We finally arrived in Paris after the delay in Amsterdam and hit the ground running. After loading up at our first bakery, we moved on to the Louvre. Similar to London, I was much more impressed with the architecture than I would have imagined. Surprise surprise, there was quite the queue for Mona Lisa, but a view from a far served us just fine. From there we moved on to the Palais Garnier which was not quite as impressive as Royal Albert Hall, it was incredibly pleasant nonetheless.
Brian next directed us towards a mall... tho this was more enjoyable than those in Dayton. On top of Les Galeries Lafayette Haussmann we took in the perspective above the city. Being able to look out and have that view certainly dissipated the memory of traveling up the escalator in the mall to reach these heights. Similar to Amsterdam, we had teed up a food tour, tho in no particular order I'll recollect it here.
La creperie next to the Pantheon is where we had (believe it or not), crepes. Airy, sweet, and all together blissful the strawberries and Nutella made quite the compliment to a morning cappuccino.
A little rushed for time since we lost a day in Paris we cruised to the Arc de Triomphe taking in photos from Champs-Élysées, then went right on to the Eiffel Tower. We originally intended to spend more time there (and with a bottle of wine) but instead continued on to take in more sites.
At La Maison d'isabelle we enjoyed the "best" croissant in Paris, and it did not disappoint. Bistro des Vosges had fantastic French roasted onion soup and could even be enjoyed on a 90+ degree day. We had an incredibly positive interaction (in French) with our waiter here which left us feeling pretty high and mighty. Fear not tho, the next restaurant we attempted to order steak tartare and were cut right back down to size by that waiter. He would have nothing to do with us, and brought us a tomato basil dish not only once, but twice. Maybe our French is not as good we thought...
Recovering from that interaction we moved on to Saint Chappelle which on the outside looks like you'd want to just keep walking rather than stop. The stained glass is immaculate. I don't have a better word for it.
Notre Dame under construction was quite the display, and even had (full) bleachers set up for people to enjoy the progress. Again.... in 90+ degree heat. On our last full day, we took the N train to Versailles Chantiers to get out to Versailles Palace. This was only a little uncomfortable dealing with the strikes, inconsistent information, and waiter #2 levels of help from people in the know.
That being said the palace and grounds were spectacular. Looking out over the garden from the palace you expect to be wrapped up fairly shortly, but before you know it another ensemble kicks off to fantastic water features. 7 or so of these are tucked away throughout the grounds, and made for a lovely way to end our jaunt to Versailles.
Before getting stuck for 2 days in Philadelphia while Brian got back for work on a 12 hour Greyhound bus, Sara got more than her fill of vegan baked goods while I salivated over jambon-buerre from Caractère de Cochon. I'd walk back to Paris for another one of those bad boys. Choose from your preference of ham (either dry-cured or fresh) and then go to town.