Paris!!!! (said "Par-eeeeeeee!)

Saturday morning we went to see the Paris Catacombs, which include the largest ossuary in the world. You have to wind through a lot of old quarry tunnels before you get to the ossuary, but eventually you get to them. The catacombs were started when one of the largest cemeteries in Paris became overfull and a health hazard. The bones were taken out of the graveyard and dumped in the old quarry tunnels for a few years before one man decided to take over and make the ossuaries a proper resting place for the dead. It was solemn and quiet, and not a little bit creepy.

No flash was allowed, so I think this is the only picture I got that isn't a big blurry mess. You get the idea.

After the catacombs we went to get gluten free crepes. Jay had a crepe with egg, meat, and potato. He says it was delicious. I had a crepe with goat cheese, walnuts, and honey, and it was delightful. We also got Kir Breton their. A Kir is a cocktail that we've become fairly familiar with thanks to Oliver and Nina, usually consisting of a splash of cassis liquer and some white wine. For a Kir Royale, make it sparkling wine. It's very tasty. A Kir Breton is apparently cassis with a cider and it was really good. The cider stands up to the cassis better than the average white wine so the drink has a bit more character. After that we went to the Musee D'Orsay, where we discovered a mutual love for Monet, and saw a Van Gogh, among other things. 

One of the clocks of the Musee D'Orsay, which was originally what might be the world's most beautiful train station. Apologies for the lens flare. The weather was beautiful, but not great for photography.

Then it was to the L'Orangerie museum in the Tuileries, where there are two installations of room sized murals of Monet's water lillies. When the Orangerie was remodeled to be made into a museum, these two rooms were made to Monet's specifications and the paintings were donated by the artist. After L'Orangerie we strolled through the Tuileries (the big garden of the Louvre), found some pistachio sorbet (YAY!), and headed home to a delicious dinner at the Thai restaurant downstairs from our apartment, which happens to be gluten free!

Sunday, we got up early to go to the Louvre and spent roughly four hours exploring. I managed to get as close as is legal to the Mona Lisa and snap a picture, which I generally don't do in museums, but this was special. It's a beautiful painting, but I'm not really sure why it's more famous than any of his other works. The Madonna on the Rocks I saw in Copenhagen was mind blowing compared to the Mona Lisa. 

Me in front of the pyramid at the Louvre. Not sure why I look like I'm being held at gunpoint and told to smile for my life, but there ya go.

Mona Lisa? Check.

Afterward we found a park to sit in and ate sandwiches that we'd brought with us and headed to Centre Pompidou to see some modern art, which was, as usual, bizarre and fascinating and occasionally very cool. Then we headed to a gluten free bakery, where I had a little bread/cake with orange and chocolate in it that was delicious. On the way back to the apartment we stumbled across a large protest. Jay was excited for me to experience the protest, saying that it was a very French thing. Apparently there has been an absurd amount of muggings a predominantly Asian neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. One mugging led to a man's death, and these people were (rightfully, in my opinion) protesting the lack of security in their neighborhood. It was very intense and emotions were high. There were lots of police there, but it was very clear that they were there to protect the protesters, rather than keep them under control. Once we were back in Montmarte, we decided to go looking for the rotisserie chicken and potatoes that Jay had been dreaming about, ever since he saw it on Friday. We headed to Rue des Martyrs around 6:30, only to discover that all the rotisserie chicken places were closed! So then we decided to go to a place nearby called 'Le Petit Canard' which was supposed to be friendly for me and was also supposed to be open, but it turned out they were on vacation and closed. So then we headed back to our apartment and get Thai food at the place by our apartment. Except that it was closed. We're laughing and slightly panicking at this point, so we headed toward another street that we had seen which had rotisserie chicken but also had a Monoprix (large store with groceries, among other things). No luck on the chicken, and the Monoprix was, you guessed it, CLOSED. We remember that the Franprix (another grocery) near our apartment had been open when we walked by, so we started walking VERY fast back to the Franprix, because we thought there was a chance they would close at 8 and it was, at that point 7:45. The owner was starting to close the door to let people in when we got there, but the panicked look on our faces softened his heart, and he let us in. We found bread and cheese and meat that we each could eat and, relieved, collapsed in our apartment with our miniature picnic, which ended up being very satisfying after all.

Monday, after the disappointment of the night before, we decided to have lunch at our new favorite Thai place and then headed out the satisfy the dream of my 14 year old self, and see the Eiffel Tower. We hopped the metro and walked toward the Eiffel tower. We came around the corner, had our first view of the river and saw this.

Well, $@#%

At which point Jay starts cracking up and I'm frowning and wondering if we can manage to come back tomorrow. We kept walking towards it though, and eventually the clouds cleared enough that we could see the whole thing and we were able to get a lot of good shots of the whole thing. I had to spend a little time looking at it and thinking about what it meant to me, because as a teenager I was passionately in love with Paris and France thanks to my favorite movie Moulin Rouge (still my favorite). I'm glad cleared up, and it was great to finally realize this dream of mine. 

One of many pictures I took of the Eiffel Tower. One will end up on my wall, rest assured.

After the Eiffel tower we headed to the Ile de la Cite to see St. Chapelle, which was founded by St. Louis, King of France in 1245 to hold the Crown of Thorns from the Passion and has the most amazing display of stained glass I've seen (and recently restored, too). Most of the glass dates from the 13th century, and you can see how the different windows tell different stories form the bible, starting from Genesis. 

St. Chapelle

After that we went to see Notre Dame. We opted not to climb the tower of Notre Dame, since we'd gotten enough stairs from Sacre Couer and the catacombs. In fact, when we saw the stairs we needed to climb to see St. Chapelle, I almost backed out. But we did go inside Notre Dame, which is massive and impressive and old. They had an exhibit on where you could see the evolution of the cathedral through the ages, and it was interesting to see how its grown and changed. 

Notre Dame

After that we went to a place that had gluten free waffles on a stick. Fortunately, they were also dairy free, and they had a couple of dairy free options for the fillings, so I got an apricot flavored filling, Jay got some dairy packed chocolate filling and we were both very happy. 

Gluten-free waffle on a stick, half way eaten.

After that we stopped at a kitchen store, recommended to us by Aunt Betsey, where Julia Child used to buy her kitchen tools in Paris and bought a madeleine pan. "I need a madeleine pan" has been a running remark between me and Jay since I first got in to baking 7 years ago, to the point that its become something of a joke, so it seemed quite appropriate to finally get my madeleine pan as a souvenir of our time in Paris. That evening we headed back to Rue des Martyrs for chicken and potatoes. A lot of the rotiserrie places were still closed, but we found one that was open, bought a cheap and delicious wine, and enjoyed our meal back a our place.

Tuesday evening we were going to be flying to Rome, so that morning we dropped our bags at the left luggage office at Gare du Nord and wandered around the Champs Elyssee, the Arch du Triumph, and the surrounding neighborhood.  Before beginning the long trek to Beauvais airport, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant I'd read about that is centered entirely around apples (Pomze). Every item on the menu has something to do with apples and they also have a couple of house-brewed ciders. Unfortunately, we got their after they had stopped serving the full lunch menu, but before dinner, so we could only order from an abbreviated salad menu. However, all the allergens were marked, so I had no trouble picking an item. Both of our salads were absolutely delicious. Jay's had about half a chicken on it, and he didn't eat all of it, so now I have  the following memorable sight to make me laugh when things are dull:

We were worried about what I would eat that evening, when we would be at an airport. We had a gluten free roll in the bag Jay was carrying around. So Jay decided to make me a sandwich, but he felt the need to be clandestine about the process. So from my point of view, Jay

1. Pulls something out of a bag, puts it in his lap and then saws at it with his butter knife.
2. He then begins shoving torn bits of chicken into his lap, all the while looking to make sure no one sees, and I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.

And I gotta say, it made a delicious dinner once we got to the airport.

Up next: Rome tries to give us a heart attack three times and we get burned out on cities.