Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 🚗👟🚊
We wanted to enjoy our last night in Paris, so Eric tried to book a restaurant while Sarah got ready. It turned out to be pretty difficult to find a place with the minimum requirements (a view of the Eiffel Tower from Sarah and not terrible, overpriced food from Eric), so we got a late start (should we have booked earlier? Maybe).
We wanted to get a great croissant, so we went to a boulangerie called Maison D’Isabelle, which we had heard had one of the best in the city. We got two there and a saucisson sandwich. Sarah can confirm that it was the best croissant of her life—perfectly layered, crispy, buttery, and doughy. It was worth the trip!
“Un croissant, s’il vous plaît” By far the best croissant we’ve ever tried.
Eric wanted to have a meal at one last bistro, so we stopped by a place nearby called L’Annexe (which for some reason didn’t exist on Google). Sarah got the French Onion soup (which they just called onion soup), Eric got the beef tartare, and of course we got some wine. It was kind of a tough back-to-back with the bakery, but it was delicious all the same. (Also, Eric snuck out at lunch and got the hotel to put flowers for Sarah in the room. More on that later).
We wanted to get a few hours in at the Louvre, so we rushed over and got our tickets.
We also got the audio guide, which was awesome. They had recently adopted a Nintendo 3DS XL as their official guide, so we could use it as a map and select artwork to explore. It even had 3D renderings of some of the statues that we could rotate. It was the best 5€ we spent!
While two hours wasn’t quite enough, in the Louvre, 2000 hours wouldn’t be enough. We at least saw some of the major works: the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory (which was amazing), the French Crown Jewels, and the Code of Hammurabi. It was exhausting just being in the space and trying to navigate to all the major works. We learned that if you lay out all the rooms side by side, there would be over eight miles of exhibits. Crazy!
We metroed back to the hotel to relax and get ready for dinner, and found the flowers. Sarah loved them!
Eric was starting to feel a little sick, so he took a nap while Sarah went out to see if she could find a cute outfit for the night.
It turned out to be sort of a disaster trying to meet back up. Eric left to find Sarah, but missed her text that she’d moved shops by minutes (he didn’t have data or service on his phone). Luckily, he found internet in a random shop, so he was able to text Sarah, who had the data phone. We ended up at different entrances of the same shop, but we eventually did find each other. We were too late to take the metro, so we had to Uber to dinner (but we made it close to on-time).
The restaurant was on the 56th floor of the Parnasse Tower, which is the second highest structure in Paris. Perfect to see the Eiffel Tower from (which is the highest).
Ironically Sarah kept pointing out the Parnasse Tower throughout the trip asking Eric what it was. She couldn’t believe when we pulled up to dine there.
The view from our table!!!! Eric was relieved to see we weren’t right up against the window, or else he might have lost his appetite. First scaling the Eiffel Tower, and now dinner from the second tallest building in Paris, he really moves mountains for love.
Sarah was blown away by the views! We could see the Eiffel Tower in front of us. And within 15 minutes of sitting down, the clock struck 8, which meant the tower sparkled. It. Was Magical!
Eric ordered a pre-fix menu with foie gras and beef, and Sarah ordered a starter of foie gras and a main of scallops. When the food came out, we realized Sarah’s starter was probably for a whole table of people. So we ate lots of foie gras (it was delicious). We also ordered a bottle of a Bordeaux merlot, which was incredible and paired well.
The mains were very good, and we got a classic cheese dessert (which is just cheese—as a dessert) and an apple tart. Both were good, though Eric was maybe too plugged up to enjoy the cheese correctly, so we switched halfway through the meal.
We really experienced the French style of eating: the courses came about an hour apart (which was fine with us. We weren’t in a rush). The Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour, and we ended up seeing it 3 (almost 4) times. All in all, it was a perfect and romantic last dinner of the honeymoon to reminisce about the trip and get excited about starting our lives together back home.
Eric did it. He overcame his fear of heights and managed to book the most magical dinner possible for the last night of our insane 60 days, round the world, honeymoon. What a man!
We think due to the pressure change plus his recent cold, Eric started to get a pretty bad headache towards the end of dinner. We had to hurry back to the hotel to get some cold medicine.
We packed (one last time!) and tried to get to bed. Our flight was at 7:10, so we wouldn’t be getting much sleep.
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