"Add three letters to Paris and it's...

PARADISE" (Thanks, Jules Renard!)

Totally cheese quote, I know, but it is SO TRUE at the same time!  Yes, I would agree that most people imagine paradise as a more idyllic scene, complete with pastoral landscape gardens or white sandy beaches...definitely not a cramped and (sometimes) stinky concrete jungle, BUT once you have a chance to get lost in this amazing city, you realize it really is paradise.

My old friend, Nicole, and I each bought Unexplored Paris, and, I am very excited to share with y'all some of the interesting sites that we have come upon thanks to this really great book!

Before we get started, however, I wanted to tell y'all that I was able to cross something off of my Parisian bucket list -- sit on the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower at night and enjoy a bottle of wine...it was absolutely incredible!!  Today is my month anniversary, and the Tower never gets old!!

One beautiful Sunday afternoon, we set off on a long walk from my apartment to Sainte-Chapelle cathedral.  We had Unexplored Paris with us, however, we weren't immediately planning on jumping right into it until Nicole spotted one of the sites depicted in the book!

This is what started it all!  The 4 street lamps on the Pont du Carrousel were started in the early 20th Century, but construction ceased when WWII broke out.  The designer ended up working on them in secret and they were installed when the war was over.  Pretty cool, huh?

We were thrilled that we found our first site, so we decided to look for just one more place before heading back in the direction of Sainte-Chapelle.  Five hours later, we were still wandering around this very small area of the city --- checking out everything it had to offer, and searching for more undiscovered sites of Paris! (By the way, Sunday came and went, and we never actually made it over to Sainte-Chapelle because there was so much to see in between!)  The book is like a scavenger hunt because it lists the address and a metro stop for each site, but the street numbers in Paris are pretty screwy, so we would end up wandering around until suddenly one of us spotted what we were looking for! 

We stumbled upon a MONSTROUS church with an interesting statue in front of it...

Saint Eustache - check out the flying buttresses on that beauty!

Kinda random, huh??

There was a "Little Italy" section of town behind the church, so we stopped for some DELICIOUS pizza and ice cream!

This was not even 1/3 of the flavors they had

Trying to be artistic...

It was soooo good!!  Half espresso and half chocolate chip!

Post ice cream, we were walking up and down this quaint little street, when all of a sudden we came upon a patisserie that has the #1 chocolate eclair in town --- and we just had to have one!!

Posing with our eclair.  Of course, it was incredible and number 1 for a reason!

The picture below is of an old restaurant that was in our book.  It opened in 1796 and closed in 1936, but during it's prime, it was a pretty happenin' spot!  It was called Le Boeuf a la Mode because of the carving of an ox above the door, and apparently there was a statue of an on in the main dining room that would be dressed up in various garb. The book says that now the space is an art gallery, but it looked pretty run down when we were there, so who knows what it is. 

Right down the street, we found what used to be the tallest building in Paris -- towering over the city at only 9 stories high.

Nowadays it blends in pretty well with the rest of the buildings around it, but it was really cool to find anyway.

Funny side story -- this building apparently has a secret passageway that is now closed to the public. We were trying to figure out where exactly the passageway was located, so we decided to walk around to the other side of the building, which happened to be a part of the Banque of France.  We stood outside the gates to the highly guarded Banque for a few minutes, minding our own business, and trying to sort out the configuration of the building to figure out where the passageway was located...when all of a sudden a guard came out and started yelling at us in French, and managed get out (in very broken English) "Vhat are you doing 'ere????"  We stared at him like a couple of deer in headlights and held up our book.  All of a sudden, his demeanor changed and he became incredibly excited and animated, explaining to us (in French, mind you, so I assume this is what he was saying to us...) all about the building that we were stalking so interested in.  Anyway, long story long, it was a pretty hysterical experience.  Of course, after that mess, we got a little bit turned around and ended up having to walk around almost the entire perimeter of the Banque, so I'm willing to bet that we had 8389475 eyes on us, making sure the two "innocent" American tourists weren't really trying to plan a hostel takeover or something.

The scene of the crime!

While wandering around that day, we also found a MEXICAN restaurant that looked like it served ACTUAL sweaty, greasy Mexican food!!  I have been searching for a Mexican restaurant pretty much since day 1 in Paris because my body was starting to go through La Fonda withdrawals.  When we spotted this place, it was like the clouds parted and the angels above were singing heavenly praise.  Later that week, we were actually able to try it out, and it was really good (it could have been the margaritas and sangria that we enjoyed, but it doesn't matter because it temporarily satisfied my craving!).

Yummm!

Us posing with the owner, Tony!

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, but Nicole and I have continued to search for the hidden treasures around Paris every chance we get (we have only seen a very small fraction of everything in the book, so it is definitely going to take a while to see it all).  Also, looking at these pictures has definitely given me a craving for our "authentic" French Mexican restaurant, so we are going to have to plan a trip back pretty soon!!!

- à tout à l’heure!