Notre Dame and Paris by Mouth
Day 3 we slept in a little bit. I woke up around 8. As I was getting dressed our doorbell rang. We hadn't heard that before so it kind of confused us for a moment. Turns out it was our concierge Alda with an apple galette still warm from the oven! She pointed to herself and said, "Me," which I believed meant she had made it. I thanked her profusely. Before she left, she mimed the international symbol for sleeping (folded hands beside tilted head) and I said, "No," pointing up as I said, "I was up."
Yesterday I tried to call Alda to ask where garbage bags were. Susan and I had googled the words for garbage - des déchets and des ordures. The phone call was a fiasco. She said something, I said something, then I said never mind and hung up. Later at a store I tried again to ask about them. The poor clerk just looked confused until I saw some garbage cans, pointed to them, then mimed the shape of the lining of them. She understood then and I bought some. Turns out, we learned today, that we were using the wrong terms. One means waste, like waste that is created in the world; and the other means a corner of a house where all the garbage is collected. Emma, our Paris by Mouth guide, gave us the correct term, but of course I cannot remember it.
Anyway, this morning I brought a tray down to the cafe and bought cafe au laits for everyone. We enjoyed those with the apple galette and leftover croissants and pain au chocolats. I could get used to this!
After breakfast we all showered. It is an extremely tiny shower. Kind of tricky to get your arms up to wash hair, and pretty much impossible to wash your feet! Still, it felt great to be all clean again. Although there's been some rain and cool weather, we -- or at least I -- often get quite hot throughout the day. Part of the whole turning 60 thing, I guess.
We went to Notre Dame this morning. It was beautiful, as expected. We were fortunate enough to
hear bells as we were arriving
, and
, where they were having a service. Just beautiful. Of course, the rose window, the sculptures, the architecture...all incredible. I liked the scenes of Jesus life carved in one area.
Bells of Notre Dame
Joan of Arc
Peter on the water.
The road to Emmaus.
Some evidence of the recent flooding.
We found a lovely little creperie called Cafe Med nearby. Our waitress was quite blunt and it just tickled me. When we ordered, I said we'd like still water. She didn't appear to hear so I said again we'd all like water, then said "tap water." She turned to me, pointed to her ear, and said, "I know. I heard 3 times." I ordered a lunch special of 2 crepes that came with hard cider. We also ordered a bottle of Rose' to share and she said, "3 glasses?" We said, "No, 4." She said, indicating me, "But you get cider." I said, "I know, but I'll have a little wine, too." She shook her head, clearly disapproving.
The crepes were delicious -- and so were the cider and Rose'. We ended up laughing and teasing with Georgia, the waitress, and enjoyed her so much we took a photo with her before leaving. This place was truly tiny. The bathroom was crammed directly behind a table where two families were sitting, separated by a curtain and a door. We kept wondering where in the world was the kitchen and finally realized it was up some very narrow stairs. Georgia would walk up a couple steps and hand the ticket to an unseen cook up there. When we said something about it to her she said, "You could not work here" to us. We're too tall!
Next we went to Sainte-Chapelle, another place I'd never heard of. There were so many stained glass windows! Really impressive. The first floor is the lower chapel, with some beautiful windows. But then you walk up narrow, curved stairs and emerge into a room with walls of stained glass. It was fun to find the Biblical scenes. Susan read us some of the descriptions explaining what we were seeing. A lot of the windows are so high you can't see them. We all agreed there should be some kind of platform for viewing them.
It rained quite hard on the way to Sainte-Chapelle so I bought a rain poncho. I look like "an orange on toothpicks" as it covers my bag, my camera, and my not real tiny belly. But it's purple and has a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, so how bad can it be? It worked well to protect the camera, my stuff, and me.
Our last event of the day was the "
" tour. Now just from the title you know it'll be great, and it exceeded all our expectations! It was incredible. Our guide, Emma, was a British young woman and full of information. She also knew all the shopkeepers at each place we went. You could see they loved her and she loved them.
We were in a small neighborhood in the Latin quarter. She walked us to several shops to sample pastry, charcuterie, macarons, chocolate, and cheese, then ended at a wine shop. There were seven of us on the tour, and we sat together in the back of the wine shop to have a little feast of all the food she'd gathered as we went from shop to shop. We became quite friendly. Emma said she had to leave at one point, and we gave her a tip, but she ended up staying and even walking us to our Metro station.
Here is a list of where we went, with some links, sent by Emma with reminders of what we tasted:
--
at 51 rue Censier (a taste of
the
florentin and also the chestnut cake, then the
tarte au citron (lemon tart) and Paradis Latin.)
--
’s Cacao et Macarons at 35 rue Daubenton (salted butter caramel macaron and the flavour of your choice.)
-- A
ux Saveurs d'Auvergne at 48 rue Daubenton (no website) (Saucisson de Montagne
("mountain-style" cured pork sausage), rillettes a l'oie (goose)
and the
pâté de canard (duck), foie gras and girolles mushrooms
.
I liked it that they put the pig and the goose by the pork and the pate.
The French are fine with reminding us the food comes from animals.
--
at
134 rue Mouffetard (Parthenay (ash-covered, goat's cheese from just south of the Loire Valley), Pont de l’Évêque
(5-6 week old, blooming-rind cow cheese from Normandy),
Abbaye de Cîteaux (the soft but somewhat stinky, washed-rind cow cheese from Burgundy),
Beaufort d’été
(12 month old, cooked, pressed cheese, made from cows which were grazing in the Alps at an altitude of 1800m)
;
then an Abbaye de Belloc
(6 month old, pressed sheep cheese
)
,
and finally the Roquefort (blue (sheep) cheese, made by artisanal producer Mr Carles). [Note from Mavis -
The shop owner very skillfully cut some cheese and received applause
.]
-- Le Fournil de Mouffetard at 123 rue Mouffetard
(no website)
for the traditional baguettes.
--
at 89 rue Mouffetard (We tried a "Bulle Tempete" (choc-caramel bubble)
from Johann Dubois, who is based in Brittany. Later the "Péché" (peach marzipan
) from
Fabrice Gillotte and "Mentha" (dark chocolate ganache with fresh mint) from
Jacques Bellanger (both MOFs.)
Chocolate bubbles come with instructions...
Put it whole into your mouth, then use your tongue to press it against the roof of your mouth.
Liquid chocolate caramel.
[Note from Mavis - Talk about "orgasm of the mouth".]
--
at 62 rue Monge (Menetou-Salon
2014 (Sauvignon Blanc) from the Loire Valley, followed by a Lirac 2013 (Grenache-Syrah
blend) from the Languedoc.
A library of wines needs a ladder.
Group shot with our little feast
Emma shared a little about her life. She has led these tours for 2 years and is a sommelier by trade. She has lived in Paris for around 5 years and talked about how she has gotten to know the shopkeepers on her tour and also those in her neighborhood. Her website is:
When I asked about her worst tours she told us of a woman who said she had diabetes, but then got angry when she felt Emma did not offer her a piece of a lemon tart (although Emma tried to), and had what sounded like several fits of temper, including one where she took a macaron, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it -- in the macaron shop in front of the shopkeeper. Good grief. But fortunately Emma said that kind of thing was rare and she loves giving the tours.
Home again, we watched the Eiffel Tower light show before going to bed.