“…wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” — Ernest Hemingway
We ended our Rhine river cruise in Amsterdam and took the high-speed Eurostar train to Paris. We opted for first class and got a pretty good dinner with a nice hazy IPA served at 183 mph.
We arrived in Paris the same day as the Pope visited so the city was a bit of a mess with the masses coming to see him. Thankfully we were able to cram into a hot subway and get across town to our Airbnb apartment in the 6th arrondissement. Our apartment was very comfortable and in a great neighborhood. It was very walkable with easy access to the subway. Our host Eric was a really nice guy who owns several hair salons.
Eric greeted us at the front door of the building and gave us a tour of the apartment and a lot of useful tips about Paris. He ended up giving Jaime a haircut that transformed her into a French girl and ruined her for life (Supercuts? Sacré bleu!)
Our apartment on Rue Madame was fairly quiet for being in the heart of Paris and was next to the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens. This is a 60-acre 17th-century public garden with hundreds of comfortable green metal chairs for hanging out and enjoying the space. In his memoir A Moveable Feast, Hemingway wrote that he walked through the Luxembourg Gardens because the park had no food displays to tempt his empty stomach.
We met up with new friends from the river cruise and did a Seine dinner cruise. Tim and Jessica had to run the Pope gauntlet and almost didn’t make the boat. The dinner ended up being OK (pas mal) but the boat was enclosed, stuffy, and crowded. They crammed us into the middle so the views were limited. Check out GetYourGuide for better options (affiliate link).
We ended the night enjoying a drink at one of Paris’ many fine cafés with our new friends. The waiter was awesome and very friendly. Before this trip, Jaime was leery that French waiters, Parisians in particular, would be stereotypically snooty and unfriendly. This turned out not to be the case. Bon voyage to our friends!
Five days was nowhere near enough, but Paris got under our skin just like Hemingway promised. We walked until our feet hurt, ate and drank far too well, and never once got the snooty treatment we’d been warned about. Jaime left with a new French haircut, I left with way too many photos, and we both left with a list of things we didn’t get to. We’ll be back. À bientôt, Paris!