We kept ending up in the neighborhood Le Marais…and glad we did. It is lovely, accessible, full of cool shops, food, museums, and people-watching. But first, a stop at the Lazare Boulangerie for coffee and croissant for me, coffee and pain chocolate for David. We loved this place–so bustling, friendly, always a table free. It was a two block walk down the hill from our hotel, and surrounded by metro and bus stops.

We had the Carnavalet museum on our list for a while. If you are REALLY into history, it’s a delight–the history of Paris from ancient times through the twentieth century. It is free, there are no timed entries, you just walk in and start looking around.

We about wore ourselves out at the museum, to be honest, and we had a 4pm entry at Sainte Chapelle followed by the Conciergerie. Sainte Chapelle? Overwhelming. It seems impossible it was built in four years…and the Conciergerie is just down the street. It is interesting, different, and ultimately depressing as it includes the prison where women were kept before being executed during the French Revolution. Having read and seen lots about that era at the Carnavalet, it was entirely too vivid for me. This is where Marie Antoinette was held. Scary and sad.

It was fun to be on Ile de Cite, which in contrast to neighborhood Paris where we had spent the previous days, it is majestic Paris–the Seine, enormous buildings, lots and lots of tourists (from seemingly everywhere in the world).

A restaurant that was on my list was the famous, and very old Le Procope, which opened in 1686. It was a doable walk from the Conciergerie, so we ventured into the Left Bank (madness) and within a few blocks we were there–an hour before our reservation, but they took us. Of course we had to have historic dishes–mine was the vol au vent, a rich concoction of sweetbreads and mushrooms in a pastry shell. Oh my it was delicious and I couldn’t finish it. Polished off our requisite bottle of wine and dragged ourselves to the metro to get back before we collapsed.