Tuesday arrived and with it the final part
of our holiday, apart from the journey home.
It was a nice start to yet another nice day
on the Loire. The sun was shining and we
walked the nearly 2 kilometres to the railway station. It was a nice walk as it was over two bridges
– there is an island in the centre of the Loire where part of Saumur is built.
We travelled TER to Angers and then had a
wait of an hour before the TGV took us to Paris. Our instructions to get from Gare
Montparnasse were very good although getting on the metro train was a bit of
challenge as it was very full even in the middle of the afternoon.
Our room, which we thought we were getting,
turned out much to our delight to be an apartment in a 1930s building that had
been recently renovated. The lift to the
7th floor was very tiny and I had to send Bev up first as only her
and the bag could fit in and even that was a tight squeeze. It was very intimate in the lift when the two
of us were in it. It’s good that we like each other!
Pierre was a lovely warm, gentle man who was
really helpful and had done some research for us about places of interest ahead
of time. He is in the 17th arrondissement,
just off Avenue de Clichy. It is not one
I have stayed in before and it is a place where there didn’t appear to be many
tourists. The 17th is next to Montmartre which most people know as the place where the Moulin Rouge and Sacre
Coeur are.
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| Palais du Luxembourg |
We had decided on having a nice meal out on
Tuesday night and then hopefully going early to a jazz club the next night. After a bit of research I found a recommended
restaurant called Bistro des Dames which was a hundred metres or so from where we were staying. We also looked up a few jazz places to go to the
following evening.
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| In Jardin du Luxembourg |
I booked at Bistro des Dames for 8pm which
surprised Bev as we had gone out earlier but perhaps we were getting into the European
way of having later meals.
It was a good choice. The food was based on fresh products and the
menu was not extensive. We shared a
starter of goat’s cheese and artichoke.
It was not something I would have thought of putting together but it
worked really well. The artichoke gave texture and some flavour but the
predominant taste came from the cheese.
I had wanted a pork dish but it was no longer on offer so I had salmon
instead. It was well done, although being
slightly picky I think it was slightly overcooked. Ideally It would have been done about two minutes
less. Bev had the lamb shank and it was
simply superb. They are known for their
stews. The dessert was brilliant also.
We shared a chocolate fondant and that was done to perfection. When broke into
it with our spoons the chocolate oozed out of the sponge – yum. We had a bottle
of organic wine from the Loire and I had thought it was 22€ but when we got the bill it was 32€. The writing was so small
and it was dark so I could not read it well, however the wine was superb and
went well with the meal. It was well worth it.
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| Boules anyone |
For our last full day in Paris we had
intended visiting the Palais de Versailles but we cancelled that plan as it may
have been dodgy getting there. There was
partial strike on the RER (local railway system). Instead our day was spent
going to the Jardin du Luxembourg, walking through the Latin Quarter, Le Marais
and Place des Vosges before getting off our feet for a coffee and a less than
satisfying but expensive lunch. On the
way to the Bastille Bev popped into yet another bag shop in another attempt to
find the elusive perfect bag. She found
some that she liked but alas they had a major design fault and would not meet
her needs. It caused me some amusement
which was not appreciated.
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| The Seine with Notre Dame in the background |
We walked from there past the Centre Pompidou
which is a very interesting piece of architecture and a major art gallery in
the centre of Paris. Then we did some
wandering around the streets of the 1st arrondissement coming
across the Palais Royal which has amongst other things a theatre in it but the
most noteworthy feature was the park around which it was built. It was raining by then and I thought that the
perfect bag might be available for purchase at Galeries Lafayette. Galeries Lafayette is a Grand Magasin (a
department store like Kirkaldies in Wellington or David Jones in Sydney but on
a far larger scale). Unfortunately,
while there were some stunning bags most of them were designer labels with mouth-watering
price tags. Not that this was deterring
the Chinese visitors who were present in large numbers. There is even a department devoted to Asian
visitors. As we failed to get a bag, I
thought I would try my luck at getting a decent bottle of wine – Bordeaux of
course – and succeeded in getting one that did not damage the credit card too
much.
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| Place de Vosges |
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| Centre Pompidou |
It had a been a lot of walking so we
treated ourselves to a glass of wine there.
They were not going to serve us initially as they thought we wanted food
and kitchen was closed. Nevertheless,
our desire for a relaxing glass of wine was met. In addition, because the first
wine we chose was not available the very nice young man who served us gave us a
larger than usual glass of a reasonably decent Petit Chablis.
Bev was not interested in walking far from
the apartment for a meal, so once we had returned we went out looking for a
suitable place. I had in mind a restaurant I had seen earlier which was just around
the corner from our place. “Viola” was a
lovely little restaurant serving Modern Italian food. The person who served us was probably the
owner although we did not establish that.
We learned however that his father was Italian and that he had studied
architecture in Turin. Remarkably for a
place that turned out some of the best food we had whilst we were away, it was
very quiet. There were just two other
couples dining there.
We had a formule – entrée, main and
dessert. Bev had duck carpaccio for her
starter and I had ravioli filled with pigeon with a pigeon jus. It was brilliant with flavours well matched but
with a few taste surprises. For a main
Bev had a beef dish. The beef was succulent and even the polenta was pronounced
delicious. I had a rabbit dish and again
it was inventive and extremely tasty. It
was accompanied with nice range of vegetables.
The dessert was interesting as well – Bev’s citron cheesecake was really
different and tasty while my millefeuille was made of hazelnut pastry filled
with a coffee and hazelnut cream. Both
were very good. To top it off we had an
incredibly good Sardinian red wine which was both rich and savoury but with the
acid and tannin perfectly matched to the food we ate.
As you will now be aware, the food was a
real highlight for our trip to Paris.
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