Paris - Touristy days with Pooey

Due to Smee's hatred of Paris, Pooey has been waiting for the francophile me and Lydia to arrive to make her visit more pleasant than Smee's.

We kicked it all off with a good French lunch - a trip to various stores to get baguettes, two different cheeses, some mousse de canard and a whole lot of fruit in Place de Vosges. The food was nummy-nummy-num-NUM!!!! She doesn't look too happy in this picture, but take my word for it, she was pleased.We also met some really cute French toddlers. I think its their clothes that make them so cute. Particularly this little girl who kept coming towards us and our fruit, then running away. But she did eventually take our offer of a strawberry and Pooey has photographic proof (above)! As Lydia has been to Paris many times before, we split up and I took Pooey on a walk down to Rue de Rivoli to Notre Dame where tourists were allowed inside, even though there was a full on service going on at the time. Doing our best Catholic impersonations, we took photos of the various altars and went to climb the bell tower...which we ended up not doing because the queue was really long and even worse, not moving. So we took a pleasant walk down the banks of the Seine to the Musee d'Orsay to see Impressionist works.

The Hotel de Ville (town hall) where gendarmes searched our bags

Naughty photo of he Notre Dame service - should have at least kicked the tourists out during it!

Pooey with a Monet

Fun with the polar bear!

Lydia rang to say that she was at the Tuileries and did we want to drink chocolat at L'Angelina, a chocolate shop on the Rue de Rivoli that's been selling cakes and drinks since the 19th century, complete with decor. As a review on Tripadvisor says, 'Hot chocolat oui, service non'. While I understand that the waiting staff are to memorise the entire order rather than write it down, the waitress forgot my chocolat a l'ancienne! And they ran out of the specialty Mont Blanc cake that Pooey was really looking forward to enjoying. Ah well, c'est Paris - c'est la vie! But a highlight was the very cute doggie that was sitting only a few tables away from us.

Enjoying my substitute apple tart

The happy dog

Yes, they do allow doggies into Paris cafes.

That night, we went and did something that Pooey has been craving for ever since she went to London - finding good, authentic Pho! We went down to the 13th arrondissement and joined the
queue to get big steaming bowls of pho dac biet and a pho bo for Lydia.

Where we had our pho

Asian Maccas!

And all continued to be well in the Ville Lumière (a.k.a Paris).