If you jumped into this page directly, you can start at the beginning of our trip here. Otherwise, keep reading about day 6 of our Paris trip in the winter.
Day 6
So, day 6 was probably our most active day just by the sheer number of places that we visited. The goal of the day was to visit the Musee d’Orsay, and as per our routine, we caught an uber to the museum. There was only a small line to get into the museum. After going in, we went immediately to the 5th floor where the impressionist paintings were located. The museum was originally built as a train station to bring visitors to the 1900 Worlds Fair. As we ascended the stairs, we could clearly see the building take shape.
Musee d’Orsay was once a train station
We walked through the impressionist exhibits and found works by all of the famous artists, including Renoir, Monet, Pissarro and many others. Unlike the vast size of the Louvre, the Musee D’Orsay was very walkable and all of the paintings that we wanted to see were contained on a single floor.
Le Dejenner by Monet
Paysage au Valhermeil by Pissarro
A Dance in the Country by Renoir
We were able to find Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette which was especially interesting for us since we had gone to the Moulin de la Galette cafe just a few days before and saw the area that inspired his painting.
Dance at the Moulin de la Galette by Renoir
Next, we caught an Uber to the Palais Garnier Opera House. Over the course of the week, we had seen some beautiful buildings, but the decor inside of the Palais Garnier easily matched anything that we had seen. The visitor entrance is around the back of the building. We didn’t sign up for a tour and instead wandered through the opera house on our own. The grand entrance hall was breathtaking and we took several pictures of the walls, ceiling, and majestic staircase. We went upstairs and found that they had opened up a few of the doors leading to the box seating areas. We were allowed to go in to take pictures of the theater area and stage. Don’t forget to look up at the beautiful ceiling painted in 1964 by Marc Chagall.
Palais Garnier Opera House
I had wanted to try a restaurant called Les Antiquaires after reading their great reviews on Yelp and Tripadvisor. We ubered to the restaurant, but sadly found that it was closed for remodeling. Next door we found a cafe called Cafe l’Empire. They were tiny and the tables were basically wall to wall. The layout was pretty typical of Paris, but would have likely failed any fire inspection in the States. After a short wait, we found a table wedged in the corner. We had to pull the table out to get to the seat against the wall, but we eventually fit. The roast chicken there was excellent and we were happy that we had happened onto this restaurant.
We started feeling guilty about all of the Ubers that we had taken, so we made the 15 minute walk over to the Rodin Museum. We walked through the inside of the museum first and then walked out to the garden where they had several Rodin statues. It was still a bit wet and the grounds were muddy, but we really enjoyed the garden area.
Beautiful statues in the Garden of the Rodin Museum
It’s only a 5 minute walk across Boulevard des Invalides from the Rodin to the Military Museum. We were mainly interested in seeing Napolean’s tomb but we also ended up spending time wandering through the museum looking at swords, guns and various types of armor. Note that Napoleon’s tomb has a separate entry from the rest of the museum.
Napoleon’s tomb
Next, we wanted to head back across the Seine to see the Galeries Lafayette, the famous shopping mall in Paris. We had our first bad experience of the week with Uber. We asked for a pickup and it was accepted by a driver. We watched on the Uber app as the driver wandered around and eventually started driving away from our location. 15 minutes later, with the driver still wandering several miles away from us, I cancelled the pick up, and we tried again, only in a slightly different location. This time, the driver showed up quickly and drove us to our destination. I was pretty disappointed when I found out that Uber charged me a $5 cancellation fee, and I was pretty sure that I got scammed, but I was still happy about all the times that Uber did come through for us on the trip.
Of all of the places in Paris that we expected to see beautiful architecture and spectacular interior designs, a shopping mall would have been the last place that I would have expected it. Each level is open to the center of the store and the balconies that extends out toward the center will remind you of theater boxes. The huge domed ceiling caps the whole structure. There is a glass bottom walk on the third floor that juts out toward the middle of the store. I hate heights, but didn’t hesitate to take my turn walking out to the end of the walkway to take a look.
Galeries Lafayette glass walkway provides a great view of the mall
Don’t forget to make your way up to the rooftop, where you’ll get spectacular views of the entire city. Walk to the back side to get a view of Sacre-Coeur. After all of the site seeing at the mall, we settled in to do some shopping. They had reasonable prices, and we ended up buying some perfume and cologne.
The rooftop view from atop the Galeries Lafayette
There was supposed to be a restaurant on the top floor but it was closed. This ended up to be a really lucky break. I remembered that a friend of mine told me to make sure to go to a restaurant called Le Relais de l’Entrecote. There were a few in town, so we picked the one closest to our hotel and called an Uber to take us over. We walked into the restaurant and noticed that it looked full. The maitre d seated us and told us that we got the last open table. It was a little after 7:00 and the restaurant had just opened up so my guess is that the next people in line would have a long wait before the next table freed up.
Carving our steak at the table at Le Relais de l’Entrecote
Basically, the restaurant serves steak and fries, so when the hostess walked out, the only question was whether we wanted our steak rare, medium or well. Servers then bring out steaks and large platters of fries and make up our plates at the table. The steak was incredible. As we finished our plates, another server came out with another platter of steaks and fries and proceeded to slice us up some more steak and put it on our plates. Basically, our second helping was as big as our first. Before long, we were literally stuffed. We somehow had room for the profiteroles that we ordered for dessert. It was the best meal of the trip, or perhaps any of our trips. The restaurant was very reasonable for the quality and quantity of food that we were served. Dinner was 26 Euros. We Ubered to our hotel, stuffed, and content.
We had two servings of Steak and fries!
Day 7
This was our day to go to any of the miscellaneous sites that were still on our list of places to visit. These were all places that we saved for last, after our museum pass had expired. None of the places required an entry fee. We Ubered to our first stop, Place de Vosges, one of the oldest squares in Paris. The square is the location of Maison de Victor Hugo, a museum where Victor Hugo lived for 16 years.
Maison de Victor Hugo
We wanted to wander through one of Paris’ outdoor markets so we headed over to the Marche des Enfants Rouges outdoor market. Since it was winter, many of the stalls were empty, but there were still plenty of vendors selling meat, poultry and vegetables.
The market had fresh meat and vegetables although not all of the booths were filled
Across the street we found a Laduree, so we stopped in to buy some of their famous Macorons for our trip home.
Everything looked delicious at the Cafe Laduree
Next, we walked down to the Pompidou Centre. We didn’t want to go inside, but we did want to see the unique architecture on the outside of the building. It only took us a few minutes to walk around and snap some pictures and since it was noon, we started looking for a place to eat.
Walking around the outside of the Pompidou Centre
We couldn’t find anything that stood out in the area, but we saw a sign for a restaurant at the top of the Pompidou. We figured that the food would be average since the restaurant was in a museum, but we also guessed that the view from the top would be worth it. We jumped into the elevator and headed for the Georges restaurant on the 6th floor. The view was indeed fantastic as we exited on the 6th floor. We had a window seat and could see the Eiffel Tower from our table. We were wrong about the food, it was very good. We ordered the Croque Masseur and the Club Sandwich, and both were excellent. Instead of taking the elevator down, we took the escalator and we had a great view of Sacre-Coeur on our way down. Exiting the building, we walked back to the Seine toward our hotel.
Lunch at the top of the Pompidou Centre
We planned to call it a day, but thought we would investigate to see if we could buy a boat tour at the Bateaux ticket office that was on the Seine, right across from Notre Dame. They had a 9 stop hop on hop off boat ride for 17 Euros so we bought the tickets. The boat arrived within 15 minutes and we were off on our boat tour. The boat was enclosed in glass on the bottom floor, but there was an outdoor viewing area at the back of the boat. The tour took us up the Seine to the Botanical Gardens, then it turned around and made its way back to the Eiffel Tower.
Great views of the Eiffel tower and other sites from our river tour
We got off our boat a few stops early in order to walk back to our hotel. We had walked past the church on Boulevard Saint-Germain a few times so we decided to walk in to take a look. Apparently, Saint-Germain-des-Pres has been destroyed and restored several times. It is a mix of Roman and Gothic styles, and the latest renovation is beautiful with the marble columns and stained glass windows.
Saint-Germain-des-Pres
For dinner, I had wanted to try a restaurant called La Jacobine. It’s on a small alley right off of Boulevard Saint Germain and only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. Unfortunately, the restaurant did not serve dinner until 7:00. We knew that we had to get up early to catch a cab to the airport so we didn’t wait for it to open. The alley was very charming and was full of cafes but unfortunately, all of them weren’t open yet. We ended up walking back to Le Corner Saint-Germain for one last dinner. Seemed appropriate that we would have our last dinner in Paris at that restaurant.
Cour du Commerce Saint-Andre is a small alleyway off of Boulevard Saint Germain
Day 8
Our cab arrived for us at 5:00am. There was no traffic at that time of the day so it only took 30 minutes to get to the airport. Our week flew by so fast but we felt like we were able to see everything that we set out to. The days were cold, but the weather and the rain never interfered with any of our activities.
News about the Corona Virus was just starting to hit when we flew to Paris, but so far it was still isolated to China with some cases coming up in Rome. I saw on the United App that our flight from SFO to Paris had come from a city in China. Luckily, we’re pretty diligent about wiping down our seat and trays with disinfectant wipes. Something that we would get used to doing in the months ahead. We felt very lucky that we were able to get our trip in before the pandemic hit. We knew that it was very likely that we wouldn’t be travelling for several more months. At least we would have memories of our Paris trip to get us through the year.
