Tuesday morning, half way through our week already!
Russell and I wanted to check out Le Bon Marché, the city's oldest department store which was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1852 and is the only department store on the Left Bank.
First though we stopped off at the very famous cafe/restaurant in the 6th. It was once the haunt of the literary and intellectual elite and a favourite of Hemingway, Picasso and other greats in the 1800s. It has become a tourist favourite and I indulged in my first and maybe only, pain du chocolat (chocolate croissant) for the week.
With a considerably lighter wallet and slightly heavier stomach we moved off to find Le Bon Marché.
The food hall was amazing! Think David Jones food hall on steroids – could have wandered there for hours and if luggage weight wasn't an issue we would have! I dragged Russell away from the knives he was drooling over and eventually we satisfied ourselves with a couple of small purchases.
The cellar was pretty amazing too but with only a few days to go in Paris we couldn't do justice to the six litres of vodka so had to leave it there.
Russell had his cooking class later that evening so he decided to head back to the apartment whilst I enjoyed some more aimless wandering and ultimately found myself at Notre Dame. I had a baguette and soaked up the atmosphere and sunshine but was saddened to see a much more obvious police/military presence around, obviously in response to the recent Charlie Hebdo incidents.
Notre Dame
Arriving back at the apartment I was glad to see Sharon feeling a little better as we had a dinner reservation at Bistrotters, an up and coming restaurant out in the and were being joined by the fifth member of our ride group, Yvie.
A couple of metro changes later we were greeted by the charming François – owner, waiter and sommelier – for what was to be a very enjoyable dinner where old friendships were renewed and new ones forged.
Later, back at the apartment I finally managed to catch the Eiffel Tower light show whilst waiting for Russell to return from his cooking night out but sleep claimed me soon after and I had to wait until morning to hear the details.
Turns out he was the only male there (again!) and the group consisted largely of Americans. He had a very enjoyable evening, witnessed an assault in the market (a carton of strawberries and a walking stick were involved 😉 ) and cooked a three course meal which he can't wait to reproduce for us!
Posted with Blogsy