Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 26: Paris

I know I keep talking about the heat, but it’s become more than just unpleasant, it’s now gotten in the way of the things I wanted to do while I’m in Paris.

Most of the city’s attractions, museums, tours, and amusements are closed or are operating on very limited hours.  I made it into Notre Dame this morning – more on that in a moment – but they were closing at noon.  I didn’t want to go up into the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre or any of the other major museums, which is good because they closed. 

I did want to go to Musee de Arts Forains, a museum of carnival rides, the Paris Catacombs, and a few other things but they are all closed until Tuesday, which is when I fly to London.

Then this morning they announced that they cancelled the Paris Pride parade.  While I was looking forward to seeing it, I wasn’t looking forward to being outside in order to do so.  If they could’ve found a way to do the parade indoors, that would’ve been glorious, but since that wasn’t going to happen I guess I’ll have to make due with the London Pride parade next weekend.

The heat is supposed to break on Sunday or Monday and when I get to the UK next week the forecast is for high 70s so it should be perfect.  Fingers crossed.

Despite it being 95 degrees at 9am this morning, I ventured out and took a few rando shots of sweltering Paris.

Then I made my way to Notre Dame, located on an island in the middle of the Seine.  I read somewhere that Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the city in which I grew up, and Paris are the only two cities that have city/municipal buildings on an island in their river.  So, crossing the bridge from the bank of the Seine was just like going home.  I kept expecting to see cornfields.

I visited the cathedral when I was in Paris when I was a kid… just a few years ago of course… but I wanted to see the restoration they did after the devastating fire in 2019.  I must have really wanted to see it because I stood in line for almost an hour to get inside.

The church was built between 1163 and 1345 and after the fire they spent close to a billion dollars to bring it back to its former glory.  What they managed to accomplish is nothing short of a miracle.

From there I walked to another small island adjacent to the one with Notre Dame, which is filled with narrow streets of stores, cafes, and more.

My destination was the Musee de Frommage – the Cheese Museum!  I was early, though, and sweating like a fiend so I stepped into a nearby café and sat next to a fan with a small cup of passion fruit sorbet.  It was probably only average but in that moment it was the best thing I’d ever had in my life.

The Musee de Frommage is basically a cheese shop, but they also have a museum and tour providing lots of details about the history and making of cheese.  They have a bunch of exhibits you can browse before the cheesemonger joins in, including a station that allows you to answer a few personality questions and then tells you what kind of cheese you are.  Apparently, I’m a Reblochon, described as supple, mild, fruity (hey!), authentic – a real heartthrob.  It says “You’re a big scoundrel who hides his game well.”  I’ll take that.

Then the cheesemonger walked us through the process of making cheese.  It’s both simple and not, but basically involves milk, salt, “good bacteria,” and an enzyme called rennet, taken from the stomach of a young cow.  This is all cheese – doesn’t matter what it ends up as, it starts with that.

Then he explained how various types of cheeses are made – soft cheeses are “young,” meaning they were made recently, while hard cheeses are aged and pressed to get out the extra moisture.  Then they add different things to come up with the flavors – bleu adds a “good mold” for instance that is controlled by the salt.  Fascinating.

And of course, there was a cheese tasting – six different cheeses from soft to hard, from mild to tart. 

I bought some bleu and a soft cheese plus a magnet that says it all – God Save the Cheese.

Afterward, I found a small sweets store and got a chocolate caramel and salted vanilla caramel to have for after lunch.  They didn’t make it.  I ate one, the other melted while I waited for my takeout from Le Mache-dru, a tiny slip of a place serving up traditional French sandwiches.  I got “Le Gourmand” – onion confit, Bonne Goule (cheese), Parisian ham, and lettuce on a crusty baguette.  I devoured it when I got back to the hotel – it was fantastic and I might go back again.

After eating, cooling down, and doing some work, I headed back out to go walk through a massive public art installation called La Caverne.

They’ve take Pont Neuf, a bridge over the Seine, and dressed it up as if it is a cave.  They did this without touching the historic bridge, somehow, and it seems like a really cool thing.

The problem was that the end of the bridge on the side of the Seine that I was on is the exit.  In order to get to the entrance you have to go the other side of the Seine.  In order to do that, you have to walk about a half mile to the next bridge then back again.  It was one million degrees so I said, “nope.”

Instead I took the subway over to the Marais district – which on a normal day would be totally walkable – to visit A la Mere de Familie, billed as Paris’ oldest chocolate shop.  I got a citrus flavor, a passion fruit flavor, and a small bar with crisped rice and caramel.  The first two were good, the last one was superb.  I may also go back there again. 

I stopped at a bar and had a drink but it was too hot outside to enjoy it, so I took a pitstop at the hotel and then went out for dinner. 

The choice for the evening was Chouchou, a Moroccan restaurant where I had a mixed skewer plate with chicken, lamb, and merguez sausage and a hot/sweet pepper sauce to dip it in.  I am officially a fan and I wanted to eat it all, but reason stepped in and I brought back leftovers to nibble on later. 

With the parade cancelled, I now have a full day tomorrow with nothing planned.  We’ll see what the weather is doing and what, if anything, is open to do when Saturday arrives.