Day Six: Dinner: Restaurant Polidor

One of the restaurants dismissed during the anniversary dinner research was one recommended by Frommers but described as more of a classic drinking house of days gone by. It prides itself on not accepting credit cards since it opened in 1845. It is a favorite haunt of French professors due to the lower prices, or perhaps due to the minimal sanitation facilities (the "bathroom" is a hole in the floor).



Restaurant Polidor has been operating since 1845 and, although not pictured here, it appears some of the original staff are still waiting tables. Much like the famous Van Wert, Ohio, venue (perhaps they are sister restaurants?) Polidor is primarily staffed by lovely old ladies of few words.

Seating is bench style using the "pack 'em in" seating methodology. This means you know precisely what your neighbor has for dinner and what they plan on doing afterward. One of our dinner companions was a professor at a French preparatory school, with side consulting gigs with every type of engineering company in france I could think of. He designed brake systems for Renault, waste disposal systems for nuclear reactors and guidance systems for the French air force (I only made one of those up). He was a very interesting guy who almost did not talk to us because we ordered the Boeuf Bourguignon and he was looking for Americans to talk to (Americans never order beef, didn't you know). We learned all about the French educational system and about cross-Atlantic relationships (his girlfriend works in Boston). He also heartily recommends Legal Seafood, if you get to Boston. :)

So it was a tired crew who walked the eight meters back to our hotel from dinner, thinking of doing the Louvre on Friday. I see a theme developing here...

Day Six: Musée d'Orsay

Monet! Manet! Renoir! What is not to like about Musée d'Orsay? Not to mention Modigliani!

The walk to Orsay was nice, not too busy, though the museum is under serious construction, so entering is a little bit confusing. The Seine was busy as usual though.





Entering the museum using the Paris Museum Pass was a breeze again, skip the line and walk right in. The Orsay has a strict no photography policy (copyright issues?) so of course the first thing we did was take a photo!



Nothing exciting here, we saw the usual Van Gogh, Monet, Sissley, and other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. The crowds were not horrific and we went through every exhibition in just a few hours. It was interesting seeing groups of little children gathered with drawing paper and colored pencils around famous paintings and doing their own interpretation. I did not observe any obvious successors to Van Gogh and these kids all had all their ears.

We turned in our audioguides and headed home on the Metro, pondering dinner.

Day Six: Louvre (not)

The plan was Louvre. A whole day (such as we have had, given working on tourist time) devoted to wandering around the Louvre. With our newfound Metro savvy, we took the Metro down this time, saving the long walk and dropping us right at the more or less secret Richelieu entrance to the Louvre, we walked right in with no line! We walked right into the Pyramid and set out to put together a plan for seeing things. It seemed we needed some help with the plan, so a bottle of wine seemed appropriate and luckily the Louvre people provide a nice cafe to think and ponder the world in. A couple appetizers and a bottle of wine and we were set to build our plan.





After most of a bottle of wine, we thought we had a plan. It mostly entailed getting a plan from the Louvre information. Unfortunately, they do not give out plans, either free or for pay unless there is a guide involved (at least that we could find).





So... We took a few pictures and walked over to Musée d'Orsay. To be continued...

Day Five: Dinner

So, ten year anniversary dinner... Where should we go? Cristal Room Baccarat? Some place run by a famous chef like Guy Martin (whoever that is)? We found what was the top-rated classical Parisian bistro before super chefs started opening bistros only a few blocks from our hotel, Café Allard. It said reservations were required, but that seemed to be too big of a challenge over the phone, and what was the point of going to a bistro with reservations anyway?

We arrive at Allard about twenty minutes after they opened (like any self-respecting bistro they do not open until evening drinking has started). The place was empty, of course, as at 7:20 most French are still working on the pre-dinner bottle of wine, but we walked in anyways, hoping our lack of reservation would be okay this early. We were greeted by a tall, impeccably dressed, imperious Frenchman who obviously ran the place. He spoke initially in French then backed off to English as we obviously were clueless to what he asked. He was curious if we had reservations... Shaking our heads evoked eyes rolled upward as we were clearly totally clueless tourists. Nonetheless, he showed us a nice table for two and gave us menus. French menus, of course, this place did not cater to tourists who did not speak the native tongue. We flailed for a few minutes and finally asked for help. "Help" consisted of pointing at the menu, more exasperation, and indicating where the starters, meat and fish were located. No help as to what the entries were, other than "it's beef". Hmmm... That was helpful. We turned on the iPhone and translated some of the entries so we were not totally ordering in the dark, and ordered escargot, a filet of (French!) beef, a half order of "cepes" (mushrooms obviously!) and Coquilles Saint Jacque in a white butter sauce (translated that myself!).





The escargot were great, seems every bistro is required to get that right. The beef was amazing and came with a very tasty gravy. The scalloped potatoes were also very yummy, Bonnie was jealous of those. Bonnie's mushrooms and scallops were amazing and the snotty French waiter filled his part perfectly.

Dinner conversation was enhanced by an older woman traveling with a much younger woman who sat next to us. They related how it was impossible to find martinis in Paris and this was the first place who had offered to make one for them. The older woman was enamored of my dessert, which we shall discuss next.

Dessert was required, of course. Bonnie had Charlotte au Chocolat, the usual dense chocolate thing. I had Baba au Rhum, basically a pound cake that came with it's own bottle of rum (!). The waiter started things off by pouring a bunch of rum over the top and it became a bit of a game pouring more over the top whenever it looked "dry". It ended up being a very rum-soaked cake. Quite dangerous, luckily we only had to stumble a few blocks home to our hotel.



The story goes that the bottle was full to start with, but that is a total lie!

Day Five: Versailles

So, we land, um, arrive in Versailles. The train dumps you off downtown, with helpful "this way to the chateau" signs (go this way, or this way, or that way... Shortest path would have been helpful). Problem number one... Cobblestone streets with "cute" shoes. Shoes with heels are highly unstable on cobblestones. Walking is very difficult and the wearer is prone to falling. Ugh, not good when you are about to enter the largest palace and grounds in the world!



Notice the grimace of pain on the subject's face as she stands by herself with no support.

So we wander the chateau... Not a bad place, though I wonder if they ever had to really dust all of it.



It seems Louis XIV was a bit of a religious fanatic and attended Mass every day at 10am. Probably just after having his morning espresso and reading the papers... Having the room filled with the same bunch of people every day would get wearing after a while, I bet. At least he had a decent chapel right down the hall. And the priest was responsible for the dusting I bet!



At least the place is setup for a crowd, the stairs could hold a real party sized crowd thundering up to Mass.

Not all the castle seems to have been very appropriate for an elderly, religious monarch with no wife. Not sure what Louis' decorators were thinking...



We wandered through the king's apartments as well as the queen's (several Louis' used the place it seems). Very famous stuff happened here, Marie escaped from some unhappy subjects down a secret hallway from the queen's bedroom (why was THAT there?) and there is some lightly decorated quaint little room called the Hall of Mirrors. Definitely shows the minimalist decorating technique favored by the French monarchy.





We did also make a halfhearted attempt to do the historical museum part of Versailles, but hunger and thirst drove us to lé café. We did see statues and paintings of a number of famous Frenchmen, including brilliant mathematical minds like Laplace who continue to torture students to this day.

Beyond the castle there are the gardens, canals (in the shape of a French cross!), Marie Antoinette's house, and other interesting residences. Due to the aforementioned "cute shoe" issue, we only ventured down to the top of the waterways.



We did meet one very unhappy doggie, though, being squished by some unsavory characters!





We limped back to the chateau at that point and somehow made it back to the train. It was the big day, after all, we had to make it back to Paris for a real French meal!

Day Five: Off to Versailles

Another lazy day in Paris, breakfast/lunch at Le Danton. Some people from North Dakota sat next to us, the waitress spoke all English to them. Apparently we *look* like we might speak French, so there is always this exchange in mixed English and French. So far there has not been a major problem only having a vague idea of what food is coming. The North Dakota people weren't any better at predicting what food was going to arrive, so I think we will stick with trying French when possible.



I had a blanquette du veau, very tasty. Bonnie had the house club sandwich, from which she picked off the very good tomatoes.



Bonnie practicing her French look... Very mysterious!

After breakfast, we hopped on the Metro, popped over to the RER station, and got on a very nicely maintained train out to Versailles. A very pleasant half hour ride through the outskirts of Paris.

Speaking of shoes (aren't shoes always an appropriate topic?), we are wearing cute shoes today. As seen being shown off in the RER station...





The train is almost there, more to come!

Day Four: Recap

We were set to go to Chartres today. The alarm went off at 7:50am and, like good travelers, we turned off the alarm and slept for four more hours. We did manage to make it to Le Danton in time for a late lunch, thankfully. We did not, however, fall victim to the "wine with lunch" epidemic that is sweeping Paris. Perhaps tomorrow...



We tried to renew the data plan for the iPad with Orange. They couldn't seem to do it over the phone, we went to our neighborhood Boutique, who also couldn't do it. The nice customer service person even tried renewing it with his own credit card and it still failed. Come to find out, the Orange credit card processing was broken today. ???

[ The iPad 3G service was working fine this afternoon, so at least one charge went through. Not sure who is paying for this as I type! ]

We went off in search of wine and cheese and bread for an afternoon picnic, that ended up being in our lovely hotel room overlooking the Rue Monsieur le Prince, big windows open, listening to the sound of scooters buzzing up and down the street. At least down the street, usually it is one way except for tourists.









During the picnic, we decided to salvage the sightseeing part of the day by going off to the Tour Eiffel, having dinner at some little bistro and then seeing the Tour lights fantastique! Our waitress was not the most ummm customer service oriented employee, dinner was a bit lame, though the leg of lamb was pretty tasty.



The Café de Marche was okay and did have the properly eclectic look of a French bistro.



We wandered through the darkened Parisian streets to the Parc Champ de Mars to view the Tour Eiffel all lit up. And... Voilá... There it was!




[ Note the lights fantastique compared to just the "plain" lights... ]





Metro back to Saint Germain and finished the night at Les Editeurs, where I am writing this and drinking wine, much like famous authors have done forever. Perhaps we have yet another career?

Day Three: Recap

So we got the ability to use google and google maps while out wandering today. Totally changes how you wander when you can just ask "where is the closest wine?" whenever you need to sit down and rest. Oh, and pictures can be immediately uploaded, for those whining about the delayed picture stream. You know who you are! It just requires remembering the cable and calling Orange each morning.

We had a lovely cafe creme and croissant and orange juice breakfast at Cafe Danton. I was starving, so I even ate the bread that came with the croissant (yes, you get bread with everything, even mmm bread!).



We learned about how service works in shops after trying to skip the queue and being ignored. Orange then happily sold us a daily no contract data plan for the iPad. We wandered around Saint Germain, looking at the abbey, drinking more coffee, getting sucked into the myriad of side streets and side side streets and alleys and things smaller than alleys, that abound here.

Finally we made a plan to wander further afield and go see the Musee Orangerie and wander around the Jardin de Tuileries and Place de la Concorde and at least wave at the Louvre. So off we went awalking... Halfway there we needed sustenance and ended up at La Palette, a nice little bistro on the Rue de Seine that has only a small problem with gypsies stealing money off the table and an even smaller bathroom. Seriously, a bathroom like you find on a plane. The food and wine were good though and we got to sit under cover for the only shower so far of the trip. Cheese plate, meat plate (yes yes there were sexier French names for these on the menu that I couldn't reproduce even under torture).





Then it was off to finish the trek to the Louvre and Orangerie.











The Louvre is a big damn place, must wait until the sleep schedule is properly aligned to attack the inside. So we started down the Jardin de Tuileries to the Musee Orangerie at the other end (feeling kind of Impressionist today, after all).



Who knew that military men were into Carrousels? We walked through the Carrousel area and arch, down the length of the garden and FINALLY got to the museum. Cezanne, Renoir, Modigliani, all those guys... And Monet too, of course. Massive water lily murals in the upper galleries, very interesting.



Jet lag was pretty serious at this point and we had problems even staying upright.



Luckily there are many trees in the garden.





We made it back to the hotel without any more coffee OR wine and promptly napped for a bit before dinner. Two or three hours of a bit, very much needed nap!

We decided to set off in a different direction for dinner (see previous post). Our path took us by the Odeon Theatre d'Europe, very impressively lit at night as well as one of the many bike for rent stands all over this area. Not feeling ready to bike around yet though!





Tomorrow, a different adventure... Metro to Montparnasse and then off to Chartres to see the cathedral.