We didn’t do much today so I wasn’t sure it counted as a full part! Still managed to take a bunch of photos, though.

I slept over 9 hours which is highly unusual for me. Since I often only sleep 4-5 hours a night I think that counts as catching up on what I missed on my travel day.

Ash and I took Paul out about 8:30am, starting of course with coffee and croissant around the corner at a place called Land & Monkeys.

We walked up the main drag by us, Boulevard Beaumarchais,which turns into Boulevard du Temple at some point. Either way it’s a wide street with lots of trees. I took a bunch of photos throughout the day trying to capture that classic Paris look. Will only include a couple or three otherwise this will get dull fast. Some of the atmosphere is hard to capture, and the above is one of those attempts.

We soon found ourselves back at Republique, sans the people.

That statue of Marianne, aka Goddess of Liberty, is quite impressive close up.

It is circled by sculptures depicting various revolutionary scenes.

Here’s another one of those attempts.

We were back to the apartment about 10am and lounged a bit. Somewhere in there I took a nap. We headed out again about 1pm with Jim for lunch.

Still in the Marais at this point, this is St. Paul – St. Louis, built 1627-1641.

It’s rare I find an old Catholic church I don’t think is beautiful.

Typical Paris: just the gardens at some random hotel we passed by.

The Seine.

Looking in the other direction, you can see all of the work being done on Notre Dame after the 2018 fire.

Clear on the other side of the Seine (Notre Dame is on an island in the middle of the river if you didn’t know that), Jim led us to a place him and Ellen had come when they were here on their honeymoon in 2017.

Very charming.

And a very helpful staff.

Jim came back for these, claiming they were some of the best French fried he’d ever had. He didn’t lie. We shared these as a starter and got 2 orders to go to have for dinner, too!

I got a chicken Caesar salad. That chicken was cut fresh off a roasted chicken with the skin still on it.

Ash and Jim both had the seabass in a bed of cooked fennel.

More pretty Seine heading back to the apartment. The weather was gorgeous again, high about 85.

We had passed this gelato place yesterday and the line was down the block. We stopped today primarily because there wasn’t one really.

I usually get mine in a cup but Ash wanted me to get a cone because they pile it on in the shape of a flower. Isn’t it pretty? From outside in: lime and basil, caramel salted butter, stracciatella.

We did some shopping on the way back, too, I no longer recall if it was before or after the ice cream! At any rate, we were back around 5pm and I quickly took another nap, probably 30 or more minutes. Two naps in one day after 9 hours of sleep? Must’ve really needed it.

Shirley had one order of the fries for herself, and we shared the second one. We tried out 3 different mustards Ash picked up in Dijon when him and Jim were there last week. The middle one was classic, the one on the right was my favorite as it had a pretty strong kick to it. The one on the left had a basil flavor included and Ash really liked that one.

Dinner was from the farmer’s market yesterday: roasted chicken, green and white asparagus, tomato, mushroom and olive salad.

We decided to go find something for dessert and went for a walk. I found a place on Yelp I wanted to try which was over the The Bastille. This is where the prison stood before it was stormed during the Revolution in July 1789.

The place I wanted to try turned out to be closed (the “open now” filter failed me!) but there was an open place across the street. Because we’re in Paris, that’s a pretty safe bet.

The stuff here is just so beautiful.

The requisite daily selfie on the way back.

Here was our take which we all shared: a chocolate éclair, strawberry macaroon, Florentine, and the biggest palmier I’ve ever seen. (We only ate half that! The rest for breakfast…)

And that, my friends, was the day. Tomorrow we will do Versailles, and that will officially count as Part 2. Hope to see you then!