A Day Away in Paris

After a day of rain, the rocks need time to dry out, so we take the train to Paris for the day! For just under 3 euros and an hour later, we step out in front of Notre-Dame de Paris.

Not only is the cathedral grand, but the buildings of Paris are just gorgeous. It’s a crisp fall morning, with a blue, sunny sky. We’re smiling so big at being back in this wonderful city.

We immediately queue up to enter the cathedral and after maybe 15 minutes of winding through with the other visitors, we get to enter. It’s awe-inspiring when you enter – the vaulted ceilings, the stone work, stained glass windows just the size of it all.

When we were in Paris in 2022, we didn’t have the opportunity to go inside Notre Dame, as it was still under construction from the 2019 fire. We were glad to have made the stop, as it stood up to its reputation.

After a quick coffee, our next stop was lunch at Brasserie Le Bourbon. We finally tried snails! And we loved them, we plan to get them at least one more time while we’re still here. I had a delicious fish and Asa got steak, we have yet to have a bad food experience.

The restaurant was right next to the Assemblee Nationale, which is the Lower Room of France’s parliament, essentially their House of Representatives. We saw many suit-dressed men and women around us at lunch, but no other big excitement otherwise.

After lunch is the Musee d’Orsay, an art museum known primarily for its French art. One of the most interesting parts of the museum is that it’s housed in a former train station, built and used for the 1900 World’s Fair. You can easily see the echoes of the 1900 architecture design with the arched glass ceiling and door ways. On the outside of the building, the names of various French cities were carved into the original stone.

It featured a whole floor of Impressionist paintings, primarily Monet, Pissarro, and Van Gogh, among others.

And two temporary exhibits, connected to America. One was on Mary Cassatt, an American painter from the mid- to late-1800s, who lived most of her life in France. And the other exhibit focused on the ambitious artist Frederic Bartholdi and the process of designing the Statue of Liberty and bringing it into reality. Asa and I both discussed that despite how different we, the French and Americans, are from one another, we have quite an interesting partner or friendship, well at least we did, not sure how things are going these days.

Following the museum, we make one final stop at Shakespeare and Company, a famous English bookstore right on the banks of the Seine. It’s a cozy place, but also busy. A line constantly exists out the front door to get inside, but it is wall-to-wall books inside. I purchase Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast as a souvenir, it seemed apt as it’s his memoir of his years in Paris as a struggling writer.

After taking about 15,000 steps in the City of Lights, we take the train back to Fontainebleau for the evening. Some leftovers for dinner and a TV show wraps up our day.

We aren’t met with the same sun on Friday morning, but that doesn’t deter us from getting back out to the crag. The temperature has dropped a good bit since we first arrived in France, it’s now in the 50s, rather than the high 60s. A lower temperature actually makes for better climbing conditions though.

We got a different crag than where we’ve been before – Cuisiniere. Situated on a slight hillside, among pine trees, this isn’t as flat as where we’ve been before and this area has a lot more slab climbs. I make it up a few routes, and then Asa spends some time projecting Le Mouton à 6 Pattes and gets it after some goes!

Unfortunately, we start battling some mist and chilly weather in the early afternoon. We call it on the session and head back to the Airbnb for a relaxed afternoon. For dinner, we return to the first brasserie we went to Le Smile for some steak frites and maybe the best dessert we’ve had all trip… maybe all year: French toast with salted caramel drizzle and vanilla ice cream. We might have to go back one more time just for that.

With a slight buzz from the wine and /or the sugar, we’re off to bed, with another day at the crag planned for tomorrow.