We spent our last night in Paris in a hotel: which wouldn’t have been necessary if I’d looked at our flight booking more carefully.  Normally our flights out of Paris have been at 11 or so at night and we’ve had to park our bags somewhere for the day and have somewhere to be picked up from) this time it was midday and our pickup in the city was 8:30an.  But anyway, we had a night at the Hotel du Petit Moulin, a 10 minute walk from the apartment.

The hotel’s point of difference, as well as a fantastic location, is the design: rooms by Versace.  This was our third stay, and another new room (see photo).  Wouldn’t want it at home but in a hotel it’s a bit of fun.  This time we made use of the honesty bar (very well provisioned), the Wifi (way better in the bar than the rooms😀), and helpful staff.

As well as our trip across the river to Jardin de Luxembourg, we tried very superior gyozas near the hotel for lunch, and Breton crepes and cider at another favourite place on Veille du Temple for dinner.  We then joined some bright young Italian fashion things using the Wifi back in the bar at the hotel.  We were only a little out of place!

More street art…   
The honesty bar included champagne!🎉    
    
 
Bye bye Paris✈️

    
   

Missed these: an amazing number of people just hanging out:

   
 

   
    
   
Unfortunately no pictures of the plant ‘nappers🌱

We had been intending to go to the new Fondation Louis Vuitton but after the Musee d’Orsay experience I went off the idea a bit.  But as it was a lovely bright sunny day on our last day so we went to the Jardin de Luxembourg instead.

The French senate is in a fancy building in one part of the gardens (complete with guards with very big guns) but the rest combines playgrounds, tennis courts, open park land and formal gardens.

We arrived to find a school sports day in progress, as well as random joggers, nannies with kiddies in the sandpit, people lapping up the sunshine, and even several people with newly uprooted plants – presumably with some sort of permission otherwise they were fairly brazen!

After a few grey days the sun and blue sky were welcome, as were the space and the people-watching opportunities👀

So the next post will be a few photos from our visit to the park.

One of our local cheese purchases: this one you heat up and drizzle over potatoes or melt over whatever pleases you…   
  Outside another favourite spot for lunch – fancy open sandwiches and a nice glass of wine!  

Seasonal fruit tarts at one of the patisseries on rue des Martyrs: we tried the fig and apple versions.

  
And yes, you can get chokos in Paris (John’s a choko champion!)

 

  

  
 

Heads above water now with the house so a couple more posts about Paris.

We mentioned in an earlier post we’d done a food walk with Ute.  We’ve done similar walks with her before, both to explore the area around our apartment and venture a bit further afield to markets, food providers and restaurants.  

As we were staying in the same apartment as last visit we had a reasonable idea about local restaurants etc from our last visit so our walk took us up to Montmatre to visit a couple of specialty bakers (artisan breads and Madeleine tea cakes – yes, it seems you can be that specialised!) and around some of the more picturesque small parks and streets away from Sacre Coeur and the tourist hordes).  

After a couple of purchases, we walked down to the foot of the hill, through Pigalle to the area around the Notre Dame de Lorette metro stop which is now up and coming in terms of food – and which is a bit less disreputable than when Caroline stayed there on our first trip to Paris in 1990!

On the rue des Martyrs we visited some more providers including a really good deli (fantastic ham and salads all made in-house), another bakery for patisserie this time, a preserves shop and a cheese shop.  And we poked our noses in various others.  

We carried on walking and finished up in the covered passages (we’d call them arcades) near the Bourse metro stop.  We meant to get back there are Ute pointed out some interesting places to eat, but as always, we had more ideas and suggestions from Ute than we had time.

We also had two restaurant bookings courtesy of Ute: Les Enfants Rouge and Porte 12 – both of which we thoroughly enjoyed. 

 Les Enfants Rouge was a short walk from the apartment and served classic French with a few Japanese touches – it was bustling, friendly and the food great even if some of the dishes had an element of surprise due to our limited French.  The Japanese staff did a great job with us in their third language!

Porte 12 was a bit on an adventure – about 30 minutes by two metro lines and then a walk down an unpromising side street.  The food was a more refined style – we had an amazing degustation menu with 7 small courses matched with wines.  Everything was very seasonal and beautifully presented.  Again, the service was fantastic and fortunately the waiter and sommelier both had good English and could explain the subtleties of the dishes and the wines.  

We also made it back to La Fontaine de Mars across the river, not far from the Eiffel Tower, to enjoy their very superior take on steak and pomme frites (John) and a beautiful roasted fish fillet special (Lynne).

Photos to come…

After two weeks of hard slog (and still some to go before the photos on Monday night) the sign went up this afternoon.

  

So I’ll probably do a couple more posts on Paris.  But we are back and the reality of getting the house ready for sale has really hit!

The agents were here Monday and now we are decluttering everywhere!  He’s John shredding up a storm😀

   
 

Meant to add these to the previous post!

   
    
 

Went out one night after dinner in the apartment to take some photos around the neighbourhood.  Here’s a few from around the Place des Voges, the view down to the church of St Paul near our metro stop and some street art.