Our last day in Paris was tinged with irony: On a day that saw temperatures range from the high 50s to the mid-70s, about 20 degrees cooler than earlier in the week, we shipped our cool-weather clothes back to Hawaii. Whatever we were thinking, it wasn’t all that “clear,” but this is turning out to be the norm on this journey, which so far has seen the French Laundry and Stolen Camera capers. It will serve us right if we freeze our okoles in Germany – but Lennie says we shed about 50 pounds in the process of lightening our clothes load.
After mailing the boxes, we metro’d our way to the Invalides near the Seine, only to be greeted with sprinkles when we emerged from underground. Sightseeing gave way to lunching, which we did at Brasserie Le Bourbon, which was founded in 1854 and sits across the street from the National Assembly. In addition to hosting many dignified-looking parliamentary types, the brasserie serves the very best crème brule in Lennie’s experience, as an accompanying photo suggests. After that fairly rich lunch, we headed down Boulevard St. Germain to walk off the calories, passing by Les Deux Magots yet again, but not stopping this time.
Our final activity of the day before cleaning the apartment was meeting up with Barbara and Tom Cooley at a brasserie on Rue de Commerce not far from our apartment. Barbara writes the “Paris Journal” we stumbled across in our pre-travel web surfing that has been such a valuable source of local knowledge. They’ve been coming to Paris to spend summers since 1998 and definitely know their way around town. We had an enjoyable hour and will look forward to seeing them again during some future summer.
Did we see everything we wanted to on this first visit to Paris? No. Did we spend time visiting places we really weren’t interested in visiting, just because “it’s a must” (think Musée d’Orsay)? No again. We walked a lot of streets – miles every day – and drank quite a few glasses of wine and cups of coffee in little cafes along those streets. We looked at a lot of architecture, strolled slowly through many marketplaces and were blown away by the Eiffel Tower each time we drew near. We met some new friends, thanks especially to Ric Erickson of the Cafe Metropole Club. For some off-beat insights into life in Paris, as well as some good writing, Google him and his virtual club.
It’s how we wanted to experience Paris this time. We'll have to wait for the next time to scope out where the murder went down in The Da Vinci Code.
Tomorrow, Germany.
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