Montmartre

I slept pretty well, although there was a comical moment after sleeping super soundly for what felt like all night, I woke up and saw Beau standing up.

N: Oh hi, what time is it?

B: 11:30

N: Oh no, I really overslept!

B: No, 11:30 at night!

I finally did wake up before Beau – he’s gotten used to staying up late for work. We headed out around 9, planning to find a bakery for breakfast. At the train station it took a minute to figure out the tickets, and we had help from a kind local.

We took the train to Saint Lazare which looked similar but cleaner with brighter lights than last time I was there, 41 years ago. We took the Metro a few stops to visit Montmartre. The Metro is the same and different. Cleaner but a lot of the same feel. Now it was breakfast time so we went to our good friend David’s first recommendation: Gilles Marchal, an amazing bakery. I think it’s safe to say you can do no wrong there.

We walked up to the Sacré-Cœur basilica. It’s up on a high hill with a great view. We sat on the steps for breakfast, perfect. We opted out of entering – the line was long. Instead we walked randomly around many streets, through gardens – it’s a lovely neighborhood.

We ended up at another of David’s recommendations, La Traversée, a pretty amazing restaurant. Our reservation was for noon, right at opening time so we had our choice of tables. Beau had filet mignon and I had mussels. In a single simple word it was fantastic. I also had a tomato salad and we shared a fig dessert that was the highlight of a “10” meal. Oh and the cocktails! Wow! Come here. Also check out the origami book sculpture David left on their wall.

After a relaxing lunch we walked back to Gare Saint Lazare. The clean and efficient train got us back to Val d’Or for the short walk home. Beau started his work day while I worked on some Strava coding, then fell into a deep jetlag coma. I slept over an hour, then relaxed while Beau toiled on. We decided on a simple dinner and bought baguette, brie, veggies, hummus, and cider at the grocery store for a simple dinner. The food cost €5 each and was great – quite different from lunch, but it’s good to see you can eat well here without paying a lot. We met a really friendly guy at the store who turned out to be from Morocco and an avid cyclist. He loved hearing that I would soon be riding through his beloved country. When he saw me looking at the local beers, he said, “let me show you the best one of all” … we go over to another fridge where he proudly shows us the Lagunitas IPA, the only American beer for sale there! [They had Bud, but that’s not technically beer]

It was 10 by the time we finished eating and time for Beau to get back to work. I like being on vacation!