Darcy's Paris Blog

Day in the neighborhood, the Left Bank, and the Marais

On Saturday Mike and I slept in again. He was tired from his week in Stockholm, and frankly I’d had enough touring to not be too worried about it. We got a late breakfast from the bakery downstairs and walked up to the Place du Tertre, the square famous for all the street artists, at the top of Montmartre near the Sacre Couer. I told Mike it was worth the walk, especially since it’s right in the neighborhood. He ended up buying a small painting for his mom and another one for his brother, and I discovered that there actually are some decent artists up there if you can stand the people long enough to look. We walked over to the church, where Mike bought a few more things for family and I bought a few candleholders for myself, and we walked back to the apartment just to drop off the stuff. We thought we might head into the city to see Notre Dame and walk around a little, but we ended up going to do one of my errands first. I really wanted to go to the olive oil store so I could have something to go with all these baguettes. After that we ended up café- and bar-hopping around the left bank; at the café we had one of the happiest and most chipper waiters I think I’ve ever seen. (He figured out Mike spoke Spanish, too, and said “hola” as he remembered us when we walked by later.) We decided we’d leave Notre Dame for tomorrow, and we hit the Moose for another round, since we wanted more of those spicy chicken wings. We walked down this one street in the Latin Quarter that’s lined with Greek restaurants – it’s so full of energy, it’s something to see – and later in the evening went to a few bars in the Marais. First we went to a café in a pretty tree-filled square, where Mike noticed that everyone, including the waitress who didn’t speak too much English, was very friendly and willing to try any English they had. Afterwards we went by Chez Richard, where Jimi had taken me a few weeks before, but when we saw that it was pretty dead, we went to another bar nearby. We treated ourselves to a cab home, and the cabbie took the longest route possible, I think. Naturally I fell asleep in the car.

posted by Darcy @ 10:56 PM