Ahh, Day 2…
In my Arriving post, I did show how I ran the morning of Day 2… but I’m really counting the start of the day as all of us wandering off with Pascal! Unfortunately, I was doing… something. What was I doing? I was going to the store for medicine or bread or something when he left us, so I didn’t get my picture with him. He was really nice and incredibly informative. He wasn’t as engaging as I would have hoped for a professional guide but he got 4.8 stars from me!
I’m linking to his ToursbyLocal page because he really was awesome.
He met us at our apartment and we started off on our walk. This palace was literally 5 minutes away and he turned a corner, went through a tunnel and we were in this amazing courtyard!
I honestly can’t remember what palace it was, I could probably easily look it up on Google maps but I’m not inclined. It was enough to remember how fun it was wandering around little corners and opening up into shopping districts and yummy restaurants.
Mom and Gregg had wandered off that morning to get breakfast and we walked by the place they went, so that was fun.
My favorite was the Bibliothèque nationale de France, ahhh a library… parfait! It was quiet inside, so many books, and I just loved ALL the feelings it invoked as we walked around. I did take a few videos but I haven’t put them together on my YouTube as of yet. Will have to come back and link it up later.
The rest of the day was a blur. We spent 5 hours with him. He showed us the most popular pastry place, told us to eat Alain Ducasse chocolate which was (one of the?) only places to actually make it in France. Maybe? Who knows. I did go back and find a shop (there were a ton!) and get some and it was definitely delicious.
He took us on the metro – which we had a DOWNPOUR for about 10 minutes before we got to the entrance. Once we arrived in Marias, it was gorgeous. We had lunch there at this beautiful flower bejeweled restaurant.
There were so many restaurants covered in flowers. It was really gorgeous. The food wasn’t amazing but it was okay.
We tried to pry out more details from Pascal as we invited him to sit down to lunch with us. He wasn’t super talkative but he did tell us how he got hired to be a guide for all the SPONSORS of the Olympics… the high paying sponsors, that he was going to go around with in big busses and give tours. Sounded very fancy!
We walked past the Hotel de Ville of Paris – the city center with all the Paris Olympic posters up, which was so cool. I went back the next morning on my run and got pictures of it COMPLETELY empty, which was so cool.
Then we walked over to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris! They hope to open it in December so we were 6 months early. It’s lovely all the amazing work they are doing on it.
Pascal was really filled with so much interesting information – he is a guide, so this does make sense. But it was a nice day walking around. We were all VERY tired and left him early (it was technically a 7 hour tour) but we were happy with what we had with him.
I took this at some point in the day but just an example of the changing weather where it was cloudy and rainy earlier and absolutely gorgeous later on in the day. The many times I was able to walk next to the Seine just filled me with peace and joy.
I think we relaxed for an hour? I went to the store? Something…
I then ended up having a lovely text “discussion” with the driver I had been hiring periodically during the week. He was lecturing me about the time I wanted to be picked up at but we finally agreed and… the driver went to the WRONG ADDRESS.
I think I took this photo when I was texting them that, indeed, I did NOT see her car and she was NOT in front of our street. But this was our street. So many high-end shops buried at the bottom with cafes at every corner. Very bustling part of Paris!
I had to go get a map of where we were, on Rue Sainte-Honore in the top left. Ha, the palace we visited at the beginning of the morning was the Palais Royal… Anyway. You can see the Louvre in the bottom right, the gardens to the left side. The Seine was just at the bottom of the map so it really was an easy walk/jog over which was so cool. What an amazing area!
(I just realized that our house was one more block over to the right from where I circled it – but oh well! Close enough!)
Our driver finally arrived and it was a wild drive to the Eiffel Tower area where we had our dinner cruise for Jerra and Gregg’s birthday. I remember being so calm on the way because while it was frustrating that we might not make the cruise because of traffic, wrong address, slightly late pick-up… it was out of my hands. So I’m still patting myself on the back
I booked the Bateaux Parisiens dinner cruise after reading so many recommendations. I’m glad I did. The main complaint was that it was SO SHORT, it simply flew by! If we had gotten there 20m earlier we would have enjoyed it more, ha ha. Story of my life. I want to optimize all the time we have and have it be perfect… We were enjoying just relaxing at home though.
The dinner had several options. It looked VERY fancy on the menu but was actually incredibly delicious. We let the elders have the better seats to look out the window but we could see out the other side, and just turn around to look. Sam and I had so much fun taking photos. They had gluten free rolls that I enjoyed (normally I don’t eat GF stuff but YUM). The music was great. We got to see so much of the river.
Because we had toured with Pascal, we knew a lot of the buildings so I didn’t miss anyone on the loud speaker telling us what we were seeing.
The elders raved about it – much more than Le Soufflé the night before! So I felt it was a hit for everyone. Even though we cruised up and down the river, parked, and then they came and stood over us and pulled out our chairs basically to get us to leave for the next group to come in, haha.
But when we walked out of the boat, there she was! So we walked over to the corner and up the steps to take a look at the beautiful Eiffel Tower.
We got a ton of pictures with everyone but these are two of my favorites.
The one with the three of us was making me laugh because our faces look weird but we were laughing and running around trying to get the perfect picture.
At that point, everyone was so tired. Everyone ELSE… Sam and I wanted to go to Trocadero Bridge. So.. I think I called an Uber for some of the elders, and someone else called a 2nd one. J and G were still not feeling great and not up for walking around.
We got everyone settled and into the car and then Sam and I wandered off. We explored a bit and found the path up to the bridge. Ahhhh Locks of Love! I feel like this used to be on a bridge but then they took it down and now moved over here? I can’t remember 🙂 But we got a picture and then moved on.
We did the standard Sam photoshoot and here is one of my favorites. You can see all the construction everywhere for the Olympics but it’s still an amazing view.
There were SO many people and this was around 8pm at night. The weather was perfect, the temperature was great, and just seeing everyone appreciating the view was lovely.
We had great ambitions of taking the metro home. We were ready! Except our phones were at 20% battery and figuring out what tickets to buy… Welllll we decided to Uber!
We made it home. Sunsets are at 10pm here and Jerra and Gregg wanted a birthday drink so I wandered out with them to, what would turn out to be, our favorite cafe, Le Royal. I saved two of the drink coasters as a souvenir from there. Their champagne was cold, the gelato yummy, and I had breakfast there one morning and that was great too! So was their dinner! We had a sweet waiter who was there several nights in a row that we enjoyed.
This picture is from Truck and actually on the OTHER side of the street. But it was of the sunset on that same night, I believe. I think they were walking around going to the store. We all wandered back and forth to that store all week long.
On to the next day!
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