Still suffering from a dose of jet-lag, my true love was up at 4am (that damn singing) and myself, 7:30am. I wonder what she was doing for those 3 and a half hours. Probably counting the ways she loves me. Or maybe reading her Paris guide book. It was obvious today that she knows what's up here cause our adventure was epic! All we planned to do was check out historic Paris, but that didn't take as long as we thought (or Rick Steves audio guide was geared towards old people who walk at a snails pace. That said, it was still very good and enjoyable!) so we visited Centre Pompidou.
We left Royal Grande Bastille at around 8:00am. We walked past the Bastille Monument, stopped at a café, decided it was too expensive and dipped down a side street until we found a café more our price (really cheap). Le Rampart made us Café allongé, orange juice and croissant for €10, so our bellies were happy as we set off for Notre Dame.
One of the coolest things I learned at Notre Dame was that there is a bronze star on the ground that is the center of France (2300 years ago it was the center of Paris). How they figured that out without satellite imagery, I'll never know.
So we looked at Notre Dame and it's nice. The Deportation Memorial seemed sad. The bridge between them and île de la Cité was very cool. The bridge railing was covered in locks. Like a lock-pickers practice dream. Who started this trend, I do not know, but it was random and interesting.
Our historic walk took us to Shakespeare's Bookstore. This is where I saw a copy of Les Miserables. This is where I verified that Andrew Lloyd Webber did not write it (as I assumed yesterday and got laughed at), but rather Victor Hugo.
Victor also wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame. As I understand, because that place was made with big bricks carried and set in place by men, there were more than one hunchbacks at Notre Dame by the time it was finished.
Lunch on the cheap! Father and Son Pizza and Sandwiches hooked me up with a Rogio (hot dog on French steroids) and my true love with a Ham and Swiss Baguette. Throw in 2 Heinekens, a cookie and a chocolate tart for €15 and you, Monsieur, have a deal!
After lunch and completing the Historical Paris Walk, we decided to find something else to do to fill the hours between then and drinking wine and eating something with too much cheese. "The Centre Pompidou has far out modern art" says true love. "let's go!" say I.
I don't have enough time to write about our experience at the Centre Pompidou right now. I'll leave that for a day when we do nothing.
Making our way back to Hotel Royal Bastille, we stopped into a supermarchée to get some wine, crackers and salmon for snack. This is where I realized we got ripped right off last night at the Pizzaria for a bottle of red. It was only €4 at the supermarchée and that is dangerous!
There was a moment on our walk when we both agreed that this could be the best place on earth. I tried to say it in French and it came out something like ”I love you, grapefruit. Happy birthday please."
Thanks Travis. Sounds like a great day two!
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