Day Nine: Finishing up

So after the lame bistro we spent the evening preparing to leave. Packing, drinking our last bottle of wine, finishing up the good cheese, importing photos from the various cameras and phones, writing blog entries... All the important stuff.

As a reward for being ready to leave, we spent one last session at Les Editeurs. Just a half bottle of wine (we did have to get up five hours earlier than usual) and some nice snacky food. Carpaccio, French toast (er, Pain Perdu as it seems you aren't allowed to call it French toast in France). We exchanged notes with a couple from New York (I beg to differ with you, honey... lol) and watched gypsies steal money off people's tables. Eventually though, we had to go home and sleep... and wait for the 5am wakeup call that would be coming in a few hours.



On the way home, we took a picture of the statue who we assumed was Antoine the whole week (based on the street name) but actually ended up being Vulpian. Who?

And we had to interrupt a lovely couple to do it. Oops.

Day Nine: Not all bistros are created equal

Last night in Paris. The plan was a little bread and cheese and drink a bottle of wine. Except... No bread places and no cheese places were open, since it was Sunday. Of course. Sunday is a day of abstinence for French people or something. Okay, so we will go back and hit one of the nice bistros we ate at over the week. It was not that far and we got to walk by a nice theatre we had made the acquaintance of. We turned the corner and... It's dark. Crap. Now what? We had seen what looked like a cute little local bistro on the way here, we decided to just eat there. Au Petit Suisse... Seemed like a good name, not scary like the Madness Bar we kept walking by. Drinks were fine (who really can screw up opening bottles of wine?) food was less than impressive. The most impressive part of the meal was reheated in a microwave. Sigh. Not our best bistro experience and probably in the bottom three.

Day Nine: Louvre (really!)

Louvre. The international museum of mystery. Or something like that. The first public museum in Europe. It has been mentioned a number of times this week, but always sacrificed to other goals as it is large and a pain in the ass to navigate.

But, today, we are en route to a meeting with destiny. Perhaps Michigan doesn't have a defense, but we have Museum Passes and can walk right in the back door at the Louvre bypassing all those Pyramid lines (much like the Michigan defense wishes it could, against any Division I school and a number of smaller schools).

We are armed with the Rick Steeves Louvre guide, hoping to hit the highlights and still have time to get some other things accomplished today. Headphones, iPad, Louvre... All ready to start, so here we go!

Enter the first wing, follow the directions... Bzzzt! Exhibit moved! Somewhere else with a not very helpful map of where! It became clear that people don't whine much when their objective is already being achieved. We wandered for much longer than we should have before jumping over the pre-Classical Greek statues. Then finding Venus de Milo was a bit of a chore, using the Rick Steeves directions and the Louvre map. Once we were in the right wing, though, and following the signs, it was a bit better. And when we got to Venus, we got back on the "highlights" tour with no problem.





Per tour instructions, we took careful note of Venus' butt, but no picture of that, best to leave some things to be seen for yourself.

From Venus, we trekked to Winged Victory, then through a number of paintings, including the Mona Lisa. Who knew she was so young!





Finally, after a little snack, we reached the end of the tour. Tired but triumphant we exited the Louvre. We were glad that was done!

Day Nine: Sunday is when things are closed

Last Sunday, when we arrived, we were too glassy eyed to notice that everything really was closed, not just the museums. So this morning, Bonnie went out to shop, and came back empty handed. Shops are mostly closed, just food establishments are open. It must be the drinking that goes on Saturday night, as everyone we knew drank like fishes!

Breakfast was at Le Danton again. We love this place, the wait staff actually pays attention and our favorite waiter sings little French tunes as he works. He looks much like the annoying French waiter from Allard, but has a much shorter stick up his butt.

Set out (unbelievably I know) for the Louvre... After a close call with more shopping, we are on the Metro wending our way to the Royal Palais.