Paris

I intended to write about the rest of our bike and barge trip in The Netherlands while we were on the train from Amsterdam to Paris. It did not happen. Although the train ride was smooth and fast, the seats were too cramped for my legs and elbows to maneuver and type on my iPad. So those of you who are interested in that part of our trip will have to wait until I create my journal on our website. It will have a lot more information plus a bunch of photos. There will be lots of pictures of windmills and tulips.

We arrived at Gare du Nord mid-day on Saturday the 26th. We decided to forego Metro and take a taxi to our hotel. It was a lot easier on my back without lugging our luggage on the underground.

Hotel Muguet is near the Eiffel Tower. We saw the top of it this afternoon but we have not walked over to it yet. Our room is large compared to other Paris hotel rooms we have stayed in. Twin beds are on one end while a writing desk and table are in a sitting area. The bathroom is roomy and has a combination bath/shower. We are in the interior on the second floor facing a very quiet courtyard.

After checking in, we put our feet up for a while until we started to get hungry. Taking Rick Steves' advice, we walked over to the Rue Cler and had dinner at Cafe du Marche. It is a relatively inexpensive cafe (this translates to "not quite as expensive"). Ann had a quiche and salad while I had a typical Parisienne steak and sautéd potatoes. We split a small carafe of pouilly fuisse and a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. We ate in a covered area outside and were thankful for the enclosure when there was a cloudburst during the middle of our meal.

After dinner we strolled up and down Rue Cler and walked back to our hotel.

Today was Ann's birthday. We started celebrating by eating at our hotel's breakfast. I say celebrating because nothing is cheap in Paria. We had fresh orange juice which we squeezed ourselves in a juicing machine. The French coffee was good and strong and did not taste like wet socks. Croissants were flaky and the cereal and eggs were fresh.

After breakfast we walked over to the Musee d'Orsay and spent most of the day there. This included lunch in the cafeteria - pasta for me and salmon for Ann. It is always an extraordinary experience to visit this museum. The paintings are fantastic. We split up in the museum with Ann using a guide book while I listened to Rick Steves audio tour on my iPhone.

As we walked back to our hotel, we visited two other museums using our newly acquires 6-day museum pass. We were dodging rain storms on the way.

Ann's birthday dinner was at Chez Pierrot, a small bistro that was a 5-minute walk from our hotel. I made reservations for 7:00 through an online French reservation system. When we arrived, the waitress did not seem to know about it. No problem though, there were very few customers. It was a small bistro with a couple of fixed price menus. Ann had rump steak with a creamy pepper sauce along with potatoes and a salad. I had a appetizer of deep-fried squid and sardines, a main course of sole and salmon with ratatouille. We both had a peach tart for dessert. We split a bottle of Pouilly Fume.

We retraced our route and found our way back to the hotel without a map.