Nous sommes à Paris!

Tuesday April 5 was a beautiful sunny day in Marseille.  We went out to get a few provisions for our train ride and headed out to the station for the 12:02 fast train to Paris.  We took the Metro as the Train Station was only two stops away from the Old Port Metro- a five minute walk from our apartment.

Farewell to the Vieux Port

The older part of the Gare de Marseille Saint Charles

Our train left one minute early and had only brief stops in Aix-en-Provence and Avignon.  We arrived at Gare de Lyon, Paris at exactly 3:24 p.m. - on time and a smooth ride with very good WIFI.  Amazing to cover 770 km in 3 hours and 20 minutes.  If only we had a fast train between Toronto and Montreal -540 km and it presently takes about two hours longer for a shorter distance!!

Paris was cloudy with a high of only 14C.  I think the beautiful warm weather that Paris had a few weeks ago has long departed and it is going to be cloudy, cool and rainy when we are here.

Modern train station at Avignon

We took a taxi over to our Airbnb on Rue du Fer à Moulin in the 5th arrondissement (Latin Quarter).

We have stayed in the complex before.  This time we are in a small studio apartment on the third floor of the first building in the courtyard.

Courtyard of buildings- we're on the right side

The place is small, but very efficiently organised - there is even a washing machine in the bathroom.

Toaster, kettle, microwave, stovetop and small fridge. 

The sofa bed

Kitchen

Small but well lit 

View from our window- too bad it is cloudy

We first had to deal with one issue.  For a number of years I have been asking Alain why he locks his luggage with tiny keys.  It always seemed to me that it would be very easy to lose the keys, and if someone was really going to steal luggage, they would just walk off with it, if it were left alone.  Well, it finally happened today.  Alain lost/mislaid his luggage keys which he discovered only after we left the apartment in Marseille.   On the train, I researched hardware stores near our apartment in Paris and found one four minutes away.  We put the rest of the luggage in the apartment and then rolled Alain's suitcase to the hardware store.  They cut the lock, at no charge, and then we took it with us when we bought some food/wine on Rue Mouffetard, the market street near us.

Teddy at the Wine store

Wonderful Androuet cheese shop on Rue Mouffetard

Inside of the store- very helpful staff

We bought two fish meals here

There are a number of fruit/vegetable stores on the street

We dropped our purchases back at the apartment and then went to have a coffee at Loutsa Torréfacteur, a place we had passed on the way to Rue Mouffetard.  We had a nice chat with the woman working there and promised to come back and show her our nanopresso travel espresso maker!

Lots of coffee roasted on site

Alain with his macchiato

We continued our walk in the 5th and 6th arrondissement- eventually heading to the Seine.

The wonderful Paris flower/plant stores- roses inside

Alain Ducasse chocolates for Easter-- very elaborate-- even a lobster chocolate

We passed a tent for antigen testing. No one was being tested when we passed.

Antigen testing tent

                                                          Lots of Easter chocolate windows

graffiti

Don't know about all those Teddys...

We stopped at Le Labo perfume store where I had a small bottle made up on-site.  There is a Le Labo store on Queen Street but they don't sell the small size.  I am trying a new scent.  One has to wait three days before wearing it, but the salesperson gave me a sample to use in the meantime.

Le Labo store on a very small street in the 6th

Concocting my perfume 

We passed some more chocolate shops with very cool windows.

Bunny looking at fish

Tin Tin in the chocolate forest

Lots of wonderful galleries on Rue de Seine

Cherry blossom time in Paris

Great sign outside a photo gallery

So nice seeing cherry blossoms in early April

Alain wanted to see the Seine tonight, so we walked down to Pont des Arts.

"We'll always have Paris"

We walked along the Quai and the light was quite beautiful on Notre Dame.

Notre Dame aglow

We stopped at Shakespeare and Company, but they were just closing at 8:00 p.m.  We have often gone there for readings in the past, but they have not restarted their program yet.

Lovely cherry tree outside Shakespeare and Company

We then walked back to the apartment.  Alain set up some cheese appetizers and then cooked our merlan white fish with some green beans.  We had some very nice red wine and some Marseille cookies for dessert.  Looking forward to spending the last week of our holiday exploring Paris.