Nous Sommes Arrive!

Let the eating begin! 

After landing on the tarmac - first time for that in years - we made our way from the airport to our hotel on the train. We had only slight confusion on Blvd de Montparnasse vs Rue de Montparnasse; fortunately, the hotel had a big sign out front that could not be missed if one happened to glance that way.


Our first meal here was classic French - crepes! Yummy! We had a main course crepe, which is a galette when a main course, then we split a dessert crepe, which is then a crepe. A gooey, warm Nutella crepe!


We got checked into the Hotel Renoir, which is in an old building and has the classic spiral staircase. Boy will that put the burn on your legs, not to mention make you dizzy!


We decided to just wander yesterday afternoon and go wherever our whims directed. We were much too jetlagged to make any real decisions. So we walked around le Jardin du Luxembourg before making our way over to Notre Dame.

All the chestnut trees in the Luxembourg Gardens are blooming and they are beautiful! It is hard to describe how many there are and how huge some of them are. There are rows and rows of them cut into hedges that form an allee that goes from the old Palais du Luxembourg out to the edge of the Gardens and continues on down the boulevard.

There were lots of people in the Gardens sitting in the fresh air and sunshine, playing chess, tennis and boule, taking pictures, admiring the flowers. We were definitely not the only gawking tourists there!


We wandered down to a book store that Rob remembered to buy a book of maps of Paris after leaving the Jardin du Luxembourg. It was a great book store, but we did not linger because I was feeling an almost irresistable desire to crawl under a display and go to sleep. I think that is frowned upon here.

Notre Dame de Paris looked sparkling clean and bright in the sunlight. We both think it has had a bath since either of us was here 20 years ago. We continued to wander and took pictures and people watched.

We seem to be on a crusade to remark upon on the old models of cars that are still running around. We will have a complete album of original Minis, old Fiats, Citreons, and the like very soon!


Dinner was mussels that came with a side of frites (that is french fries, which aren't really French at all, I don't believe), beer and wine in a Belgium styled brasserie. Cheese plate for dessert.


I tried to write the blog last night, but was wise enough not to post what had been written since I was cross eyed with sleepiness. Needless to say, I just started over this morning - wouldn't you like to know what I wrote to start with?! 

We were convinced we would be up at 5am or some other ridiculous hour this morning since our bodies are still on Utah time and we went to bed at about 8:30pm last night. Ha! I slept until 7:15am until some little internet browsing mouse woke me up. No cats head butting me or biting my chin or stepping on my hair or lying across my chest or standing on me or... oh sorry, got a little carried away with how bad that cat is. Anyway, no dogs or cats demanding I get up and feed them or let them out and just pay attention to them in general. It was lovely. Now if could just do something about that mouse....


We are headed to breakfast soon and then on to Chartres for this evening.