Weekend in Paris, Pt 2

With a happy cat curled up on my lap, and Snapfish attempting to upload my 300+ pictures, I think I have some time on my hands now to write up the next installment of our adventures in Paris. =P (see Part 1 here)

Zach and I had decided to spend Saturday at the Chateau at Versailles (the palace where the French royalty used to live). Eva opted to spend the day in town, wanting to see more of the Parisian tourist traps, so Zach and I headed out on the metro on our own Saturday morning. The day started out cloudy, but by mid-morning the sun had come out and we had what I like to call "California weather," where it can be nice and toasty warm in the sun, but almost cold in the shade, depending on the winds at the moment. Our Museum Pass meant we didn't gave to wait in line to buy tickets (woot!) so we got to enter the Chateau with only a few minutes wait. It's a pretty standard palace-- huge cielings, tons of big paintings everywhere, gold decorations all along the walls and doors... unfortunately our enjoyment of the place was a bit hampered by the massive hordes of people all around. But we got through it then went out to the gardens... the massive, huge, ginormous gardens. You could get lost all day out there. We had a bite to eat at a cafe near one of the ponds, and watched a wedding party taking pictures. Then we sat by the water and watched the wedding party all go out in the little rowboats you can rent. It was pretty funny watching them, they were definitely having fun, yelling back and forth at each other in Italian and French and trying to crash into each other. Zach was just waiting for someone to go overboard!

We sat out in the sun for a while, then went walking through some of the different hidden paths and looking at the different, very ornate the water fountains. By around 5pm we were pretty much done, so along with everyone else we started heading back to the train station to go back into Paris. We took a rest at the hotel, then met up with Eva around 8 or 8:30pm near Notre Dame. We had some time to kill before our 9:45pm dinner reservation, so we walked around for a bit checking out the small streets here and there.

We finally ended up back at the restaurant, a place called Le Reminet that Zach had eaten at once or twice before while on business and remembered as being very good. We'd managed to get our reservation even though Zach called just a few hours earlier. The restaurant was one of those tiny, candle-lit places that just looks adorable (Zach actually felt kind bad, as he didn't remember the place looking as romantic as it did and felt awkward at being there with both me and Eva, lol). Our table was downstairs, in what looked like a small cave. Very cool. Our waiter was very nice, spoke little English but we got along. I think we rushed things a bit by ordering our food almost right away (how very American!) b/c we were pretty hungry already, but I don't think they were offended.

The food... was fabulous. Amazing. SO good. And the meal really wasn't even that expensive. It was about $65 per person for an appetizer, main course, and dessert, plus a shared bottle of wine. Zach rated it as one of his top 5 meals ever (one of the other top 5's was also eaten at this restaurant). Highly recommended.

We got done with dinner around midnight, and were pretty ready to hit the sack. We took a taxi back to the hotel, made plans to meet up again in the morning, and were off to our rooms to get some sleep.