I actually enjoyed the Picon beer. Very tasty. Perfect for quenching your thirst after walking around the city all day. We never made it to a pure beer bar, we were too busy packing all of the Parisian sight into the 5 days we had. We'd just find a little bistro on our travels and duck inside for a quick one or two and a bite to eat.
I fell in love with the following things while there:
Bread. 50 years on this earth and I've never had bread before. I've had stuff that is sort of like bread, vaguely resembles bread but after eating a fresh, still warm baguette with butter I came to realize that I'd never eaten bread before. It was life altering.
On our first night there (after having been up for 36 +/- hours) we stopped in at the corner grocery store a few doors down from our hotel. We grabbed a bunch of stuff, wine, cheese, pate', etc for the following days picnic under the Eiffel Tower. We get back to the hotel, Alice goes in to take a shower and I tear off a piece of the baguette. By the time she's out of the shower I had polished of the whole loaf. The single best thing I've ever eaten.
4 Euros buys you a white Bordeaux that would sell for $40 here.
Parisian woman are hot. Even the ugly ones are hot. And they all smell nice.
The Metro. Ya, its a subway, big deal. But it is a nice subway. The platforms are pretty and not a bad place to wait for a train. One afternoon we ran down the steps just as the doors closed and the train pulled away. So we sat on a comfortable bench, tore into a loaf of bread, sliced up a cheese and popped the cork on one of those 4 Euro bottles of White Bordeaux from deep within the recesses of my backpack. The next train came and we just sat there and let it go. "We've still got a half bottle of wine and half a cheese. Another train will be along in 8 minutes. Drink up." Even the schizo's who were bumming money on the subway did it with a nice accent.
Crepes. Very nice. I don't have an overwhelming desire to make them at home but a nice warm treat when the wind is howling. (It was surprisingly cold and blustery when we were there.) I doubt I'll ever buy a jar of Nutella but it worked well in the crepes.
The opuance and grandeaur of the entire city was a little (a lot) over the top but it was nice for a few days.
I never knew that the Eiffel Tower glittered at night with sparkling lights. Very pretty.
The boat trip on the Seinne was great, as were Notre Dame and Sacre Seaur. (sp?)
We climbed the steps up the Eiffel Tower one night. All six billion of them. 900 meters straight up. But they serve cognac and champagne at the top so it was worth it.
Hot, bubbly, cheese fondue is the best use in the world for stale bread.
Disapointments:
The catacombs were closed cause some ********* vandalized them. That sucked, I really wanted to see them.
The Arc de Triumph was closed because of a civil service strike so we couldn't go to the tp of that. But that was the day we arrived and we were at around the 30 hour mark at that point so maybe it's just as well.
800 *****ebags trying to sell the same piece of **** tin model of the Eiffel Tower all withing three blocks of each other. "I just walked past 750 of your buddies without feeling the need to buy one of those bits of junk, do you thing because you stand in front of me and impede my progress I'm going to have a change of heart? GTFOOMW."
As in most other European countries, the words "Lung Cancer" apparently get lost in translation. At least they don't smoke in restaurants or cafe's. But EVERYONE smokes there. Quite sad.
PTN