Day 2 in Paris - a little less magical

Less, magical as you will learn, but I must start by saying that Paris is a stunningly beautiful city. Day 2 starts with us sleeping in a bit, we then set off in search of breakfast. On the walk back from dinner, Tiff said she wanted croque monsieur for breakfast and I saw a place that looked authentic pretty close to our hotel. Unfortunately they were closed (August in Paris) and Tiff was getting hungry. In these situations, I've learned to let Tiff lead the way. So, we're wandering the streets and not finding anyplace with croque monsieur. In fact, most places aren't serving breakfast anymore since it's around 10/10:30, not to mention that Tiff has led us into the Asian-town section of Paris. Anyway, we're walking past a hotel where some tourists have all their luggage on the sidewalk and I'm trying to navigate around them when out of the corner of my eye I see some pigeons flying away and some "stuff" falling from the sky. Not only do I see it, I also feel it on my back. I ask Tiff, "did I just get shit on by a pigeon." I can see she is simultaneously trying not to laugh and gag as she says, "yes. we need to go back to the hotel." 20 minutes later, I'm in the shower vigorously washing the back of my head and neck. Luckily we didn't run into Pierce in my sub-optimal condition. Tiff probably would have died from embarrassment. Sorry, we don't have any photos of this incident. Although it is good luck I hear. Anyway, we end up settling on Le Pain Quotidien (Parisians probably view this as equivalent to McDonalds. They have them in NYC for goodness sake) for breakfast. It's packed and not a good experience. They forget/get wrong our order and it takes 30 minutes to pay the bill.

We put the morning behind us and I lead the way to some tourists attractions. We walked through the Louvre and went to the Isle de Cite to check out the Concierge (it's OK, but not really memorable), Notre Dame and the St. Chapelle church. When we walked upstairs in St. Chapelle we both said, "wow". You think once you've seen one church/duomo you've seen them all, but this one is pretty remarkable. The photos don't do it justice.





We then walked off our croissants and headed to the Latin Quarter which is the university area of the city. Definitely less touristy which was nice. We grabbed a drink at Brasserie Balzar (recommended by Frommers - as was Au Pied de Cochon) which was fine. We had been eyeing these bikes that you can rent. Turns out the city has a pretty new program where they've installed 10,000 bikes (soon to be 20,000) stationed throughout the city. You just pick one up and ride it wherever you want to do and then drop it off at a station near your destination. We grabbed a couple of bikes, braved the Paris traffic and rode to the Arc.

(bike docking station with only one bike available)

At this point it was time to start planning dinner. I had made a reservation based on another Frommer's recommendation and we decided to cancel it (given the so-so Frommer's track record) in hopes of going back to Bistrot Vivienne. Unfortunately, not much is open on Sunday night (including Vivienne) so we checked out the Palace Royal and found an Italian restaurant called Martin that was pretty good. Only people eating were us and a lone Asian-American girl who ordered 3 entrees. The waiter/bartender/host/owner? warned her, but she claimed she was hungry. As I recall, she wasn't a big girl, but thanks a lot for perpetuating the American stereotype. After an early dinner, we headed back to the room for a power nap and then grabbed a drink at the legendary Hotel Costes. The Hotel is rumored to have lost some of its lustre, but as a first time visitor I was impressed. They have an open-air restaurant that looked really cool and the bar was a pretty good scene for a Sunday night. Drinks were a little more reasonable than the Ritz, plus you got a free cup of crisps (potato chips).

That about sums up day 2. Pigeon crap, no Pierce Brosnan, lots of drinking and some bike riding. By the way, even though I'm trying to build up my tolerance for Mike and Nicole's wedding in Portland in the next week, I'm starting to reach my limit on consumption of buttery food and wine/alcohol. Tiff, on the other hand, is still going strong.