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<\/a><\/p>\nYou could summarize our stay in Paris by saying that we ate, we shopped, and we museumed.\u00a0 (I know, it\u2019s not actually a word, but it completed the phrase nicely.)\u00a0 We started off with lunch our first day at a brasserie called Chez Francis within walking distance of the hotel, and we concluded the day by having a fabulous meal at Shang Palace in the hotel, which is the only Michelin 2 star Chinese restaurant in the city.\u00a0 The 2 stars are well deserved, as the meal was amazing.\u00a0 Other memorable meal moments were the brasseries Le Troquet (which was like eating a fabulous meal in a neighbor\u2019s dining room), Le Stella (another excellent brasserie), Le Bistrot de Halles (with some of the best duck comfit we ever had), Julien (excellent French onion soup), and La Closerie des Lilas (overall goodness).\u00a0 The high end restaurants we ate at and loved were Taillevent and Guy Savoy.\u00a0 And, of course, Berthillon for ice cream.\u00a0 More will be written about all of these in my Paris travel tome.<\/p>\n
Museums that we recommend include the Musee de Moyen Age also known as Musee de Cluny, a museum with various artifacts from the Middle Ages.\u00a0 The big attraction there are The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries.\u00a0 Although as our daughter said, the lion is doing just as much work so why does the unicorn get all the attention?\u00a0 The museum is small but lovely.\u00a0 In addition to the numerous artifacts from the middle ages, there are also works from the Roman era, mostly statuary and baths.<\/p>\n
We also walked through the Pantheon, which doesn’t have the austere simplicity of Rome’s version but does have Foucault’s Pendulum and memorials to many of France’s most revered writers like Rousseau and Voltaire as well as tributes to their fallen military, starting with the French Revolution.\u00a0 They had a moving tribute to those who died maintaining the honor of France in 1870, and it took me a moment to figure out what conflict that was.\u00a0 (It was the Franco-Prussian war.)<\/p>\n
The Arc de Triomphe is a great place to climb up what is a fairly steep spiral staircase and looked at the gorgeous views of Paris.<\/p>\n
The Musee d’Orsay has a lovely collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings.<\/p>\n And, of course, the museum of all museums is the Louvre.\u00a0 The custodial staff was on strike so the bathrooms, while reasonably clean, were a little short on amenities such as toilet paper.\u00a0 We had a lovely tour guide that showed us the highlights of the museum (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, etc.) as well as showing us the evolution of Renaissance paintings through the Italian painters.\u00a0 We also went through the Egyptian antiquities section, where both kids showed a surprising amount of knowledge and interest.<\/p>\n Another must see site is Versaille, of course.\u00a0 The building interior has very little appeal other than the Hall of Mirrors.\u00a0 None of the furnishings or wallpaper or draperies is original, as looters during the French Revolution took away anything of value they could carry.\u00a0 And Louis XIV himself considered the gardens to be the main attraction at Versailles.\u00a0 In addition to the formal gardens, which held several ballrooms and other enclosed “rooms” that gave an illusion of privacy for the king, we also visited Le Petit Trianon, which was built by Louis XV for his mistresses.\u00a0 Louis XVI then gifted it to Marie- Antoinette, and she built The Hamlet on the grounds of Le Petit Trianon.\u00a0 The Hamlet was fascinating.\u00a0 If you could build an idealized version of village life, with the illusion of simplicity and privacy but with all the luxuries you could afford, it would look like The Hamlet.\u00a0 There were rustic looking buildings (from the outside) that were lavishly decorated with marble and gilt on the inside that served as her bedroom, boudoir, etc.\u00a0 She even hired a farm family to look after livestock and had a garden planted with herbs and vegetables used to feed the family.\u00a0 It may be the first high-end organically sourced farm in the world.\u00a0 :).<\/p>\n The church we most enjoyed visiting was Sainte Chapelle.\u00a0 I like it better than Notre Dame.\u00a0 (I know that\u2019s heresy.)\u00a0 The stained glass windows are breathless, and the entire church is an engineering marvel.\u00a0 In over seven hundred years, they have never found a crack.\u00a0 This is unlike Notre Dame where they found cracks before construction was complete, hence, the flying buttresses.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n