My first full day in Paris saw me wake up at a relatively sane time and after the continental buffet breakfast at Albe Hôtel I decided to go for a walk.
And walk I did, along the left bank of the Seine from St Michel to the Eiffel Tower, only straying from the river due to all the construction that’s taking place.
Castel Café, Paris, France
After a quick snooze at Albe Hôtel after the flight from Hong Kong I was looking for some sustenance. Luckily the area around Saint Michel is full of bars and restaurants so I didn’t have to go to far.
I did a bit of a walk around the neighborhood to see what options were on offer before deciding on a small pizza restaurant called Pizza Sarno, more because there were tables available and there was an English menu more than anything else.
Pizza Sarno, St Michel, Paris, France
After a bit of a train delay on the RER B I arrived at Gare de Saint-Michel – Notre-Dame. I then proceeded, as is my way, to lose my bearings and go in completely the wrong direction and exit the station 500 metres from my hotel. If I’d actually looked at the signs, and exited towards Notre-Dame I would have surfaced, by way of a lift, about 50 metres from my hotel. But in the end I had to haul my luggage up the stairs and double back about 450 metres.
Albe Hôtel Saint-Michel, Paris, France
You can’t fault the location of this cafe under the trees, next to the lake complete with waddling ducks in the park in front of the Louvre in Paris.
La Terrasse De Pomone, Paris, France
After spending the morning at The Eiffel Tower I’d headed back to my hotel, The Hilton Paris at La Defence, for a little bit of a siesta to get over the jet lag.
Hunger got the better of me so I searched TripAdvisor to see what decent restaurants were close to the hotel and I found one called Lavinia in the CNIT complex that the hotel is also part of.
Lavinia is a restaurant with a wine shop attached (or a wine shop with a restaurant depending on your point of view). There’s no printed menu but the menu of the day is written on the huge blackboard on the wall.
Lavinia, La Defense, Paris, France