Usually it’s the 2nd night of the trip when I don’t sleep well at all, but this time it was the 3rd. I went to bed around 11pm, had trouble both getting and staying asleep. Woke up pretty solid around 4:20am and by 5am it was clear I wasn’t going back to sleep so I got up and made some coffee.

Here’s a photo from the day before that I forgot to include:

This car got towed just outside the Thai restaurant we were at. I didn’t get up in time to catch this but that crane on the back had swung over so the guy could put the cables on the wheels, the lifted the whole thing up and over. I caught it just as it was placing down on the truck. Pretty wild.

Anyway, Ash and I took Paul out this morning for his walk, went down some new streets I hadn’t been on before, learning more about the neighborhood. We went back to the apartment to drop him off then went out for a longer walk around 9:30am.

This is Lenotre, the patisserie we went to Monday evening but it was closed.

Really beautiful stuff. Desserts on this side….

…breakfast pastries over here.

Who doesn’t need a macaroon tree?

We both got cafe au laits and I got a croissant, my first proper one of the trip.

We went back to the Bastille to walk along the canal to the Seine.

Lots of houseboats along the canal.

Very cool houseboat with lots of greenery on it.

We turned right at the river and headed towards the Louvre. It’s hard to walk by Notre Dame, even in the distance, without snapping a photo.

I’ve been in the Louvre on each of my 3 prior trips, and still have a lot to see. But I decided early on that for this trip I didn’t need to be “in” it, I just wanted to go “to” it, because I so love this atmosphere. This is truly one of my favorite spots on the planet (so far).

Ash continuing his “touch the top of it” selfie series…

I mean, just look at it? If you don’t know the story, this was the royal palace before Versailles. So the building is a beautiful as art in its own right even if Egyptian antiquities are not your thing! Still lots to see. But today I just wanted to be out in it. It’s a miracle I managed to capture that shot without a single vehicle in the road.

I took this photo standing on a concrete block, then turned around to take the one below.

A Brandenburg Gate sort of replica, but the point of this photo is really way in the distance. If you look far through the arch you see the obelisk at Place de la Concorde, the Arc de Triomphe behind that, with the Champs Elysees in between. That’s 3.5 kilometers or a little over 2 miles of a beautiful straight line. Ok, I’m a geek.

A minute’s rest before we moved on. It was coming up on 11am about this point so we started making our way back since we had a lunch date at 12:15pm.

This is St. Eustache, built between 1532-1632.

Some of the big masses typically held at Notre Dame, like for Easter, have been held here since the fire.

Beautiful windows. And chairs again instead of pews.

And a massive organ.

This is where we had lunch reservations: Qui Plume La Lune, a Michelin-starred restaurant just a few feet past the Thai place we were at the night before.

We were the first ones here around 12:20 but it was pretty full by the time we left.

Meet our lunch dates. I met Stephanie at Disability Rights California in 2015. She’s the payroll manager there and has been there 20 years or so. We had a great working relationship and have become friends since I left. She’s with her son, Jordan. They just came in from a few days in London yesterday, are here for a few days and then off to Rome. We’d had her over for brunch about 6 weeks ago and figured out then that we would all be here about the same time so made plans to meet up. I love it when that happens.

This was part of a first course, one for each of us: a soft boiled egg with soft mozzarella and herbs. You scooped it all out with a teeny spoon. It was still warm and had a lovely rich texture and flavor.

These also came with the first course. I couldn’t begin to describe what’s on the left. Pretty though, huh? And very surprising flavor. Actually, that became a theme of this meal: huge bursts of flavor when you weren’t expecting it. The round balls were said to be brioche but had a pretzel sort of flavor and texture, especially with the salt on the outside. But they were great with the herbed butter.

White asparagus, cooked perfectly, and I don’t remember what else was on here except for the green strawberry which was wonderfully tart.

Fresh peas, baby asparagus and a white fish called John Dory (or Jaune Dore, in French, or Poisson St. Pierre in French – St. Peter’s Fish). It was a lovely mild fish and the whole dish worked great together.

I’m generally not a fan of foie gras but this was amazing. The top crispy part gave a bacon-like experience while the soft part still made you feel like your arteries were hardening as you were eating it. Not entirely a bad thing. That butter and au jus reduction made that much better. And that red thing was a sort of tart macaroon that just exploded in your mouth as soon as you closed down on it.

There was a delicious veal course after this that I’d neglected to take a photo of. When the waiter first greeted us, he asked us if there was anything we couldn’t eat. Jordan is allergic to shellfish, and Ash said no beef. So we were a bit surprised when he sat the veal down in front of Ash. Ash says “oh, I’m sorry, remember I said no beef?” The waiter says “it’s not beef, it’s veal.” I said “it’s still cow.” Maybe it was a language barrier but it took longer than it should have for him to get it, although he seemed quite embarrassed when he finally did. In his mind it was red meat vs. white meat. But it’s still all cow. At any rate, he brought Ash two lovely pieces of seared tuna that were very tasty so all worked out in the end.

Lots of cheeses and a great jelly to be eaten with the bread in the background….

…along with a simple salad served as the palate cleansers.

Essentially 3 desserts. The one on the left was my favorite, maybe everyone’s: a mix of vanilla and chocolate mousses with some crumbles and a wafer. On the right more vanilla on top of a pea emulsion – for figure for dessert – but it worked well.

Three final bites, each as different as the next: lichee, chocolate, and a passion fruit cream puff.

What an amazing lunch. We all went back to our apartment and loaded Stephanie and Jordan up with some cheeses that we were never going to finish since they’ve got a few more days here in an Airbnb. They left around 3:15pm and Ash and I left soon after to walk off lunch.

Ash took us into this art gallery that our Airbnb host had recommended, close to where she lives, still in the Marais. As we walked into this, the main gallery, I whispered loudly to Ash “this is the kind of art we make fun of” and he loudly whispers back “I know.”

Although this piece and several others like it were detailed enough to be considered art in this critic’s opinion.

A lovely random park just out walking around.

We got back about 5:30pm. Ash played a game of online bridge. I played some of my games while working on the blog – the photos here are taking awhile to load so I have to do it in stages. I had it done up to this point by 8pm when we went out again for dinner.

It’s coming up on 10:30pm and we’re back!

We ended up at Eataly in the Marias, a good walk from our apartment but definitely doable. Ash had eaten at one in NYC but we don’t have them at home so that doesn’t make it off limits! We rarely eat anywhere we could eat at home while traveling.

The only thing about all that outside seating is the smokers. It was difficult to bear at points. But we survived!

I had the pasta of the day which was a beef Bolognese and quite good.

Ash had a salmon salad that came with a healthy amount of burrata – the white cheese you see. It’s like a mozzarella but creamier.

And brings us to the end. We have some plans for tomorrow but are also keeping it loose, willing to wait and see what we feel like doing when we get up. So I guess we’ll all find out tomorrow….