Lunch at a Paris Bouillon Chartier restaurant - really fun

Community Highlights Europe Lunch at a Paris Bouillon Chartier restaurant - really fun

May 27, 2024 — Day 11 (Monday)

Monday and everything is open so we were going to get a new SIM card for my phone. We ate and then left for the Monoprix store on rue de Rennes that we had been told carried them. Fought our way through a busload of tourists whose bus parked right in front of the entrance and took the escalator upstairs to the electronics department where a kind gentleman told us they didn’t carry SIM cards from anyone. He suggested Orange down the street but I had already decided against that. We left and started up the street to an FNAC store where we ran into the same thing after walking for 20 minutes. At that point I decided to survive on my current SIM card and if I ran out of data on it, I’d put Ed’s unused SIM in my phone and use that. We started home.

We did find another #58 bus stop as we walked home. That may be useful. Used the facilities, got a drink and decided to see what Notre Dame looked like five years into reconstruction. We set off, walked two blocks and felt a couple rain drops so Ed went back and got our umbrellas . . . a very wise decision as it turned out. We were following Google Maps to Notre Dame and checked menus as we passed restaurants. A promising menu presented at Le Bouillon Racine [3 rue Racine 75006 Paris; tel: +33 (0)1 4432-1560 (their sign says Bouillon Camille Chartier); email: www.bouillonracine.com] so we went in. I asked for a table on the ground floor and we got one. The daily special was magret de canard, the reason we had chosen the restaurant, and we both ordered it along with crème brulèe and a Cotè du Rhone. It was a lovely two-hour Paris lunch. We photographed the picturesque exterior of the restaurant and continued toward Notre Dame.

We passed the now-open and newly-renovated Cluny Museum and didn’t go in but did snap one photo of the outside. Continued on to the Seine and got Cathedral and river photos and met lots of fellow tourists. The French Open started today so Paris is busy. We fought our way through the crowds and then along the front of Notre Dame where they have posted portraits of all the renovation workers. The photos are beautiful. They had an excellent photographer and fortunately no one has bothered to graffiti the beautiful display.

As we walked around to visit the Square René Viviani to get that spectacular view of Notre Dame, it started to rain. It progressed to heavier rain and the umbrellas went up. We kept walking thinking we would skip the park and just visit Ile St. Louis for some photos. At that point the heavens opened up and it poured. The bouquinistes were all quickly packing up and closing their stands. We ran for the nearest café, Le Montebello [1 Quai de Montebello, 75005 Paris; +33 (0)1 4354-3837] along with a few other very wet people and got a couple hot chocolates to wait out the rain. As we drank our hot chocolates, an ambulance noisily zipped past, then another and another. Ed and the lady behind us started counting. Sixteen emergency vehicles in full siren zoomed past us and we had no idea why. I checked online and there was no information . . . not unusual in France. We may never know. Perhaps they were practicing for the Olympics next month.

The rain stopped and we left. Google found us a short cut home and we were home in jig time, stopped for our daily baguette and are now drying off at home.

This featured blog entry was written by Beausoleil from the blog Paris Was Preparing for the Olympics.
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