Museum Madness

This morning we transferred from our boutique hotel to the one the record company would pay for as part of our grand prize trip. As we were checking out of the hotel, we rode the elevator with an employee who asked where we were from. I said “Los Angeles, California,” and she said “Ooooh! I’ve always dreamt of going there!” How crazy is that?! Here we are in the most beautiful city we’ve ever seen and this Parisian girl’s dream is to go to LA?

To say bon voyage to our neighborhood, we had a nice leisurely breakfast of croissants, omlettes, coffee and juice at a small café. As we took a taxi to Montparnasse, I surprised the cab driver with something my friend, Alexis, taught me. The cab driver sneezed and I immediately responded “a tes souhaits” (or “bless you” in French). He chuckled (as I had probably butchered the pronunciation) and smiled, saying “Merci,” to which I responded, “De rien.” At that point I had cashed out all of the French words I know. Thank you, Alexis, for teaching me those little French phrases that came in handy along the way!

After checking in to our last hotel of the trip, we were determined to take advantage of the second and last day of our Museum Pass. Kyle was starting to feel better today, so we set out with an ambitious schedule of knocking more things off our “must do” list.

First, we went to the Musee d’Orsay, which soon became our favorite museum in Paris. The building is an old train station now outfitted to house some of the greatest artwork in the world. The most remarkable of which was the collection of Impressionist paintings by Monet, Renoir, Manet and Degas. It was mind blowing to wander from room to room taking in the works of these incredible talents. While each of these artists is brilliant, we agreed that Monet is an absolute genius. We stared at his works up close and then stepped across the room to take in the full picture. We felt frozen in time as we stood looking at his work in amazement and contemplating how he had such vision to create so many masterpieces. This was the sublime experience that was lacking at the Louvre!

After pulling ourselves away from the Impressionist paintings and works of Van Gogh, we decided to stop by the Musee de l’Orangerie to see Monet’s water lilies. On the way there we shared our first crepe of the trip. The texture was light and doughy, and it was filled with creamy, melty Nutella. Mmmmmmm melty!

On the way to the Orangerie, we crossed the bridge to left bank. The chain link fence on the bridge was filled with padlocks (just like those we had seen on the Via dell’Amore walk in Cinque Terre!). The bike tour guide told us it was common practice for lovers to walk the bridge, put a padlock on the fence and throw away the keys in the Seine River. While I don’t condone littering, I was all about this lover ritual. Kyle took a picture as I wrote on the lock with a marker and locked it on the fence. Then he threw the keys into the river. Now our love was locked over Paris—very fitting for a city we were falling in love with!

After our leisurely walk, we arrived at the Musee de l’Orangerie. Here, eight of Monet’s water lily paintings are on in display in a simple, impactful way. Two oval-shaped rooms display four paintings each—one per white wall with natural sunlight shining in from the roof above. Benches through the center of the room allowed onlookers to sit and soak in the beauty of the paintings surrounding us. The stark white walls made the vibrant colors from the paintings stand out even more. This experience confirmed that our next trip to Paris, we must go to Giverny to see Monet’s house and the gardens that inspired these paintings.

We decided to round out “Museum Madness Day” (as we later deemed it) by going to the museum of modern art, the Centre Pompidou. The building is ultra modern design. We realized that we saw it from Notre Dame the day before and wondered what that bizarre, high-tech building was. And now here we were! While modern art is more Kyle’s aesthetic than mine, I admired the work of Picasso and Warhol. We only found one Dali painting for Kyle, but since we had seen so many works of art already today, he was satisfied with that.

We worked up an appetite looking at all that art work, so an early dinner was in order. Right before we left for the trip we saw a special episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show, No Resrevations, on Paris cuisine. He went to a small restaurant called Les Cocottes de Christian Constant. The food looked great and the atmosphere looked fun, so we decided to check it out. We read online that—true to the title of Bourdain’s show—the restaurant does not take reservations, so you’d better get there early if you didn’t want to wait hours for a seat.

We showed up just after the restaurant opened at 7 p.m. and got right in. There are a couple of tables for large parties, but the main seating runs down the center of the restaurant where diners sit side-by-side on high chairs at a bar. The menu changes based on what’s in season, so we knew whatever we ordered would be made from fresh, local ingredients.

To start, I ordered a rich and hearty mushroom soup with duck and croutons. This was no Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup, my friends! Kyle had tuna salad, with a layer of eggplant on the bottom, flaked tuna in the middle, and beads of tomato jelly on top that acted like caviar. Kyle said, “I have no idea what I’m eating, but it tastes delicious.” Adventure bites pay off!

For the main course, I had sea bass with a sweet, white corn foam, clams and artichoke hearts. Kyle ordered pork loin with sundried tomato, onion, garlic and roasted potatoes. Both entrees (yes, I tried the pork loin!) were incredible. The fish practically melted in my mouth, and while I usually don’t like clams, the sweet corn sauce made them taste like candy of the sea. Kyle’s pork loin was juicy, as the garlic, onion and parsley sauce below soaked in to the loin that was presented in the cocette (a shallow baking dish). For dessert we had red berry cobbler, filled with raspberries, cherries and tart cranberries. The berries were just the right blend of tart and sweet.

While we’d consider the food fine dining, the countertop seating and presentation of the food made it feel like more casual atmosphere, which we loved. We would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone who’s visiting Paris, and we plan to go back next time!

Since it’s not possible for us to go a day without climbing a ridiculous amount of stairs to the top of something, we ended the night with a climb to the top of the Arc de Triumph. From this vantage point we watched the sun set over Paris in all directions as traffic whizzed by the major intersection below.