Honeymoon: Day 2

We woke early on Monday, November 20.  After a quick breakfast of freshly baked croissants, yogurt, cheeses, juice and coffee, we headed out to see the Louvre.

Not sure why this guy is hanging out of the window at the Louvre

I knew that the museum would be big, but I have to say that I was still surprised by the size when we got there.  There are three wings to choose from.  We chose to start with the Denon wing because that is where you will find the Mona Lisa, and you don't go to the Louvre without seeing the Mona Lisa.  Right?  It took a couple hours to wander through the crowds and see most of the art.  The first floor we came to was full of sculptures.  Next we found rooms full of Egyptian art before finally getting to the halls filled with paintings.  The main stairs led you to the Winged Victory of Samothrace.  The museum was packed.  You couldn't turn around without bumping into someone.  Frustrated by this, we decided to break for lunch downstairs.

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Ceiling in one of the rooms at the Louvre

Madonna & Child pic for my mom

The ham and Swiss sandwiches were amazing.  I wish I could describe how wonderful they were.  It was probably the best ham and cheese sandwich I've ever had......perhaps we were just really hungry?  For dessert, we split a flourless chocolate torte.  Yum!

After lunch, we decided to head out and wander about a bit.  We knew Notre Dame wasn't too far away, so we headed that way.  As we walked along the river, this man walking towards us finds a gold ring on the ground.  He came over to show it to us.  Jtl told him it was a good find, and we headed on our way.  Then the guy calls out to us and rushes to where we are.  He tells Jtl that the ring is too small for him, and he would like for us to have it.  In return, he would like 2 Euros for coffee.  We told him that we couldn't possibly take it from him and had no use for it.  He pushed a bit, but ended up keeping it.  As we walked away, we talked about the entire chain of events.  Did we actually see the ring on the ground?  Or had he had it all along?  Why would he want to give us this gold ring for 2 Euros?  It was all very bizarre.

Not much further down the road, we were approached by some teenagers.  They wanted our address and some other information.  I told them that I was not interested, but Jtl was nicer and began filling in some random information.  Moments later a French woman starts yelling at the teenagers to leave us alone.  She tells us not to share any information with these kids.  She tells us that they're everywhere collecting information for the hotels.  This part is true.  We saw the kids with clipboards everywhere.

Notre Dame is beautiful.  They were working on putting the Christmas tree up in front of the church when we arrived.  I wish that we could have seen the finished result.  The tree was huge, but didn't seem so big next to the front doors of the church.  The details inside and out are amazing.  The stained glass, the art and the gargoyles.  Since this was one of the first churches that we visited on this trip, I did not take as many pictures as I wish I had.

After we left Notre Dame, we kind of just started wandering in the general direction of the hotel.  We found a little narrow street full of Greek restaurants.  I really enjoyed walking through the side streets where we saw these little restaurants and felt so far away from the main areas with the wide streets and so much traffic.  Not far from this little Greek area, we found Shakespeare & Company.  Jtl was thrilled with this find...... I had no idea we were even looking for it.

We walked for about an hour before deciding to stop at Relais Odeon Brasserie.  The sign said that it was established in 1900.  It was on another little cobblestone road that we wandered down.  (We wandered a LOT in France!)  On the corner of the street was a restaurant named Tennessee and across the street was an olive oil store.  I regret that I did not purchase anything from this shop.  It had the most amazing selection of fresh olive oils.  From our table across the street, you could see the bottles in the window waiting to be filled.  They had so many wonderful specialty oils and gift baskets.  While we were sitting at the bistro, two teenage girls walked down the street and began singing Christmas songs in the area between the shop and Tennessee. A British man joined them in singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and then gave the girls a couple of Euros.  It was definitely an enjoyable break.

Olive Oil Shop

We decided to head in the general direction of the Pantheon as it is marked on our map as one of the tourist attractions in the area we were in.  We walked and walked before we ended up on the street that runs into our hotel.  Oops!  For the record, we did not visit the Pantheon in Rome either.

That night we dined at Les Artisans.  It was probably the best meal that we had in Paris.  I had Bavette d'aloyau and Jtl had Emince de volaille.  These were chicken and steak dishes served with the best mashed potatoes.  Yum!