Paris Day 2

Friday 9/14

We slept in, ate some yogurt then headed for the closest Starbucks (yes, we had one just 2 just blocks away) where I made the sad discovery that a) there is NO Pumpkin Space Latte outside of the US and b) it's harder to order a coffee (an American kind) than you'd think! After finally getting some caffeine we hit the metro and started our day off exploring the area known as Marais. Tonya had bought a fun set of walking tours called City Walks and there are 3x5 cards that you can carry with you that have a 1-2 mile journey on them and point out a restaurant to try, or a shop to visit, or some sort of sightseeing thing. They are quite fun and we enjoyed walking around this neighborhood, dodging in and out of it's cute boutiques. Paris was filled with lots of bow accents (you know me, I'm quite the girly girl and I love a good bow accent) so I rushed into a store, tried on several sweaters with sweet bow accents, only to walk away empty handed while Tonya and her mom got some great deals! Oh well...I quickly got over my disappointment when we found a Patisserie that served the most divine chocolate eclairs! We kept walking and found this fun little courtyard on our way to a sculpture garden...which wasn't really a sculpture garden but it did lead us to the small island that was filled with touristy shops and lots of Berthillon!

A lady at UVA had recommended this place "Berthillon" to me and told me how to get there and that the ice cream there would change my life and here we had stumbled upon it, not meaning to! I was SO happy! We had walked right to a shop that had ice cream stained glass windows and an ice cream cart outside proudly displaying "Berthillon". We secured a small table (You pick your own here, no hostess to escort you) ordered ham 'n cheese crepes and some French Cider and THEN we ate wonderful ice cream! I had the coconut, but Tonya's Caramel and Chocolate with nuts was just as good! I couldn't believe our good fortune...and then we walked just steps down the street and around the corner and I realized, that wasn't "the ONE". We had eaten at the wrong one! We laughed, it was still good, and decided we'd come back again for the "real one". Turns out Berthillon was advertised everywhere!
MARAIS PICS, BERTHILLON, CREPE

We headed north on the island to the bridge connecting it with a larger island that houses Notre Dame. We walked around taking lots of pictures and marveling at it's great architecture. I got caught up taking pictures for other tourists out front (surprise, surprise!) and lost sight of Tonya and her mom. After scanning the crowds out front, and with the beginning rain I raced inside to look for them. The church is just beautiful! It's so hard to understand just how old it is and how they were able to complete such detail without our modern day advancements. I did a quick loop around, not spotting them, so I did a more leisurely loop around to take some pics and just marvel at this historic monument. I was here, in Paris, in a building that is HUNDREDS of years old! Eventually Tonya and I ran into each other, we met up with her mom and went outside to check the line to climb the 400+ steps to the top. The bell tower was closed so we headed across yet another bridge and walked through the Latin quarter where we picked up a few more souvenirs and stopped for wine at a cafe, Saint Severin, and then back home for an early morning bus trip.
NOTRE DAME, WINE