Day 2 (2025) - Dive Right In

Today was a day to explore. Our first stop was the Montmartre area of Paris. We took the metro from the hotel and got off at the Abbesses station, as this was described in my research as the "heart of Montmartre." While that was true, what none of these web sites that suggested this station as the starting point happened to mention was the 180 steps that were required to get from the train to the "heart of Montmartre." After trudging up the many, many steps, we emerged (tired but triumphant) into Montmartre.

We really didn't have any particular plan, route or destination in mind. The only place we wanted to find at some point was a gluten-free bakery that I had noticed on Google Maps when doing my planning. Turns out this place was also mentioned in a blog that Debbie had read. So since we didn't have any other goal in mind we looked up the address of the bakery and headed there. After a short walk we found the bakery, looked in, but didn't buy anything right away. 

We went on our way and kept exploring, yet somehow the gluten-free gods must have been guiding us because within a short period of time, lo and behold we found ourselves back in front of the bakery. This was clearly a sign. And who are we to ignore signs. So this time in we went. Debbie (stunningly) chose a pain au chocolat and I chose some sort of variation of the same. I think mine had walnuts on it, but all I know was that it was a little different.

As you may be aware, typically gluten-free means not as good. But in this case that would be wrong. These were outstanding! It took some serious will power not to get something else. We considered buying a loaf of bread to eat along the walk, but didn't.

We walked around a bit more, mostly to work off the pain au chocolats (or is it pains au chocolat?), and after a while started to get hungry for lunch. We did a little Googling and found a few places that looked interesting. I set up the route on Maps and away we went. We found the first place and checked out the menu but decided to check out door #2. When we got to the second place, La Bossue, we decided to try it.

They seated us again at a cute little round table, with chairs barely above the ground. The decor was very cute and, according to Debbie, "Friends-like." Her observation proved accurate when we looked at the menu and a few of the items were subtitled "The One With The ..." And if you know Friends, you know that every episode's title starts with "The One With The ..." 

We had a lovely lunch, well that was until Debbie asked the waitress for hot water. She looked at Debbie with a very confused face and said something like "just hot water?" Debbie said yes whereby the waitress said "No tea?" Debbie said "That's OK, I have my own tea." The waitress then looked like this was the most offensive thing she had ever heard and said "No, you can't do that. We have our own tea." In order to keep what is left of world peace, Debbie passed on the hot water and we finished up and paid.

We then headed towards Sacré Cœur with the idea of checking it out from the outside then catching a metro to the Le Marais area.

We trudged up the hill of Montmartre towards Sacré-Cœur, and walked along the Instagram-famous street, Rue de l'Abreuvoir, and reached the Sacré-Cœur area. 

This area has a ton of artists in a square right outside the basilica. We walked around the artist area for a few minutes and then headed towards the metro. 

Unfortunately, the station we needed to take to get to Le Marais was a bit of a walk and eventually took us into an area that, let's just say, was very different from Montmartre. But we got the station and headed to Le Marais. 

There wasn't anything we really wanted to see in the area - that is except for a well-known falafel stand, L'As Due Falafel. More than one person had said we had to try the falafel there, so who are we to say no? We strolled around Le Marais with the falafel stand in mind and after a short time we arrived at the stand. There was a line, but not a very long line, and there was a guy taking pre-orders from those in line, so we didn't have a lot of time to check out our options. Thus, under immense pressure we simply ordered two falafel pitas.

Our first thought upon getting them was that one would have been enough to share, and the second thought was how do we eat this? This is where our strategies diverged. Debbie asked for a fork so should could very carefully and cleanly eat the sandwich. I, on the other hand, basically stuck my face into and bit down. While her way was most definitely neater, my way worked just fine, if I may say so myself. And not only did I enjoy it my way, so did all of the pigeons that filled up on the scraps that I ended up dropping on the ground. Oh, and that first thought that we could have shared one? Yeah, that was incorrect. We each polished off most, if not all of our own.

After we finished and I hosed myself down, we headed back to the hotel to await the arrival of the first addition to our trip - Amanda was flying in from Vienna. We got back to the hotel a little before she arrived and greeted her with long-awaited hugs and kisses when she came into the lobby. We headed up to our rooms, really a two bedroom suite with a shared hallway, and freshened up before we headed out to dinner.

For dinner I had made a reservation at a restaurant my parents frequent when they come to Paris, Le Souffle. And if the context clue of the name wasn't very obvious, they are known for their many types of souffles. You can get them as appetizers, main courses and desserts, and that's exactly what I did. After walking through the Tuileries Garden we arrived at the restaurant basically as it opened and were seated right away.

Amanda got a salad appetizer and Debbie passed on a first course, so I was the only one going for the trifecta. I got a blue cheese souffle appetizer, a chicken and mushroom soufflé for my main course and an apple soufflé for dessert. After dinner I kinda felt like one big combined soufflé had formed in my stomach. Amanda got some sort of spinach based soufflé for dinner and a chocolate soufflé for dessert, while Debbie made the rookie mistake of getting an artichoke and haddock soufflé for dinner, and the pear and chocolate soufflé for dessert. After a few bites of her dinner she recognized the error of her ways, so I shared mine with her. While each of the soufflés, other than Debbie's, were good, I think we all felt a little overdosed on soufflés.

After dinner we tried to walk back through the Tuileries again, but it was closed for the evening so we had to walk around. We were able to see the Eiffel Tower lit up on our walk, and we made a pact to get a better view tomorrow night. Each night at the top of the hour the tower sparkles for 10 minutes and it's evidently a big deal and Amanda felt she could not leave Paris without the perfect Instagram view. So that's the plan for tomorrow night. As for tonight, we souffléd, I mean sauntered, home and called it a night.

Brian arrives tomorrow (Saturday) morning early and we have a full day of sightseeing planned, including the Rodin Garden, Notre Dame and going to the top of the Eiffel Tower.