Day 2 - Huitres and Hemingway

Day Two in Paris was wonderful. It was cold and sunny again and we started the day at the Tuileries Garden and Musee L'Orangerie, where Monet's gorgeous Water Lilies are displayed. There is a white room that you have to enter before you get to the paintings. Monet designed the room so that Parisians could decompress from the bustle of city life and find a space to relax and be filled with the beauty of art. Loved that.

Lunch was divine at Huitrerie Regis in St-Germain. A tiny little restaurant run by two gentlemen (one shucking oysters, the other pouring Sancerre and delivering the goods to the tables), it had all white walls with hundreds of white feathers hanging from the ceiling. The oysters were amazing, served with good bread butter and a glass of Sancerre, and of course a cafe at the end.

We continued walking around St-Germain, stopping in little shops along the way and strolling through the Luxembourg Gardens. We visited Chapon, an amazing little chocolate shop, for macarons and truffles.

We also walked into historically significant places like the churches of St. Germain des Pres and St. Sulpice, and other important places like Louis Vuitton and the new Hermes flagship store. The Hermes store was so cool with these wooden structures and different levels... kind of hard to explain but it was a feast for the eyes. In the front of the store there was a florist with luscious displays of flowers.

We ate dinner at Les Papilles, where we had a fantastic four-course meal in this tiny bistro-slash-wine shop.

After dinner (and cafe!) we decided we were up for trying out the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz. David read about it somewhere - it has this celebrated mixologist and was Hemingway's favorite drinking hole in Paris (hence the name) - so we changed into nicer clothes and headed that way. The cocktails were expensive but superb and worth the experience... plus we got a great view of the Opera at night! Until the next blog... au revoir!