Je regrette, Je ne parle pas Francais!

Day two in Paris – Monday. The difference is phenomenal, yesterday the streets were empty and everything closed (except for the park where we found the residents of half of the city!) and today the place has been buzzing. Our morning started with a wonderful pain-au-chocolat and a walk to Villiers metro. We headed to Pigalle, a more rough and ready area of the city with lots of red light locales and cinemas, to walk to Montmartre. Montmartre has two sides to it – one more Pigalle-like and gritty, (in fact some hotels advertise themselves as being in Montmartre when they are actually in the more shady area of Pigalle) and the other area being more upmarket and expensive but particularly beautiful. Once again we used an Eyewitness Travel guide to do a planned walk with notes on historically and architecturally interesting features. David’s grandfather lent it to us and it has been invaluable – it has maps, interesting features, restaurant reviews, language, and a display of all the metro lines. Amongst other sights we saw Sacre Couer


The houses of Van Gogh and Picasso (amongst several other artists, musicians and eccentrics),



The local cabaret in Lapin


and incredible views.

The walk took us right down to the Moulin Rouge.


At this stage we were starving so we found ourselves a nice café and bought lunch. We shared veal escalopes with mushrooms and a salad with slices of smoked duck breast and fois gras.


Back on the metro and we hopped off at ‘Invalides’, where the military museum stands on the other side of the River Seine. Here I am in front of the dome – Napoleon’s tomb.

We then walked to the Eiffel Tower. This is my favourite photo!


That evening we went for a really special dinner in the Latin Quarter. First we stopped off to see Notre Dame.


Then we found a little restaurant in the lanes of the St Michel area. We were very adventurous! The snails were delicious, the mussels gorgeous, the fondue wonderful. I thought the frogs legs tasted like slightly stringier chicken and were too much effort to fiddle with for such a tiny amount of meat!

It was such a romantic night – we went down and listened to musicians playing by the River Seine and drank wine.