Americans in Paris... Day 2 Recap

Sunday in Paris.. not much to do other than sightsee. We dragged our butts out of bed quite late Sunday morning and started going towards the Musee d'Orsay. Along the way we stopped and grabbed a couple of croissants and two cafe au laits for breakfast (although at that point it was more like a very early lunch!).

The Musee d'Orsay was a nice visit. I'm a huge fan of the Impressionists - particularly Monet and Renoir. The collection was very good, crowds were manageable, and we got to see most everything we wanted. The museum building itself was stunning. An old railway station, the openness of the central area made it feel very airy and light. All in all, I'm glad we went, but I don't think I'd visit again. I'd probably try and hit some of the smaller collections (like the one at the Orangerie, which has a huge number of Monets) next time.

After d'Orsay we set out to visit the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysee. We were also starving, and desperately looking for a small boulangerie or something that had sandwiches, or even a crepe stand. For a city that boasts that there is a bakery, a pastry shop, a cheese shop, and a cafe on every block, we had a nearly impossible time finding anything open on that Sunday. We were forced to grab a sandwich at one of the tourist traps on the Champs itself, which wasn't bad, but wasn't really great either, but at that point we had burned so many calories walking we had to make them up somehow. It was spitting rain and quite overcast, which really cast a pall on the whole day. We finally made it to the Arc de Triomphe and were shocked to see it cost more to access the top than to visit the Musee d'Orsay. We did the tourist thing... climbing to the top to overlook the Champs and all the traffic in the Place de Charles de Gaulle Etoile below us. Our view over the city was really marred by the weather; Sacre Couer was barely visible in the distance. We climbed down and made our way back to our apartment for a much needed rest before heading out to what turned out to be the most disappointing meal of our trip.

That night we ate at La Fontaine de Mars - steps away from Cafe Constant where we had had such a good meal the night before, and recommended as a good Sunday night choice by several travel boards. Unfortunately, it wasn't our cup of tea. Our waiter seemed to be that famous Parisian waiter of lore, dismissive and snooty and barely there. We were handed English menus without a question, and the service felt more American (was he trying to flip the table?) than French. The two highlights were DH's starter - an absolutely lovely langostine bisque - and the bottle of Sancerre I ordered after being introduced to the yummy white the night before. Even these two highlights were diminished by the waiter bringing us the wrong bottle of wine at first ("whoops!" he said after I said "Sancerre?" as he was tearing the foil away from the cork. He disappeared for 10 minutes before reappearing with the correct bottle, and then he never refilled my glass despite the fact that it was being kept in an ice bucket) and then, even worse in my opinion, forgetting to bring DH a spoon with which to enjoy his bisque. I actually had to flag down another waiter after waiting for 5 minutes to get DH his spoon. Really it's unforgivable to forget that kind of thing.

For dinner I ordered one of the daily specials - a cassoulet (French white bean stew), and DH ordered the chicken with morels in a cream sauce. My cassoulet was just alright; the flavors were really muddled, the texture of some of the contents wasn't really nice, and all in all it just wasn't a success. DH's said that even though the morels and cream sauce were good, the chicken was dry and a little overcooked. Shocking! So, feeling pretty disappointed with both the service and the food, we opted to skip dessert and get the heck out of there. To be fair, the service wasn't universally abysmal there - we watched as one of our waiter's colleagues politely helped a Russian? couple at the next table understand the menu and the day's specials (our waiter - their's as well - had left the English chalkboard with the daily specials at their table saying "here's the English version" and walked away). Anyway, we were pretty bummed, especially since that meal ended up being the most expensive of our short vacation.

We stumbled home again, pretty disillusioned with Paris in general after that second day, to again wait out some noisy neighbors behind paper thin walls before falling asleep.