Leaving Paris was painful. Literally. We broke our record for steps in one day!  Our new personal best is 22,231. We crammed everything else we wanted to do into that final day.

Rochelle, our friend living in Paris, quotes her father-in-law as saying “Paris is one big museum.”  So true–whether you’re in a museum or on the streets.

Some of our best memories were on side streets. Kyle would ask “main Street or side street?” And undoubtedly we’d answer sidestreet. There was so much to discover.

Should we begin with the food?   We have seen giant meringues as big as loaves of bread, and loaves of bread as big as my thighs!  We’ve compared and contrasted macarons from the best patisseries. We’ve indulged in the hot chocolate at Deux Magots, which is as thick as melted chocolate bars. We discovered a shop featuring edible male genitalia (which made sense when we realized the name of the shop is the “Gay Patisserie”). And we looked the entire week for the chocolatier where we purchased chocolate covered speculos–they were so good it infuriated us!  The streets of Paris are museums of culinary delights.

We discovered unique and varied retail stores and workshops. One store had walls of men’s dress shirts out of unique, colorful fabric–maps, doughnuts, stethoscopes (tempting for Kyle).  We passed jewelers with unbelievably gaudy jewelry and even a workshop where they were making and embellishing pianos.

The D’Orsay foyer

So our last day was a careful balance between the museums on the streets of Paris and the actual museums.  We had a lovely walk to see the elevated gardens, and ate perfectly roasted chicken and scalloped potatoes from a charcouterie on the way.  We went to the D’Orsay Museum to see the famous impressionist artists. And we had to fit in another visit to the Louvre (Jasmine had missed the exhibits that are recreations of Napolean’s apartment and Marie Antoinette’s apartment).

Napoleans apartment at the Louvre

We finished with a Lebanese meal, which was delicious. Then we heightened our step count searching in vain for chocolate covered speculos.