Wendy's Platter…travels

September 28, 2025

Nick has found his only clean clothes to head off to do our laundry in the teal backpack. After a hard morning at the laundromat, he decided to catch up on the news. The day was relaxing, the news was not.

With two weeks of travel and more than 50,000 steps taken in the first few days of Paris, it was time to catch up on emails, laundry, and give ourselves a little down time. Nick did what is his “comfort food,” loaded up with laundry, and went in search of a laundromat. I did what was my “comfort food” and started writing my blog for Euro Days 9 to 12. The gray, somewhat drizzly day was well-suited to our tasks.

By late afternoon, the laundry was done, the blog posted, and we were ready to get back to exploration. As usual, our exploration was one for food. We had made a pact with each other that while in Paris we would concentrate on true Parisian fare. Of course, Paris has global culinary delights and Nick’s hankering for Italian food was justified by knowing that we had cut Italy out of this trip. So it was “OK” for us to deviate from our Paris-only fare.

Nick is making sure the calamari is properly seasoned. I am making sure the risotto is properly al dente. Both were perfect.

Winding through the streets of the Marais, our greater neighborhood in Paris, we found a small Italian bistrot that looked inviting. Although we had both assumed pasta would be our dinner, the plat du jour was risotto with shrimp and lobster. Risotto it was. Although we shared the dish, we still had enough for lunch the next day which we took home.

[Side note: I am writing this with a glass of champagne at my side, a fresh baguette, and duck pâté after spending the day walking up to the top of Le Mont Saint Michelle. But that will be a story for the next post.]

We had booked a tour of Notre Dame Cathedral for 3:30 in the afternoon. Yes, we had already been inside, but we wanted the real “inside” story from an expert. We left our apartment in the morning headed to the Crypte Archaeologique on the Île de la Cité, in front of and (almost) underneath where Notre Dame holds court. Our friends Nancy and Steve McLaughlin recommended going down not only into the crypte but back into the history of Paris.

Nick is considering how we could add a basement under of our cement slab foundation. The treasures of Paris span millennia and are enticing at every level.

During excavations in the 1960s and 1970s for a parking garage under the parvis in front of Notre Dame, archaeological remains of Lutetia, the Roman city from the 3^rd and 4^th century on the site, were found. Not only the walls of buildings and staircases were unearthed but objects of human settlement, from pots and eating utensils to tokens and religious artifacts. As you climb down into the crypt you follow a path through the underground ruins that is presented chronologically to show the development of Paris over the last two millennia. Being a sucker for Roman and Greek influences, I was mesmerized.

Weiner schnitzel or escalope de veau viennoise. Note the shredded egg white towards Nick and the shredded egg yolk towards me with a healthy pile of chopped capers (very mild peppers) next to that. Of course, the mandatory potatoes were there. On the right, I caught Nick looking at me, thinking he was enthralled with the Notre Dame spire, only to find out that he was truly enthralled with the huge crane being used to reconstruct the roof of Notre Dame.

Lunch was on a corner café with the scaffolding of Notre Dame in the distance. We chose to share an escalope de veau viennoise. It turned out to be weiner schnitzel which was not Parisian but delicious, particularly with the additional condiments of grated hard-boiled egg, capers, and Dijon mustard.

Our animated guide never stopped talking during the 2.5 hours we were with her. There were only two couples, Nick and me, plus the couple in front of us from Michigan. The guide had a bit of school marm in her manner which kept us, her “pupils,” sharing a little eye-rolling at times. One of the many things pointed out by our guide was that Notre Dame was purposefully designed not to be “perfect” as that was an abomination to God. See if you can note some of the differences in the photo above,

Our tour guide of Notre Dame, as expected, had an amazing knowledge of each nook, cranny, and gargoyle of the edifice. We sat on the bleachers across the plaza while our guide took us through the façade explaining to us the doors, the lintels (above the doors), the row of Hebrew kings, the gargoyles that not only kept away evil spirits but also the destructive rainwater, among other features.

Next was getting into the cathedral. The very long line into the cathedral went very fast, almost at the pace of walking. Once inside, our guide, talking quietly, explained each alcove, the architecture, the history, and pointed out the new items, the restored items, and generally the exquisite beauty of each detail. Although I had been in Notre Dame several times, I could now embrace a small piece of its history and grandeur. One of the fun moments was hearing, over the loudspeaker a woman’s voice, “Shhhhh” and quietly reminding all in the cathedral to talk respectfully, I loved hearing the “Shhhhhhh” every few minutes.

The restoration of Notre Dame after the fire of 2019 was a monumental task that President Macron claimed would be done within five years. And it was give or take a few months. Consider the pipe organ, one of the largest in France with 8,000 pipes that had to be disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled, then tuned. Consider the wooden spire that hat completely burned. thus making the reconstruction dependent on felling new oak trees; the damage to every nook and cranny, every painting, the pews, the relics. And as for the relics, there were housed in a glass safe that, under pressure the keeper of the relics could remove in time. The firemen had to “break the glass” to save the precious religious relics. In the reconstruction a new “safe” in the form of a “La Sainte Couronne d’Epines” which supposedly holds a fragment from the crown of thorns worn by Jesus on the cross. There is a service and showing of the relic on the first Friday of the month and around Easter.

From Notre Dame we walked around the Left Bank, down Boulevard St. Germain, past the Pantheon, past vendors on the street with everything from gourd drums to candied nuts, to scarves, through the Jardin de Luxembourg. It was hard not to get enticed into the patter from the vendors. After walking more than 6 miles that day, we chose to take a bus back to our apartment, adding another moving picture of the Parisian night life.

Friday was our last day in Paris, which meant it was time to get some of the  critical Parisian “To Do” list things checked off. High on that list was eating a crêpe au sucre on the Rive Gauche (Left Bank). Just as the drizzle started, we ducked into a café for a crêpe. Done, and delicious.

Sights from the walk along the Seine to the Bateaux-Mouches docks. On the left the gates into the Louvre, No Louvre this trip but I have been there in the past. The next trip! Across the street are several 3-wheeled mini-taxis waiting to show you Paris. On the right is the Place de la Concorde with the obelisk which was a gift from Egypt. However, this was also the sight of more than 1100 executions via guillotine, including Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. We didn’t take the little taxis but made haste by foot towards the Bateaux-Mouches.

From there it was just a Parisian love fest of walking. We decided to take a Bateaux-Mouches tour on the river. The Bateaux-Mouches have been giving boat tours of Paris since 1949. The boats are docked quite close to where our Paris apartment in the 1970s was and yet I had never indulged in a tour.

Images from the Bateaux-Mouches: start top left: Notre Dame from the back; details of the medieval towers of the Conciergerie on the Îsle de la Cité; scaffolding in the reconstruction of Notre Dame (that one is for Nick). Next row from the left: Wendy with her beloved Eiffel Tower; one last shot of the apartment in Paris, and our parting shot on the Bateaux-Mouches.

The hour plus tour was given in 5 languages, and everyone onboard had out the cell phones at every moment, and that included me. Looking up at the grand buildings from the middle of the river was riveting and very calming as the quiet boat allowed us just to enjoy what we saw.

A little champagne and a little rum with some vegetable beignets to help wash it down at a Haitian Creole restaurant. An appropriate “Au revoir” (until we see you again) to Paris.

Last on my “To Do” list for Paris was having a glass of champagne in a café to toast my sister Jenny who absolutely loved Paris and champagne. Just around the corner from our apartment we found a Créole café with vegetable beignets (fried spicy dough!) and a glass of champagne. Melancholy was just about to creep in at leaving Paris, until I realized that we will be back. The “City of Light” will be in our future travels another year.

©2025 Wendy Platt Hill

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