A lovely day in Paris! (Or, as R says, aren’t they all?)

Monday, December 21, 2015

Bonjour!

We did manage to get to sleep last night around midnight, and other than some tremendous leg cramping sometime during the night, all went well … and I didn’t wake up until almost 9 am!  So much for being at the Louvre when it opens…

We cleaned up and headed down to the basement breakfast room.   It’s lovely that our breakfast is included in the rate, so we don’t have to go out and find croissants, but there is a very nice bakery just down the street from our lovely hotel.  The standard “French” breakfast was croissant, pain au chocolat (pastry with chocolate in side) and baguette, served with both raspberry jam and peach comfiture.  We also had orange juice, small dishes of fresh fruit, and café for R and chocolat chaud for me.  Very filling … especially as it was so late in the morning!

Wonderful Cypress figure in silver

More from Cypress; note Egyptian influence

More Cypress carvings

I do love lions ... even from Cypress!

Then, we bundled ourselves up and headed down the hill to the 21/27 bus stop at Gay-Lussac.  A 27 came right away, and we were whisked down to the  center courtyard of the Louvre in just a few minutes.  The line was L-O-N-G!  We then thought the try the Carousel du Louvre, but that line was long to!  So finally, we decided to try the “special” entrance for members of Les Amis du Louvre (Friends of the Louvre Museum).  Our memberships had actually expired, but the cards worked well enough to get us ahead of the group tour line, and through security in seconds.  Very nice!   

We found the recently-relocated office of Les Amis, and renewed our memberships for another year … which also got us instantly updated cards.  R had talked as we were heading to the Louvre of seeing some new things, as well as old friends, and we actually happened on two entirely new areas! 

Louvre's Caryatid Room

The first was the Cypress ancient artifacts – which might put Cypress on my “to see” list at some future date, and the second was the wonderful Etruscan/Greek/Roman exhibit that we’d never visited before! 

Ran into Venus de Milo!

This particular section was a wonderful mélange of Anatolia – some beautiful pieces from Meander (which is close to Selcuk, Turkey, and we visited on our last Turkey trip) as well as pieces from Militos, and Didim.  There were also some wonderful Etruscan sarcophagi – very distinctive.  We are discussing a future “Etruscan Only” trip sometime in the future, and this gave me some very good places to start looking.  

By this time, we were about “museumed-out” but still had a bit of shopping to do. 

Etruscan Double Sarcophagus

Frieze fragments from Magnesia on Meander, Turkey

We caught the 27 bus from the Louvre courtyard and took it two stops up Opera to Pyramides and my favorite Monoprix.  Found what we needed, and then hopped on another 27 bus back up the hill to the Pantheon.  Hit the local Huit a Huit (8 to 8) market for some sparkling water, and then back to Hotel des Grands Hommes.

Our room hadn’t been made up yet (and it was almost 3:30 pm) but we called downstairs, and got service very quickly  We tactfully retired to the lobby to avail ourselves of our complimentary beverage – two glasses of white wine and some peanuts! And in no time at all, our room was finished.

Another Etruscan Sarcophagus

Loved the Etruscan horse head sculpture

(as well as an extra blanket, as R thinks they turn the heat off at night!)

Back upstairs for naps … but of course now I’m not tired.  So, while R sleeps away, I am up blogging.  I’m just hoping that getting a head-start on today’s blog will enable me to get to sleep sometime earlier than midnight tonight!  We have dinner reservations at Truffes Folies tonight, and I am VERY excited!  Do you know how much I LOVE truffles???

So, more later!

m

xxx

Bon soir! 

Inside of Truffes Folies

Me and champagne!

Just back from a truffle-packed dinner.  Oh my…I could smell the restaurant from down the street.  We walked down to Des Ecoles and caught the bus heading down the river.  We left in plenty of time, but it seemed to take forever getting past Les Invalides.  Fortunately, not too far to walk from the Seine to the restaurant – and we were (surprise!) the first people there!  Took a table by the door, which was nice albeit TINY.  (And here we are with coats, scarves, umbrellas, camera, map, etc.)  Very nice people running the place, although not a lot of English spoken, which was fine.

We started with glasses of wonderful champagne … no truffles, but they did bring French bread and there were bottles of white and black truffle oil on the table.  YUM!  They were also having a special menu of things that included the white truffles from Alba, Italy…so yes, we splurged!

I had the poached egg in cream for starters, and R had the tomato stuffed with goat cheese and truffles.  Honestly, R won, although mine was good too. 

R's chevre stuffed tomato with truffles

My poached egg with truffles

Then, for mains, R had the ravioli with white truffles, and I had the tagliatelle with white truffles, both in butter sauces…cleaned up every bite!  For dessert, R had a great bowl of fruit topped by basil sorbet, and I had the brioche with salted caramel and truffle ice cream on top.  Wow…all washed down by a bottle of house Saint Emilion. Actually waddled out, that’s for sure.  But we don’t often have the opportunity to get “real” truffle dishes…SO glad we reserved places!  

Then, back out into the cold and wind (very windy this afternoon!) and two buses back to the Pantheon.  Arrived about 10 p.m. and now I’m hoping to post this, with photos, and get to bed so that hopefully I don’t sleep too late tomorrow!  We’re meeting up with Tommy and Jay Stramat in the morning, and spending the day with them.  They’ve rented a flat on Ile Saint Louis for a month. 

My tagliatelle with white truffles

R's ravioli with white truffles

R's fruit salad with basil sorbet

My brioche with truffle ice cream and salted caramel sauce

It will be SO great to see them, as we didn’t have the chance to get together as usual, this Thanksgiving, as we had to go to California to look after Mom (at which we didn’t do a very good job, but that’s another story!)

So!  Posting now, and off to bed!  Lots and lots of love to all!

m

xxx