Paris Blog, Part 2

As I was saying . . .

I figured I should finish writing about Paris, seeing as how it has been almost a month since my trip.

If you only have Saturday and Sunday to see Paris, see all the churches on Saturday, that way you avoid being one of those annoying tourists milling about in the rear of the church during services.

Start with Notre Dame,

then, take a short walk to Sainte Chappelle (warning: you must pay admission to get in and go through a security checkpoint. Do yourself a favor and leave your pocket knives at home),

and gawk at the magificent stained-glass windows.

After you are done with Sainte Chappelle, stroll along the Seine, stopping to observe the heads carved on the bridge at Pont Neuf.

Eat lunch. We ate at a fabulous little doner kebab restaurant near the Samaritaine department store. Doner restaurants are some of your better, cheaper food options in Paris. For those who are unfamiliar with this type of establishment, doner is a Turkish specialty, similar to the Greek gyro.

After lunch, hop on the nearest Metro to Montmartre, where you will find Sacre Coeur.

Unfortunately, photographs are not allowed inside this church. If you want, you can lounge in the sun on the hillside in front of Sacre Coeur.

Spend the rest of the day at your leisure. Stop and have some cafe au lait at a famous cafe, such as Les Deux Magots. Try to imagine what it must have been like to sit there writing and philosophizing (if you can ignore the loud traffic and street music, that is).


Buy some unusual books at Shakespeare and Company.

I found this gem, entitled An Irish Beast Book: A Natural History of Ireland's Furred Wildlife by James Fairley:

Once you have had your fill wandering the streets and taking it all in, find a place to have dinner. We found a great restaurant near the St. Michel monument, but, alas, forgot to write down its name. They serve nightly menus where you can choose from a list of entrees and desserts. The food was absolutely incredible. I now know what people mean when they speak about French cuisine with such rhapsody. We ate there for dinner two nights in a row and were not disappointed.


Before you call it a night, stop in a cafe for a beverage. We visited Le Bal Bullier, which was across the street from a cafe Hemingway used to frequent. Everyone at the Hemingway place wore jackets and ties, and there was valet parking. We decided it was a bit too fancy for our taste (and attire). Le Bal Bullier, however, was practically empty and had nice glass windows all around.

Stay tuned for Part 3, where I discuss what we learned while spending 6 1/2 hours in the Louvre.

Watching The Godfather at 6 a.m.

I feel for those of you who suffer from insomnia. As of late, I have had trouble sleeping, for some inexplicable reason. Well, scratch that - part of the reason is that I drink espresso late in the day, against my better judgment. But last night it happened again, and there was no espresso, nor any other caffeinated beverage involved this time. Jerome K. Jerome describes the torment of insomnia rather well when he says,

"How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! Those hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so slowly between us and the light." (from The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow)

So, at about 6 a.m. Sunday morning, unable to bear it any longer, I got up, got dressed, and turned to the usual means of refuge for the insomniac, the TV. My husband, fully refreshed from a good night's sleep (a fact about which I was insanely jealous), got up as well and decided to join me in my early morning TV watching.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied, irritably. "Do you by any chance want to watch The Godfather?"

"Sure."

And that is how we ended up watching The Godfather (Part II) at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

Fabulous movie. You should see it, if you haven't already.