First Full Day in Paris, April 17, 2025

  We had a bit of a slow start today. Mark and Barbara went out for a morning walk. We went across the bridge to the Right Bank and bought Navigo cards for the public transport. It was a bit confusing as they do not have a similar top-up system as in London. We have to use the 1 ride left on our two cards before they can be topped up. And, we bought one for Sebastian with 10 tickets. We have no idea if that will be enough to get to the airport, but will worry about that when the time comes. We continued our about Ile St. Louis and got croissants and a baguette at the local patisserie. So good. We  got coffee there partly so we could get some bigger coffee cups as the cups in the flat are very small.

    Showering is interesting in the bathroom here. You have to pull a curtain around so that you do not soak the toilet and toilet paper. (It did get wet - no names mentioned!) The room is so small (and wet), so there is no place to hang a towel, so they are scattered throughout the flat.

     Barbara figured out the washing machine which is far better than the one we had in London and did a wash which is hanging in our bedroom. 

     Mark made sandwiches with camembert and cheese in the baguette for taking on our boat tour of Paris which was at Pont Neuf, at the end of the Ile de la Cite. The boat tour, which took an hour, started off quite sunny and warm, but mid-way

through, the clouds and wind appeared and we were all shivering by the end. (Luckily, we all had layers, but were still shivering.)

     But, it was a nice tour which included the major river sites - Notre Dame, Hotel de Ville, original hospital, the Louvre, the prison where Marie Antoinette lived her last two months of life, Place de la Concorde, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower.

       We walked back to our flat. Sebastian did some souvenir shopping for Christian and Andrew. Back at the flat, we had some nice warm coffee.

   

   After a suitable break, we strolled down the block to the St. Regis, a restaurant where we have eaten 4-5 times before - with Becky Cavanaugh, by ourselves and with Mike and Nancy.

At the St. Regis

All three of us had duck confit with delicious small roasted potatoes. Although we rarely order dessert, we split an absolutely delicious, and very generous, two creme brulees. Two first for Sebastian: duck and creme brulee.