Paris

10/22

Our plan was to take a guided walking tour of non touristy sights of Paris. The tour began at the Louvre but we took a rather circuitous route and ended up missing the tour. But we were in Paris! So, no problem.

We decide to walk to Les Halles and find a place for lunch. Unfortunately, the Les Halles that we had read about has been torn down and replaced with a gigantic, modern shopping mall. There was a nice park in front of the hideous mall but there was no way we were going to eat in that mall.
We began walking home and found ourselves in the Marais. Ted and Sandy decided to go to Monmartre but Dave, Lesley, Dick and I continued on meandering through the charming Marais neighborhood and picked a little bistro where we had lunch before continuing on to our hotel. Dave and I wanted...no, NEEDED...ice cream and luckily Berthillon, the BEST ice cream in Paris was just up the street from our hotel. It WAS fabulous ice cream!! I was very sorry I only had one scoop!

Dick was feeling pretty poorly and it was now mid afternoon so we rested a bit in our hotel room before heading out again at dinner time to a restaurant a couple blocks from the hotel that the desk clerk had recommended called L'Ilot Vache which translates roughly to something like "place of the cows" referring to the history of Ile Saint Louis having been pasture land in its history.

It was a beautifully decorated restaurant and the food was excellent and the staff terrific.

And, of course, we enjoyed some very nice wines with our dinner. We walked home in a light drizzle....our first rain of the trip!