Day 1 The yin and yang of travel

I can't complain about the journey part of our trip, although it was exhausting it went off pretty flawlessly. The flights totaled about 10 hours with layovers, then about 30 minutes to get our bags, another 30 to get train tickets into the city, and a 40 minute train ride to our awesome little hotel, up the stairs and into bed for a 2 hour nap.  We really wanted to get a nice fresh look at the city without the lack of sleep to cloud our vision.

After our nap, we washed up and packed a bag and started walking. Right away we realized that pictures can't do Paris justice.  Although we've only seen a little piece so far, the colors and beauty of the architecture is incredible.  Cafe after cafe with great looking food, wine, and coffee drinks.  We walked down Saint-Germain, which was once an artsy college student filled area, is now a little more touristy, but still a really nice place to walk around or sit in a cafe on the street people watching.  So that is what we did, we found a little street side table to get a quick bite and a .5 liter of white wine,  (Vin Blanc).  Our french is pretty much non existent, but we tried and as many people told us, it goes a long way.  I will jump ahead and say everyone we met has been excellent, and very accepting of our lack of french. At any rate, this is a little silly, but I will embarrass us to give you a laugh.  We ordered what we thought was a cheese plate with our wine. Out comes a plate of fettuccine Alfredo.  Yes, our first meal in France was Italian... With that said, it was a great fettuccine Alfredo, four really nice cheeses, over homemade pasta.

Sorry I need to speed this up, we have exploring to do.. After lunch we walked around a bunch, walked to Notre Dame which was massive and very overwhelming inside.  We walked over a few bridges crossing the river Seine, and over to the Pantheon.  We both really fell in love with the city, right off the bat.  The architecture is just stunning.  We hit another cafe for more wine, before heading back to get dressed for dinner.




For dinner we ate at a 10 table restaurant called L'estrapade, the owner, chef, and waiter took care of us. We were the only Americans in the place.  We had 2 apps: fois gras with bread and a tomato paste type sauce, and an apple, shrimp, and avacado dish with a mayo based sauce holding it together.  Both were really great. We had a half bottle of viognier.   For our meals, Allison, the women who hate birds got her revenge on a confit pigeon stuffed with fois gras, once again amazing, I could live off pigeon.  Allison is awesome in my opinion for being so daring, and she really enjoyed it.  I got a whole sea bass, delicious, skin and all..  At the end of the meal the chef brought us to the bar for a shot calvados since it was our honeymoon.  He's a great guy and has a really great restaurant.. A++ meal

After dinner we walked along the river Seine some more and strolled around to work off that meal. Paris is a very romantic place, we made the right decision to visit, no doubt!