along the way. It was fun to take it all in, but it was also cold and windy so by the time we made it to the museum we were ready for an escape. We spent a few hours wandering around in there and saw some truly amazing things. This was one of the things Andrew was most excited about, so I'm glad we were able to fit it in. Apparently, it was actually a residence to start so it isn't just a box with white walls and museum-y stuff crammed inside. The detail of the building itself was unbelievable.

 

After wrapping things up there, we went out in search of more food! What we didn't know was that most restaurants are not open all day, ready to feed you whenever you're hungry. And since it was close to 2pm before we were ready for lunch we had a hard time finding a place to go. We ended up find an Irish pub and settled for fish and chips, which really wasn't "settling" at all because it was delicious.

From there we went to Notre Dame, which was remarkable. There's not much else to say about that except that it was absolutely breathtaking.

 

Now here's the thing about Andrew and me. He goes to Paris and looks forward to The Louvre. I go and look forward to PASTRIES. I had heard about Laduree and put it on my list for the week. So we made that our afternoon pick-me-up and took it back to our hotel lobby to pair with some coffee before starting to make dinner plans.

We picked a place for dinner that came highly recommended by the concierge, got all fancied up and headed across town to Au Petit Sud Ouest. Everything on the menu was duck and it was delicious. Andrew made me promise to blog this meal because he never, ever wants to forget it. The lighting was bad so I didn't get any pictures, but I had the duck confit and he had a duck stew in a red wine sauce. That stew was amazing. Duck can be sort of a tough, fatty meat but the stew. THE STEW. It was good. And to finish, we had a coffee creme brulee and it doesn't even make sense how delicious it was.

We decided to catch a cab on the way back to the hotel, but not before seeing the Eiffel Tower in all of its glory. It was pretty magical.

I told you. Magical.