Paris- Day 3

Sunday was cold and misty out. We were pretty bundled up and I rarely took my camera out because I didn't want to deal with the rain issue. We were also exhausted from an extremely long (but awesome!) day before :)

We set out to find an outdoor market. Following the advice from the man at the front desk of our hotel, we set out towards the Opera and there is a wonderful market over there. Here we bought a kilo of huge, juicy strawberries and munched on them for breakfast. We also bought some baguette's and I had an eclair at a local bakery for like .50 euro. That is the way to do breakfast, super cheap.

The markets in France (and in Germany, if you remember from my summer trip) are so much cleaner, wider/less crowded, and organized than they are in Sicily. The fruit is beautifully arranged, so neat and clean. People wait and take turns and the isles were much wider so it wasn't like walking through a mosh pit!

We didn't do too much souvenir shopping on this trip. We bought the girls each a beret at the market and I bought a coffee cup at the Louvre. We had planned to go back up to the shopping district later to grab a few things but decided to relax instead.

We walked awhile through the markets and stopped at a little bar/restaurant that we obviously had to try ;) A few friends actually recommended it to us, and we came upon it by accident! It's across from the Bastille/next to the Opera House.

Bastille:

I ate a bacon cheeseburger, which wasn't extremely good.. the cheese was like a cup of melted nacho cheese and it was a MESS!! lol. It was ironic, I had just been saying how I really just needed something American and there it was! I realize to some, it's ridiculous to eat American food while in Europe but you have to remember that we've been living in Europe for almost 3 years. In Sicily you can go out for Sicilian food, or Sicilian food. There is a chinese place in Catania, but it's not something we frequent. Anyway, so when we travel, we like to try lots of different things!

From here, we took the metro back over near the Louvre and walked to the Orsay museum. Here, you can see much more modern art from the Louvre, including the Impressionists and so forth. We loved the giant old clocks on the sides of what used to be an old train station, now converted to the museum. It is beautiful at night.

Inside, we started at the top floor where the Impressionists were and found ourselves practically falling asleep on a bench. We so *wanted* to spend the afternoon there but just could not stay awake. We lasted about an hour and decided we'd come back another time, got a Starbucks and rode the train back to the hotel. I took a 4 hour nap before we went out for a late dinner at a little French Cafe near our hotel. It was so-so. There aren't a lot of options at 9pm on a Sunday night.. but it would do. The next morning we were at the train station by 8am and it was smooth coming back, minus our luggage being lost for a week in Milan. It was a wonderful weekend and we will definitely go back some day. We did not have time to visit the Notre Dame up close, the Montemartre area/Cathedral up there, Versailles, the Luxomberg Gardens, Normandy, or Disneyland Paris! :) It is amazing how much there is to do there.

I highly recommend it, with or without kids. It would be much easier if you go when your kids are out of the stroller age though, as I cannot imagine going up and down the thousands of subway stairs carrying a stroller. We did that in Barcelona and Rome,etc.. and it certainly was a hurdle!