Paris: Day Seven

Paris is lovely, even when it is hot and overrun with tourists. We started off the day with a leisurely breakfast with our Airbnb host. She is so generous, buying so many pastries and a whole baguette, and then insisting we take it with us for the day so not only is she giving us breakfast, it's also lunch. 

This trip is not as planned out as other trips I've done, which is both good and bad. I'm really a planner, and so I like to have lots of different ideas and a rough sketch of what each day could look like, with different options of things to do. Phil also likes having things planned, but he's more okay with deciding on what to do the morning of the day. I like the option to be spontaneous, and not think of travel like checking off a list, but then you do run into some difficulties at times, as you will see later, since we mostly planned the day over breakfast. 

We started off the morning with a bus ride over towards the Marais, one of the oldest parts of Paris that did not get knocked down to form the grand boulevards like other areas. Again we followed a self-guided walk from the Rick Steves guidebook, but this time Phil was in charge of leading the way. We actually chose to do the walk backwards, because it would lead us over to where we wanted to end up. Which meant we started at Le Centre Pompidou and I got to see the lips from the French in Action videos we watched in French class.

The Marais, which means swamp, is full of old buildings and windy streets. 

We ended up by Place de la Bastille and walked over to the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden. Now this is where planning comes in - we decided to go there, because there is a special T. Rex in Paris exhibit...and once we get there, we learn it is closed on Tuesdays! We still enjoyed the beautiful gardens. 

And we even found a stegosaurus!

Next we hopped on another bus (buses are really the only way to travel for us now - you get to see all the sights, even if it takes longer) to Trocadero, where there is a great view of the Eiffel Tower. Though Phil has never been up it, we would've had to book tickets way in advance and honestly the best view of Paris has the tower in in, so we just wanted the view. 

Then we went to the Musee Marmottan Monet, which has one of the best collections of Monet and it did not disappoint. It was also a smaller museum, and was not full of people, so we had space and time to appreciate the art. 

Another long bus ride back to the the Airbnb, where we rested before choosing a place for dinner, followed by ice cream, or in my case, sorbet. 

The goal is to have ice cream every day in Paris, and so far we are meeting that goal!