Paris Day 2 - Sunday, May 6, 2007

We were so tired from so much traveling that we just slept in on this lazy Sunday. Theresa tried to get baked goodies but the two shops she tried first were both closed. She finally ended up with 2 pain chocolat, plus almond and apple pastries from Paul's on Champs Elysee (and really nice napkins). We ate the pastries and then headed out. We walked through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Louvre. Then we walked down to the Seine and along it until we reached the Isle de la Cite. Here we visited the Notre Dame. There was actually a Sunday service going on so we got to see the priest speaking and the choir singing.

After Notre Dame, we continued exploring and wound up on Isle St. Luis, where we found a cute street full of boulangeries, fromageries and Berthillon glace shops. We stopped by a few shops, getting ice cream, then a baguette with some ham, goat cheese, munster and a bottle of wine (Ray did all the ordering in French, including asking the shop-keeper to open the bottle!). We went down to the tip of the island to have a picnic lunch. Unfortunately, Theresa's favorite spot was already occupied by nude sun-bathers, but luckily there was a quiet, shaded bench a little further down the way.

We had a perfect picnic lunch, accompanied by many little duckies waddling by in the Seine, including babies and teenager ducks that just hung out on the island bank. We had much more food than we knew what to do with, and food coma struck almost immediately, so we walked along to a park and found a nice bench to rest on.

Afterwards we strolled through the Quartier Latin to see all the food shops, and ended up at a Brasserie to refresh ourselves with an afternoon tea and a limonade, accompanied by an assiettes des frites! Then we headed off to Rue Mouffetard to see some more food shops. We had a lovely stroll down the cobble-stoned street and saw lots of yummy creperies and other restaurants, including the adorably punny 'Mouffe Tarte' which an old French lady told us was not very good. We ended up at a fountain for a rest, then picked up some fruit and headed back to the hotel for some more rest.

After Ray had a nice nap, we headed out once more for the Quartier Latin, but were stopped from getting on the Metro by rows and rows of police cars. It turns out that we had come out just in time to witness the celebration of the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the new French president, and half the city was partying at the nearby Place de Concorde. We decided to skip out on the celebration and walked further down Rue Rivoli to the next Metro station.

The Quartier Latin was rather quiet for a Sunday night (we're told that many of the residents were disappointed with the election results) but we didn't let that stop us from eating. We started at the Maison de Gyro (which we later discovered was the name of almost every gyro joint) and had a delicious 'Extra Pita' platter, which was just a gyro with fries on top. Ray was impressed when the shop keeper spoke to him in French, English, Chinese and Korean, trying to guess which language Ray spoke. Then we switched over to sweets and had a crepe with nutella, bananas and coconut. We moved on to another gyro, which we ate under the lights of the Notre Dame. Then we headed back to the Quartier Latin to finish with some Haagen Daas ice cream. It was already midnight by this point, and with food coma setting in, we headed back to the hotel to pass out.