Our Paris Silver Anniversary, Part III. This is the last part. You can visit the
Paris Travel page of my photography blog if you want to see all the pictures and read about all the details of every single part of our travels. :)
The last three days of our anniversary trip started with a walk to
la promenade Plantée, a raised walkway filled with trees and flowers. It used to be a railway way back when, and if you follow it all the way out of the city, you'll end up in
bois de Vincennes, a forest/park and walking area.
La promenade Plantée.
We walked for a little while on
la promenade, then exited down to street level to window shop all the way back up. Underneath and all along
la promenade are the shops of the viaducts.
Window of one of the shops under the viaducts of la promenade Plantée.
We then made our way to
Canal St. Martin to look at all the boats moored there, and to enjoy the gardens along the canal. Plus take some self-portraits!
Canal St. Martin.
Posing in le jardin d'Arsenal.
After lunch back at our
appartement, we took a boat tour on the Seine.
Fernando studies our map while we wait for our river tour. We rode on a boat from Vedettes du Pont Neuf.
Along the boat tour, I took some really neat pictures. :)
Then it was Friday--my birthday!! I had wanted to do a walk in
le Marais on Thursday, since there was an open-air market near our
appartement on Thursday mornings. But plans changed, so we did this walking tour on my birthday. I'm very happy we did! We found a little passageway,
pass Chantier, where local artisans make their own furniture. The cobblestone walkway and architecture were pretty neat, too!
Pass Chantier.
We rested for a bit in a little park in
square Trousseau, and did some more self-portraits. (Hey, this is my personal blog; you're going to see lots of pictures of my family and me here!)
We walked down
rue d'Aligre and the
marché (market) was still going on! Since we had just one day left, we didn't need to purchase any produce, so we wended our way through the market and ended up in the
place--where the flea market was happening. This made me happy! It was like a giant garage sale, with many different vendors selling lots of different things.
Another part of le Marché d'Aligre in the place (square)--a flea market!
We happened upon a man selling jewelry, and Fernando bought me this old silver bracelet--for our silver anniversary!
We were hungry by then. I had remembered reading about three different restaurants on one particular street just a few blocks from the
place, but the book I read it in was back at the
appartement. I couldn't remember the name of the road, or the restaurants, so we started walking. Then I remembered the street:
rue Paul-Bert. We found it on the map and headed in that direction. There were three restaurants on one little block! Two were super-busy, and one of those asked for reservations. So we backtracked across the street and went in to this little restaurant below.
Le Temps au Temps -- "The Season of Seasons" or "The Time of Times," depending on your translation.
The book I read said that they have consistently good food. When we walked in, the waiter greeted us in French. No English here! The menu was hand-written on a placard, which the waiter placed against the wall near us so we could read it. Unfortunately, my little pocket dictionary didn't contain the key words! The menu was all in French, and French dishes are so hard to translate. It was a
prix fixé menu, with two
entrées (appetizers), two
plats (main dishes), and two
desserts. You can read all the details at the end of
this post. Suffice it to say here that each dish was amazingly presented and delicious to savor. The waiter was so friendly and we were the only ones there--there was seating for only 22 people, so it was cozy and intimate, too.
For my birthday evening (and the last evening we could go out since we had to be in bed early Saturday night for our early morning flight Sunday), Fernando wanted to visit
l'Arc de Triomphe and see it lit up at night. So we did. It was a sweet and fun evening, with one brief rain shower and an amazing walk down
avenue Champs-Élysées.
L'Arc de Triomphe awaited us at the end of avenue Champs-Élysées.
We had bought two (very cheaply made) umbrellas for one very rainy day earlier in the week, and they both broke in interesting ways. When we went in to the Mercedes showroom to admire the cars, we spotted their version of an umbrella--not cheap. 60 euros = about 80 dollars. :)
I'm sure *this* umbrella, a Mercedes umbrella, at 60 euros, didn't have the launch feature that our cheap 7-euro umbrella did!
We went in to Ladurée's temporary shop (their store was closed for renovations), and bought a macaroon sample box. Mmmm.
Our last day gave us perfect weather--about 70 degrees and beautiful blue skies. We started out walking close to "home" and made our way to
place des Vosges, the first planned square in Paris. It was beautiful!
Victor Hugo's home was in the
place, so we toured that as well (it was free without the audio tour).
Victor Hugo's home in place des Vosges.
For our afternoon outing, Fernando called the shots and took us to
le Trocadéro, which houses several museums and sports a pond with fountains and a park area. It's across from the Eiffel Tower, and makes for some great photographs. (We took my tripod with us for the afternoon.)
The fountains in le jardin du Trocadéro.
Fernando and I in front of le jardin du Trocadéro.
After walking across to the Eiffel Tower and under it, and relaxing in the
parc du Champ de Mars, I took a picture of our shadows in the
parc. This was the last of our portrait shots, and a beautiful way to end this last post.
Back to life,
Christine
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