Paris - Day 4

We had another great dinner last night. On the recommendation of the hotel and to celebrate Fiona's birthday we went to a local eatery called Le Pere Claude (known to be a favourite of a certain Mr. Chirac). It worked out perfectly. We had a great waiter who was bang on with his recommendations. I had a starter that probably ranks up in the top ten of things I have ever eaten: a truffle based cream soup with two lightly poached eggs swimming in it. It may sound gross to some, but I was speechless in trying to describe it to Fiona. We absolutely recommend this place to anyone dining in Paris. All at a reasonable price, too.

Because we had walked our feet raw at Versailles the day before, we decided that today would have a slightly more lazy overtone. We had "petit dejeuner Anglaise" at the corner brasserie and then wandered down to the Batobus - a Seine based boat service that acts like a bus, allowing you to hop on and off at the major tourist attractions. Our stop was Notre Dame.

For as busy as it was, there wasn't a lot of waiting around. The church itself is very impressive - although not everyone was in the right frame of mind, necessitating a shushing by the staff over the PA system. We ducked into the treasury to see some of the icons and other "donations" made by kings and queens over the years. They also had a cabinet of cameos containing the likeness of all of the popes - very interesting. We kept comparing it back to our tour of the Grote Kerk in Breda. Scales were similar, with Notre Dame being much darker inside, but with more of its beauty and decoration still intact. We had a little thunderstorm during our visit, so we did not ascend the 387 step spiral staircase to the top of the towers.

When we decided to come to Paris we hoped to have enough time to see the major tourist attractions and still be able to wander around and get a feel for the "real" Paris. With nothing else really planned for the day, we decided to go off in search of an authentic "chocolat chaud". Staying on the islands, we tracked down a tiny shop that had a particularly good reputation. The chocolat was thick and creamy and unlike any "hot chocolate" that we had ever had. We ended up having to cut it a bit with water, which was provided, because it was so rich.

We then walked a few doors down to a local art gallery containing a lot of really good work by local and visiting artists. We ended up having a good conversation with the gallery owner and settling on an original piece that will forever remind us of this fantastic trip - a much better souvenir than the tacky miniature Eiffel Towers that are sold by the handful on every street corner. The gallery owner asked us for our information and offered to let us know when some of the other artists had new work, so it looks like we now have our own private art dealer to visit every time we jet into town. Moving on up in the world ...

The painting is wrapped for travel, so we'll take a snapshot and post it once we get back home.

Looks like tomorrow will be the Champs D'Elysees and the Arc du Triomphe. We're planning on taking the metro in order to give our feet another day of rest. I think we'll do a walking tour of Montmartre on Monday. We happened to be flipping channels on our hotel TV while changing for dinner tonight and had to stop on the music channel when we heard an unfamiliar but very catchy tune. We liked it quite a bit, but were unable to find a download on iTunes. Lo and behold, the band, Yodelice, is playing a free concert at the Palais Royal tomorrow evening, as part of the "Fete de la Musique" festival running tomorrow. Funny how that works out.