David and Kris's Blog: March 2023

Friday, March 31, 2023

Paris Day Six - March 2023

The day of Les Deux Îles: île Saint-Louis and Île de la Cité. We arrived home before the rain and at supper time we went to the shops for some dinner. I took another evening walk in the Quartier Latin on the Left Bank.

Notre-Dame de Paris rising from the ashes

Île Saint-Louis

Flowers on the Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île

Ta da!

"We'll go somewhere where there's cheese, Gromit."

View from the café at lunch

Happy travelers (photo credit @gibbsdebra)

Lunch

Wooden timber centering for the flying buttresses

at Notre-Dame

What the heck? No water?

Marché aux fleures . . .

Where it is springtime in Paris

I am about 5% confident this protest is over the indictment of

a former US President today

The fire barely reached the front of the church, so this view

of Notre-Dame from the Rue Saint-Julien le Pauvre

is virtually unchanged

Cream puffs at the end of the Rue Saint-Julien le Pauvre

Kris, Debby, and Odette

Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet, a simple

Late-Baroque church on the corner of our street

Bread for supper

Notre-Dame looking like a contemporary high-tech building

The Quartier Latin

Still more to come.

OXO

Paris - Day Five

This day was planned with our Debra Sue in mind: grands magasins! Samaritain, Galeries Lafayette, and Printemps Haussmann. On the way home we stopped at a local shop for some supplies and a guy with an accordion walked in and played a ditty. The accordion players seem to be a recurring theme. Later, in the evening, we walked up to the Contrescarpe neighborhood for dinner at Oh Purée, still my favorite Paris restaurant. Afterwards I grabbed a slice of flan from Anthony Bosson: soooo good! We had a twilight walk through the Emily in Paris neighborhood. (I know some don't care for the show, we like it because of the setting, and so does Debby.) We ended with a run-by-fruiting of the Panthéon and Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. I sinned and bought a Portuguese pastel de nata, a little custard pie. The Anthony Bosson flan was definitely the winner.

Let the fun begin

Our local guy makes killer croissants

The Seine on a blustery morning

My favorite . . .

Because of the architecture and design

It's like the Tour Eiffel and a department

store had a baby

The current theme is "hair" and I think

it is super-creepy and gross -- but

kind of cool (says Debby)

A very tall and red-wigged and glasses-less Edna Mode

daubing paint on the façade of Louis Vuitton

The Galeries Lafayette canopy is worth going in

The guts of the canopy from above

So can you tell my stomach is clenched?

🎶 Lovely ladies

Busy Boulevard Haussmann

A candid shot headed home on the Metro

Sweet Jesus Metro

Deb's video capture of accordion #3

Fleurs on the Rue Monge

So this is love

DSDG at Oh Purée

The flavors and textures are incredible

Place de la Contrescarpe is garbage-free and lovely

Place de la Contrescarpe

The BEST flan

Debby (not Emily) in Paris

Another Emily in Paris site on the Place de l'Estrapade

Panthéon at dusk

Almost dark at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

More later.

OXO

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Paris (Lyon) - Day Four

Wednesday, we hopped a high-speed train to Lyon for a visit with Lucy Jane who lives nearby. We had picnic at Les Halles de Lyon, a chi-chi, reimagined market. The Metro took us to the Place Bellecour on the Confluence, the island between the two rivers. We walked up the Rue de la République to Starbucks, where I left a bag full of goodies next to our table -- daft old man. We headed to the Place des Jacobins, past the Palais de la Bourse de Lyon, and on to McDonalds (Deb loves their Coke) where Kris realized I had left the bag behind. Lucy dashed back and the bag was gone. So we bought a replacement Lyon mug for Kris's collection at yet another Starbucks near the Hôtel de Ville. With Kris firmly in control of the bag, we nipped into the beautiful courtyard of the Musée des Beaux-Arts for a look-see and a lovely rest. We crossed the Saône River from the Confluence to Vieux Lyon, the ancient part of the city. The Rue Saint-Jean is charming and led us to the Cathédral Saint-Jean-Baptiste and supper at a buouchon Lyonnaise on the place. A funiculaire carried us up the hill to Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière and a splendid view of the city below. The Metro delivered us back to the Part Dieu train station and a quick two hour ride back to Paris.