My husband & I were both sick up until less than a week before our trip to Paris for my birthday, but with some good meds & rest we were able to take my dream trip. We departed via United Airlines out of Detroit, flying to Newark then from there to Paris. That portion of the trip was uneventful, which is good when you're talking flights. We had a good meal on the way to CDG and rested but didn't sleep on the way, which is typical for us. We landed in Paris early Thursday morning, collected our luggage & met our Interservice Prestige driver, who was waiting for us. Then it was off to the Crown Plaza Paris Republique. We arrived at the hotel a little before 10am but as luck would have it, they had a room ready for us to check in. We upgraded to a Club Room for an extra 30 euros per night, which gave us a larger room & breakfast in the morning. The room was very nice & quite spacious for Paris. We unpacked our things, rested up for an hour or two then we were on our way to start our adventure in Paris!
Thursday - First up was find a place for lunch so we wandered around the square and found a small creperie on one of the side streets. We shared a ham, cheese & egg crepe, which was very delicious. After we charged our Navigo cards, we spent the day exploring Montmartre, which is one of our favorite parts of Paris. Since this was my 4th trip to Paris & my husband's 3rd trip, we wanted to try to see some of the things we hadn't seen before so first up we went to St Pierre de Montmartre church, a 12th century church right next door to Sacre Coeur. It was very beautiful inside, lots of candles lit and the altar was so pretty. I did get a few tears in my eyes, thinking of my Mom who recently passed away. After the church we walked around the Place de Tertre & asked about an artist who had done our portrait in 2014 but he wasn't there. Actually not many artists or people in the square at all. Very different from the spring when we normally travel.
Next we found the Musee de Montmartre and spend a wonderful hour exploring the gardens, Renoir's studio & the movie exhibit that was being presented there. Since Renoir is my absolute favorite painter, it was very moving to be in his studio where he painted some of his wonderful masterpieces. This time tears of joy. After that, we bought a mulled wine from a street vendor then walked until we found the two windmills in Montmartre & took a few pics then walked down the hill to Cafe Les Deux Moulins, where the movie Amelie was filmed. Love that movie. We went inside and enjoyed an order of snails, with a wine for me and a beer for my husband. A young lady came in & sat next to our table so we chatted with her awhile. She was from Catalonia but lived in Brussels & was visiting Paris for the day. We enjoyed talking to her then headed back to our hotel, just in time for their Happy Hour which included beer, wine and light sandwiches, chips & snacks. That ended up being our supper that night since we were just too tired to bother going to a restaurant. It was a wonderful first day in Paris.
Friday started out with a wonderful breakfast in our hotel. Lots of pastries, fruit, yogurt, hot & cold foods too plus delicious cafe creme! That's my way to start the day. LOL First up, we went to Musee d'Orsay. This is one of the few places we had already been to but it was so crowded the first time we went that we could hardly get close enough to the paintings to see them let alone get any good pictures. But this time, in mid January, that was no problem. The crowds were pretty light and I was in Impressionist Heaven for about 2 hours. It was wonderful. I was again in tears in the room with all the Renoir paintings. I just love his paintings so much. Also the Monets and the other Impressionists too. We spent a wonderful couple of hours there & I got my fix of Impressionist paintings. Bought a few things at the gift shop too so win, win. LOL