Our adventure continues to Europe.
The last few days have been filled with adventure – even if we didn’t do anything major. We went to a small Christmas market, the Louvre for a few hours, bought some macaroons at Ladurée, walked by the Arc de Triomphe and generally had a fantastic time. So I have put up some pictures for your general enjoyment.
Our deliberate decision to try a restaurant on the Michelin three star listing was while we visited in San Sebastian Spain at Arzak. We went to this restaurant after speaking to friends who had either been to the restaurant or heard people who had been there. Arzak received its third Michelin star in 1989 and has maintained them all since that time. The lunch we had was extremely memorable and has continued to be a fond memory of our trip to Spain. Sometime after going to Arzak I learned about another listing of the 50 Best Restaurants in the world and found Arzak located at number 30.
Since that time we have visited a number of great restaurants ,two of which were on this listing – Le Caladre #29 in Rubano, Italy and The Ledbury #27 in London. Now we are in Paris where great restaurants are plentiful and there are four of the 50 best restaurants and we decided to try Arpège – listed as number #12 (lowest number on the list in Paris) for a lunch.
Arpège received its third Michelin star in 1996 and celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2016.
Owner – Chef Alain Passard removed red meat from his menu in 2001 and the following year he bought a biodynamic farm in Sarthe and since then has acquired two more farms in Eure and Manche. Produce from one of Passard’s three gardens is delivered to Arpège on a daily basis arriving just in time for lunch service. These vegetables are famously known to “never see the inside of a refrigerator”.
There were four menu options – a ‘surprise’ vegetarian menu, an a la carte menu and a tasting menu. We selected one ‘surprise’ and one tasting menu for our adventure down this road.
Wine was either by the glass or bottle and we choose to start with a glass of Champagne, added a bottle of Sancerre and a Domaine Saint Nicolas from the Loire.
Starting with the Amuse-bouche and ending with 3 desserts, the meal lasted the better part of 4 hours! Never rushed, always-attentive service and wonderful tastes were presented for our pleasure. While we tried to keep some idea of what we were having it was impossible to keep track! There was at least 12 courses and we didn’t have the same menu so there where LOTs of different things to sample. Yes, I did get a menu for review at home but even with that it is difficult to bring the pictures together with the descriptions. Pictures, below, are “maybe” in the order presented to us but it’s really hard to decide!
Would I go back to this restaurant? Without a hesitation! However, there are so many other great restaurants to try all over the world so my goal is to continue to visit those places on the listing. Next up are those five restaurants listed in the USA!
Disneyland Paris! Both Ryan and Chris had worked for Disney at the Disneyland Resort for the past 13 years or so, they had been given several park hopper passes that could be used in Paris. They were so generous to save a couple for us so on a bright sunny Tuesday; we headed out for a day of Disney Magic.
With our Metro passes, we were able to take metro and train all the way to the Park. The final stop of the train is called Marne-la-Vallèe Chessy (cheesy), which seems very appropriate according to James Bell. The metro and train ride was about an hour and we made it without any problems. The weather was very cooperative no rain, but fluffy clouds in blue skies.
First stop, Main Street and blue Christmas trees! Of course, sapphire is the color of the Disney 25th anniversary as well.
We were going to ride down main street but decided to walk – which was nice. While it is the Christmas time there really were NOT any crowds!
Onward to Peter Pan and Pinocchio rides in Fantasy Land. Both are very similar to the Anaheim rides but just different enough to be interesting and enjoyable. Neither ride was narrated which we thought was strange – but then they would have had to do the narration in both French and English.
After two rides and a quick snack, we dared to ride Big Thunder Mountain. The Island isn’t an attraction to visit like Tom Sawyer Island, but it is the home of Big Thunder Mountain.
You board the train car and it goes under the river and circumvents the island. A really good ride! From Big Thunder we boarded onto the
The Main Street Holiday parade gave us hand clapping music and colorful dancers and floats, and Santa and his reindeer. So as the sunset, we dared to view the Phantom mansion with its abandoned bride and gold rush western town ghosts.
We also did Haunted Mansion – again, no narrative but very similar to what we know.
Ryan and Chris walked through The Nautilus attraction and David & Janeen found spots in the main square near the castle to view the lights and fireworks on the castle.
Sunday, Market day and we headed off to The Bastille Market. This is one of the largest partisan markets in Paris and stretches from the Bastille and Richard Lenoir metro stations and has 150 plus stalls.
Stalls are piled high with fruit and vegetables, meats, fish, shellfish, cheese and lots and lots of other things. There was also a spattering of clothing – wallets, handbags, scarfs and even some wine.
We walked most of the market, fortunately after the rain had stopped, and picked up a few things for our kitchen.
I fully expect we will hit another one or two while we are here.
On Thursday, we flew from Edinburgh to Paris and took a cab to our VRBO apartment to join Ryan and Chris. While the apartment isn’t as close to the center of the heart of Paris, it is certainly close enough to the metro that we can get there easily enough.
Our first outing, on Friday the 8th was to get metro cards and have lunch at Le Rèminet. Of course,
we did get to Notre-Dame for a quick photo prior to going back over the river to Le Rèminet.
Le Rèminet is a small bistro we discovered during our last visit to Paris and have wanted to return. It is not far from Notre-Dame and we were the last people to get seating for the lunch period – they don’t take new reservations after 2:30 and we saw them turn several people away after we got seated.
The entire restaurant, at least on the main floor, seats only 30 people. They can put a few chairs outside but only during good weather. The entire staff was very considerate of our language issues (although Ryan is really getting quite good with speaking French) and we had a very pleasant afternoon.
From there we got back on the metro and returned to the apartment for the day.
Saturday was just a perfect sunny ‘tour’ day for visiting various places Ryan and Chris have discovered prior to our arriving with an interesting lunch at a place that serves baked potatoes with all the trimmings – you choose what you want. We also found an Office Depot store. Next time we cruise, we might need a post office, a barber, and a place that sells pillows that please David, and a nail salon for Janeen.