Day 9: Paris, now with 98% less protestors!

Thanks to the riots and having to rearrange our plans, our last day in France was a bit of a mishmash of what we had planned to do, but we were flexible. We got up a bit later than the day before - as it was now Sunday and who knew what the French would do on the Day of Rest - and headed towards Notre Dame for breakfast. Adelaide found a bakery that looked good on good maps and we headed there for a croque monsieur, croissant and double espresso each. (Side note: places must love us or hate us - we can't sus out tipping. We've been leaving a few euros each meal but have no gauge for whether it's a custom or not... or how much. Googles been our only guide).

After another brief walk we arrived at the forecourt of Notre Dame (again huge lines), but instead decided to go underground and checkout the crypt, the entrance of which was right next to the underground parking to Notre Dame. The crypt is the only archaeological crypt in Paris, and was uncovered when work began on the aforementioned car park. It features the ruins of Roman baths which used to be on the site over a thousand years ago. The dig discovered many Roman coins which helped to date the area (apparently from a person who had lost their purse between the tiles when getting changed - bad luck!).

The crypt, being not nearly as famous as Notre Dame despite the proximity, was very quiet and we got to spend a lot of time reading the exhibits. They had structured the flow of it all very well, moving from pre-Roman to modern history as your progressed around. They had a cool 3D model of Notre Dame and how it was built towards the end. Adelaide and I were surprised to see how much the surrounding area around Notre Dame had morphed over time. For a time the Roman ruins where exposed and people were able to park right next to them (and even dry right past the front door of the cathedral).

On the phone to Dad the previous day, he had suggested we check out the Bastille markets as another riot-free option. As we had explored all but east of our hotel, Addy and I set off for the Bastille area by foot along the Seine, which was a lovely walk. The lower road right next to the river was packed with joggers in the Sunday morning sunlight. It didn't take us too long to reach Bastille, and after a short map gaze to decode the Bastille roundabout, we found the markets.

The statue at the centre of the roundabout

The markets stretched down Boulevard Richard Lenoir, off the north north-west branch of the roundabout for what felt like a kilometre and were three aisles thick. It was a sensory experience of sweet, savoury and pongy as we passed fruit, vege, meat, cheese and fish stalls. Adelaide and I were perplexed by the scarf sellers, all who seemed to stock the exact same scarf just in 100 different shades. Do they ever sell out? Is one seller better than the other? (probs not) Are they really genuine cashmere? (also probs not)
I was very tempted to stop and buy some nibbles and dribbles for later in the day but it was early and our hotel had no way of refrigerating; nor had any knives or plates so I resisted. Nathan would have loved the Olives! We scaled up and back through the markets before taking a quick seat to plan our next stop.

This ones for you Nath!

We were weren't 100% sure if the riots had subsided, but given that all the roads were open and the police presence was significantly lax compared to the day before (back to rolling the dice on crossings), we chanced the the Champs-Elysee would be open and got the Metro over there. Success!

We got off at Champs-Elysee-Clemenceau station, right next to the Grand Palace, and walked towards the Arc De Triomphe. As with the day before, many other tourists had the same idea to catch it while they could, and I guess it was busier than usual. The avenue leading up to the Arc is something like 6 or 8 lanes wide (French drivers won't be defined by no lanes!), but that didn't stop the ballsy photographer or self-absorbed tourist from walking out into the middle of the road to catch a happy selfie.

#anythingfortheshot

The road is lined with many international and high street stores which I think is a partial draw for some people. Addy and I were surprised when we saw around 20-30 people lining up outside the Louis Vuitton store. With the recent riots, some of the shops had taken measures including taping windows and erecting plywood or metal walls to ensure they didn't get caught in the crossfire, although Cartier didn't seemed miffed and had a $40,000 handbag on display in the window. Viva la revolution!

I wonder how much Gucci Grills are worth

When we reached the Arch De Triomphe, we found that access to the base (and the rest of it) was closed for the day as they were cleaning off the graffiti that had been left during the demonstration, which was a bit of a bummer, although understandable. There were a few TV cameras getting shots and the police presence had obviously remained in place. That didn't stop motorists giving the gendarmerie a piece of their mind as they got cut off by the police convoy going around the Arc.

We crossed the road, giggling at someone who was getting their photo taken by their friends while striking a 'totally-caught-off-guard-while-looking-pensively-off-into-the-distance' pose, and headed back down the opposite side of the huge avenue. The lunch options were few and expensively far between, so when we reached the George V Metro station we decided to head over to Frog Burger (another recommendation), back near Notre Dame for Lunch.

While trying to get through the turnstiles to get on the metro back, we got held up behind a guy who was in prime form for a mugging, carrying 5 huge Louis Voiton bags and had gotten himself stuck between the doors. Once on the train we had a busker serenade the carriage (credit where credit is due, I couldn't do that).

Once back at Chatalet we nailed the 'sortie' and found out what we should have done when first arrived in Paris. We made the short walk to Frog Burger which was back over near Abbey Bookshop. Frog Burger is a bit more a Western style joint (a la trendy American burger restaurant), and the burgs were just what we wanted. The place also had a selection of their own beers. Adelaide had what she thought was a ginger beer but turned out to be an Amber with ginger notes, while I had a strong-tasting APA (bit of a mistake). As we munched our lunch, we contemplated our Burger Top 20 and made the necessary revisions.

The lane just near our hotel

We had been lazy, and in case you missed it, yesterday was a double-blog-episode which we made up for in the afternoon back at the hotel for a break. Adelaide and I felt like we had accomplished all we had wanted to on our whirlwind tour of Paris.

Dinnertime rolled around and we gave the north side another shot. Choices weren't the problem, rather, we couldn't decide on what we wanted. On one hand, I felt we should have "French" as it was our last night, but my stomach said Pizza, while Adelaide was egging on eastern cuisines. It's definitely a tough life on holidays. We rounded a corner and spotted a Lebanese place and both agreed. On our cheapest dinner so far, I had a Lamb Kofta plate with tabbouleh, hummus and chips while Adelaide had a falafel kebab with garlic sauce. Despite our language barriers, everyone knows Garlic!

While we let our dinner digest, we continued to stroll around and ran into some Christmas stalls (kinda hard to call it a market per se), and had a vin chaud, aka hot wine aka mulled wine. We drank it out the front of Le Centre Pompidou, a large gallery which had an impressive exoskeleton, and large cobble concourse.

On our way back to our hotel we celebrated our last meal in France with a crepe, in classic Nutella and Nutella+Banana flavours (guess who had which!). We turned in and watched Children of Men (it was okay, 7/10) before having an early night as we needed to get up early for our train to Brugge!

Cheers!
D+A