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With only one day at home to unpack from our trip to Chester, Robin and I left late Wednesday afternoon for a quick trip to Paris. I needed to do some work in the La Defense area for Thursday and Friday, so we turned it into a mini-vacation. For Thursday and Friday, we stayed at the Pullman Hotel in La Defense, which was a short walk to the office for me. While I worked, Robin spent Thursday and Friday at the Louvre.
My work commitments ended around 4:30 pm on Friday, so after picking our luggage up at the Pullman, I hopped on the Metro and headed out to La Bastille where our hotel for the next two nights was. I met up with Robin at the Pause Cafe where we had a beer on the patio in the late afternoon sun. We then walked a few more minutes to our hotel, the Hi Matic. It certainly was a little more cozy and campy than we expected but more than adequate for the weekend. After getting settled, we went out for a walk in the neighborhood before stopping for a nice dinner at Le Mouton Noir.
The big plan on Saturday was to do a series of walks in the Marais area. Some time ago, Robin had bought Chronicle Books’ City Walks Paris, which are a set of 50 pocket-sized cards with short walks explained and mapped. We ended up stringing several walks together, seeing a variety of sights including the Place des Vosges, the Hôtel de Sully, the Place du Marché-Sainte-Catherine, St Paul Village and the Hôtel de Sens before stopping for lunch on Île St Louis. After lunch, we took in Notre Dame de Paris and the Hôtel de Ville before ending up at the Centre Pompidou. We took in the fabulous modern art collection of works from 1920 to 1945.
We walked back towards the Bastille late in the afternoon, stopping for an extremely expensive beer at one of the outdoor cafes on the Bastile. For dinner we took a chance on getting into the classic brasserie, Bofinger, just off the Bastille. Luckily for us they could fit us in and we had a lovely dinner of lobster soup, foie gras and supreme of chicken with tarragon and a nice bottle of Chablis Premier Cru.
We had a quiet day on Sunday; I did a training run along the Seine first thing in the morning. We had breakfast in the hotel and headed off to Gard du Nord around noon for our trip back to Amsterdam. Another great trip!
