Our favorite museum & the oldest restaurant in Paris

Favorite museum in Paris? Granted, we haven't scratched the surface; but if you asked us based on this trip, hands down it is the Orsay Museum, or Musee d'Orsay. In an earlier post we mentioned that there are certain days where museum visits are FREE. We tried to go here on one of those days but were not prepared for the crowds. We elected to come back another day. And today was that day! 

The first thing we loved is that it's housed in a former rail/train station. It was such a neat layout. Lots of natural light. One thing it is well known for are the massive clocks. You've probably seen them in a movie or picture before!

It primarily holds impressionist and post-impressionist pieces by well known artist: Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, etc... 

Time for a shout-out to Rick Steves' travel book. We've bought one of these on each of our international trips. It's perfect for tips and tricks, and he has many recommended "on-your-own" tours. One being, the Musee d'Orsay. This helped us know how and where to navigate, and gave us a little more insight on certain pieces. Here's tour guide @mkmaddox leading us on our journey! And @aushellbell is ready to GO!

A picture says a thousand words, so we just picked a few to share here.  Enjoy! 

  

 

We could've spent hours in the various galleries. With our tour book we really were able to hit most of the highlights. It's a little more intimate and comfortable than some of the larger museums. If you are trying to decide between museums, I don't think you can go wrong with a visit here!

We went back to our room to rest for a bit, then (by recommendation from our hotel) we went to dinner at the CUTEST little French restaurant, a la Petite Chaise. It was opened in 1680. Yes, that's not a typo - YEAR SIXTEEN HUNDRED EIGHTY. It claims to be the oldest restaurant in Paris. 

It was a TINY little thing. On the ground floor there was a small bar, then a small room for dining. I believe there was a room upstairs, but we never ventured up that way. Their menu provided a special which included an appetizer, main dish, and dessert. Economically speaking, it was the way to go. We are sitting in the corner, so you can tell from the pictures how small it is!

 

One dish we knew we wanted to try on our trip to Paris was French Onion soup. We were there in the Fall, and it was perfect weather for a bowl of comforting soup.  It's hard to get an idea of the amount of melted wonderful cheese on top. It was classically done and classically delicious. (Oh yeah, we also got a salad there in the background too ;-), haha!)

For our main courses we chose dishes from the land and sea. Melt in your mouth fish and hearty and comforting beef Bordelaise. Both were perfectly prepared. We typically share our dishes so we get to try a little bit of this and that. Doesn't that fish look it is going to flake right off the screen!?

To end this lovely dinner we chose an "iced nougat" with hazelnuts & berry sauce and a plum tart. Both were AMAZING. The nougat was so refreshing and the tart had the most perfect and flaky pastry. And there was ice cream on top of it! Win WIN!

Overall a very lovely meal. And for that matter, an absolutely lovely evening from start to finish. A stroll through a museum and a scrumptious French dinner is the way to go!

Next post we're headed to Notre Dame and the Opera. The Opera was one of our FAVORITE visits of the trip. You may even get a glimpse of the Phantom! 

XO,

Food Tour of Paris

Once we pick a destination, a HUGE part of our trip planning is around food. Whether it's restaurants, markets, cafes, food festivals, etc...we love to plan around the tastes & foods of the areas we visit. Paris was no exception. We thought there was no better way to have a taste of the best flavors than to go on a food tour. We researched a few different options, and selected Paris by Mouth. SIGN US UP! Their tours sell out quickly, so you need to plan this in advance. They have small tours (8 people max) so you really get an intimate experience. There are several tours you can choose from, and we decided to select the "Taste of Saint-Germain" since that was our base camp for the week.

Let's do this!! The way this tour worked is that we would visit a few restaurants/shops along the way and have a little taste, while our tour guide was buying additional things for us to later sit down and feast on! YUM. Our tour guide was an absolute delight! She is from the States but has been in France for some time. She told us she is working on a project to taste every French cheese available in France. Check out her blog here: https://chezlouloufrance.blogspot.com/!

First stop (and where we met our guide & tour friends) was at the Poilane bakery This is a third-generation owned bakery, and some claim "the most famous bread in the world". Since we've been, it's amazing how many time I've seen it referenced and just never knew what it was. It was a small shop but a constant hustle and bustle. You could tell most people coming and going were locals, which says a lot. The smells were crazy good. We got some of the apple tartlettes which we ate immediately (this is going to be a good day!), and our guide got some sourdough loaves for us to enjoy later.

 

Our next stop was to the famous chocolatier Patrick Roger's shop. It was like a museum of art. Chocolate art. We were offered samples of milk chocolate rochers (MELT IN YOUR MOUTH), then they gave us a dark chocolate but wouldn't tell us what the flavors were. You could taste hints of this, and hints of that, and it turned out to be a lemon/basil chocolate. Such an interesting flavor and combo!

He is famous for his works of art in chocolate, especially the giant sculptures. LOOK at this monkey head. @mkmaddox is right behind it to give you an idea of how big it is! So cool.  

From the chocolate store, we headed to the Saint Germain covered food market: Le Marché Couvert Saint-Germain. I wish I lived around the corner. We were going primarily for meats and cheese, but they had all types of little shops: Greek/Italian/fruits/vegetables/fish/pastries. 

We went to the charcuterie and met, Serge, an 85 year old neighborhood butcher who was a magnificent flirt. (ooh la la!). He let us try a few nibbles, and then we bought some rosette de Lyon (cured French pork sausage), ham and parsley in gelatin, and goose rillettes (similar to pate) to eat later. Isn't Serge the cutest!?!

The other must-have-buy at the market was CHEESE. Glorious CHEESE. That's one thing we especially loved about this tour. They selected things that were fresh and in-season for us to try. They didn't follow a certain menu. If there was a new cheese that had just gotten in stock, we were luck enough to be the ones to try it.  

As we left, we went through the flower shop also located on site. They had the most beautiful flowers and arrangements. How fun would it be to come to the market and buy your dinner and fresh flowers. So Parisian indeed!

Armed with loads of food from our various visits, we headed to our next stop to sit and feast on all of our goodies. What better placed to stop for a bit than a wine shop! We graciously were invited into La Derniere Goutte. They had a private room in the back ready for us.

Our guide really spent time talking about the cheese and wines as we were tasting them. She had a map that showed what region everything came from. It was so helpful and made each bite even that more interesting. 

It was SUCH a delightful experience. We stayed there close to an hour just enjoying the smells and tastes and each other's company. Even though we all were full, we still had one more place to visit. 

We walked to the Rue de Seine, and it was filled with the cutest shops and restaurants. We went to a little patisserie called Popelini. They make these little cream puffs that are known as "luxury in one bite". Everyone got to pick whichever flavor that wanted. We chose pistachio and hazelnut. SO so good! A perfect little bit to end the day.

We can't recommend this food tour enough. It allowed us to learn a lot about the area we were staying in and helped us find little restaurants and shops we wanted to visit during our time there. It's the perfect way to get acclimated, and you have some of the best food in Paris along the way! We can't wait to go back and try another tour. Until next time....

Profitez et heureux de manger

(Enjoy and happy eating!)

XO,

Ooh La La Louvre

To kick-off our week in Paris, we started our first full day with a city tour. We lucked out on this tour and the guide picked us up at our hotel. It was a very intimate group. There were only six of us, so we were able to really get a in depth tour of the city! It just so happened to be fashion week in Paris also while we were there. Ooh la la! There were extra exhibits and events (and people and traffic) for the week. No pressure to look nice, or anything.  ;-)

We left early so the sun was just starting to peak through the clouds.  LOOK at this view over the Seine. Ah, lovely. 

On our drive we went right by the Arc de Triomphe. I'll go ahead and make this statement that Paris natives are crazy drivers!! There is no lane, no direction; you just make your own path and go where you see room. We happened to be in the front seat with our driver and all we could do was give our Southern wave and smile as we cut people off. As you can see, below, a motorcyclist is heading straight for us. We cut off the whole circle of cars to get to the inside "lane". Beep Beep. Wave. We also learned that the cars entering the circle have the right away. Isn't that crazy?!

We were making our way over to the Eiffel Tower. We had seen glimpses of it at the very top from the distance but were not prepared for the grandeur and beauty. I think the time of day also gave it a magical glow.  (We go back in the week for a much closer look inside so stay tuned for that.)

We got back in our race car and drove all the way across the city to Montmartre. The definition from dictionary.com: "a hilly section in the N part of Paris, France: noted for the artists who have frequented and lived in the area." Spot on! From here, you can see the whole city. We drove up to the top and had time to walk around the little streets. The streets are filled with art galleries and restaurants. The main point of interest here is the church, the Basilique Du Sacre Coeur. 

And from these step, when you turn around, this is your view:

It was an overcast day but you could see the whole city. And vice versa. It seemed like everywhere we were, we could look up and see the hill of Montmartre. 

 

From there, we went back into the heart of the city to grab some lunch then go to the Louvre. On the way back, we went through the tunnel where Princess Diana lost her life. The gold flame at the top is a memorial to her. 

We grabbed a bite to eat and waited for our guided tour of the Louvre to begin. We HIGHLY recommend taking a guided tour if you are short on time or just want to get the bang for your buck. It's the biggest museum in the WORLD, and I read that if you looked at every exhibit it would take you something like 100 days. We took way too many pictures, but here were some of our favorite highlights:

The pièce de ré·sis·tance of the Louvre is of course, the Mona Lisa. She almost has a room all to herself.  She's special. We both thought they could have a better system to view. It's a free-for-all. So people are literally pushing and fighting their way to get the best picture. You can see @aushellbell below on one end of the room, and Mona Lisa at the very back wall. 

Because we were there -- we did fight to try to get an unobstructed view, then we left that room immediately. Here she is in all her glory.

We still had a few other highlights to see to wrap up our time at the museum. After the guided tour, we were able to spend as much time as we wanted. It's such an amazing gallery. Just know, there's no way to see it all, so best advice is to have a plan.

We left the Louvre and decided to be tres Parisian and stop at a cafe for an afternoon coffee. Talk about the perfect place to people watch. Parisians eat dinner very late at night, so in the afternoons it's all about the coffee break. Sometimes it can even be hard to find a seat outside. We were lucky and found the perfect stop for our afternoon break. We opted to get some cheese and bread as well. YUM.

We came back to the hotel and rested for a while before going out to dinner. Our hotel friends had recommended this little cafe - Cafe Varenne. This was another top dinner of our trip. We weren't too hungry, so we split an entree. It was a fish dinner over a bed of a warm lentil salad. Again - classic French on a plate. We loved it, and I highly recommend adding this restaurant to your list. You won't regret it. The staff was very friendly and helped us with translation of the menu items.

We did have a "lost in translation" moment. We asked the waiter which of these two desserts he recommended. He must have misunderstood because he brought them both to the table. HA. C'est la vie. We couldn't be disrespectful, so had to enjoy both of them.

Such a great ending to our first full day in Paris. Our next post will talk about our food tour of Paris. Probably our FAVORITE day of the entire two weeks. Until then....

Bisous,