Canal Saint-Martin

This can’t continue…it has been a beautiful day again. We had our last museum day - the Musée des arts décoratifs. Got there early - found our tickets were for 11 o’clock, so we again wandered to Concorde and relaxed in the sun till it was time. The museum had a special exhibit on Cartier and Islamic art. That was so lovely - with so many exhibits showing the influence of the Islamic geometric designs which was so prevalent in the early 20th century, and the beautiful jewellery….there was also a history of photography exhibit which wasn’t too exciting, and the permanent exhibits were also not fabulous - some good art nouveau furniture, but the Art Deco section was closed.

After that we had a “light” refreshment in a cafe, but it is never as light as you hope! We wanted to save ourselves for tonight’s dinner at La Coupole - a beautiful art deco restaurant where we went with Michael and family, and Omnia, in 2015! (Where James says he still vividly remembers that I had snails!).

After lunch we did more walking, along rue St Honoré, (popped into the Jaeger le Coultre store to see their reverso exhibition), up the Champs Elysées, round the étoile (the Arc de Triomphe is surrounded by cranes at the moment) to Ave Foch and admired the magnificent apartment buildings and wide boulevards. Beautiful. And though there are always many people walking round those places, there is still a conspicuous lack of tourists - asians, Americans and arabs. All of Paris seems to have had a cleaning during the lockdown - many had already been spruced up, but now the stone buildings are gleaming, and the gold trim everywhere is almost too bright and shiny! But it all looks good. Dinner report later.

Well now time for the dinner report…and maybe we had the best night of the trip!! We went by bus - we discovered a bus from here to Montparnasse, which works perfectly…slight panic as Amr (the efficient one) thought the booking was for 8 and found it was for 7.30…so we raced out the door, ran for a bus which had just come (running across a red man pedestrian light) and got there just about on time. Wonderful large space, art deco and a real vibe. We had a crazy waiter which was a bonus…first he said to Amr you are stressed and gave him a shoulder massage!! So that was a good start…he kept joking all night - in a good way - and recommended an Alsace Pinot, said it was better than what Amr had been going to order (and cheaper) and it was delicious. It is a large restaurant and it totally filled up. We had a Dutch (Dutch and Italian actually) couple next to us who we had a chat to, but when they left their table was very quickly filled…the streamlining of these restaurants is amazing to watch…and Amr had commented that one section was empty, when on the dot of 9 o’clock 60 young and gorgeous people all trooped in for some celebration- probably birthday as they were all much the same age…buzzing and buzzing…we saw them light a sparkler effect on an artificial cake to sing joyeux anniversaire for someone at a nearby table…then before we knew it, they did it to us, and sang it in English! Quite crazy! And our waiter took photos, and did one as a selfie, which just gets the top of his bald head, but it shows the room and vibe a bit.

The food was superb. I had an entrée of 6 snails, so I could show James another photo of it in the same restaurant, Omnia had onion soup and Amr had a Guinea fowl and pistachio pâté. For mains Amr had kidneys in mustard sauce with spinach - delicious and what I would normally have ordered, but these days I only want small amounts and enjoyed having tastings of his! Omnia had a great seafood dish and I had a cheesy ravioli dish..yum. We got 2 desserts - Omnia chose profiteroles as she was looking for the perfect one, and I had a pavlova with chestnut cream and mandarins…both wonderful. Hard to relate the true feel of the night, but it was one of the best!Read more