Paris, je t'aime! - Our arrival to the City of Lights

This is my LONG overdue trip report on Paris. Being that this trip was over 1 year ago, I am going to try and recall all that I can.  Can we say SLACKER???

We arrived in Paris via Easy Jet (from Pisa). We went with Easy Jet over Ryan Air because it flew into ORLY and from all my research it sounded like the Ryan Air airport was much further from central Paris.  The flight was easy peasy. We gathered our luggage and immediately bought Paris Pass from the info desk which was located right near the baggage claim.

We decided to put on our big boy pants and use public transportation to get to our hotel. From ORLY we had to board a bus (Orlybus), which was a little confusing and not at all efficient. We had to buy tickets from a little machine that didn't seem to work well (there was a huge line and everything was really frustrated with this machine), plus everything was in French so it was a little complicated. Cayce bought the tickets while I waited with our luggage and I could tell he didn't really know what he bought but we went with it and boarded the bus with no problem.  We had secret fears that someone would come collect our tickets on our way there (like they do on trains) and we wouldn't have the right ones and we would be thrown out but that didn't happen!  The bus was really crowded but we were able to find seats. We also go yelled at in French, we still aren't really sure why, but this person didn't seem to like where we had put our bags!

Once we arrived at the RER station (Denfert-Rochereau), things got interesting. We needed to catch the train into Paris, and I thought finding our line (RER C) would be easy enough. Wrong. Thank god for a nice older French woman who could tell we were lost and rescued us. Even though she couldn't speak a lick of English and we couldn't speak a lick of French, we were able to point out on our map where we were trying to go and she, so thoughtfully, walked us to our train. And who says the French are rude - au contraire! 

We were staying at the Holiday Inn Notre Dame which was  located (2 blocks or so) near the Saint-Michel Notre Dame stop.  Stepping out from the Saint-Michel station, I was immediately head-over-heels for Paris.  The weather was a perfect 68 degrees (much welcomed from our 100+ days in Italy) and everything was absolutely picturesque.  We stayed on Priority Club points here, if you are a point collector I would highly recommend using points at this hotel! 

We found our hotel and got all checked in.  By this time it was about 4pm.  Our hotel, although small, was great.  Upon first impression it looked like the hotel was recently updated.  Our room was very modern.  If you remember, the last place we stayed in Cinque Terre was my least favorite so it was really nice to open the door to a nice big comfy bed complete with down pillows and feather comforter. 

Holiday Inn Notre Dame - From Holiday Inn Site

We were both so excited to be in Paris we dropped our bags and headed out to explore our hood.  After doing a little window shopping and picking up some wine we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner.  As you know, we had terrible luck with food up to this point so I was determined to find a good meal.  We got all ready and I pulled up trusty Tripadvisor on the iPad (free WI-FI, yay!).  We wanted something fairly close as we were starving so we settled on L’Epigramme because of the great reviews and it’s close proximity (up 1 block and around the corner).

We got to the restaurant and it was VERY small, it maybe had 6 tables and they were all full except for one.  Cayce and I both got a little shy and intimidated at this point as we looked out from the dark street into the cozy restaurant, imagining that everyone inside was friends with one another and we might be shunned for being Americans and we almost turned around.  THANK GOD WE DIDN’T!  We ended up going in and having one of the best meals of our entire lives (and actually nobody knew each other, it just happened to be a very talkative group of strangers!).  Not only was the meal great, but the owners of the restaurant were so kind and gracious, walking us through the menu even with their limited English.  The menu was pre-fixe and I had  escargot as a starter, duck as an entree and crème brulee for dessert.  Cayce had the fois gras, chicken and flourless chocolate molten heavely cake.  Seriously, the cake was TO. DIE.  FOR!  We also polished off a bottle of wine before heading back for a wonderful sleep.  Full belly + comfy bed = happy girl!