More Touring and an Interesting Dinner

We were up fairly early today due to residual jet lag but it was ok because our room here includes a fabulous buffet breakfast each morning. I'll include some pictures in tomorrow's post. 
Included in our tour package there were a couple of Paris events. One was today's bus tour of the city. It was one of those panoramic buses and we had a fabulous tour guide who explained where we were and gave some neat insights into the history of what we were seeing. Below are a few shots from the tour. We saw some places that we'll return to next week and others that we've decided we've seen enough of already.

 Here we are at the Eiffel Tower. This is so our niece Paige believes we are on the trip. It was a foggy morning as you can see.

 This is one of the fountains in Place de la Concorde. We stopped there for a bit on our bus tour.

After the bus tour, we went to the D'Orsay Museum which is located in an old train station. You weren't allowed to take photos in the exhibit areas. We were mainly interested in the Impressionist sections as we will be stopping in Monet's home town of Giverny while on the cruise.

After the museum, we wandered back to a cafe we'd seen on the way there. It also happened to be one that I had looked up while at home. As many of you know, I'm not a major fan of eating outdoors due to stupid wasps and bees. Well, they don't seem to have them here in Paris and I'm now loving the outdoor food scene. Here's what we had for lunch.

 This is Marilyn's smoked salmon with creme fraiche.

My lunch was a campagnard salad with smoked duck breast, prosciutto, sausage, beans, tomatoes and lettuce. Both were great with a half carafe of chardonnay. 

 After lunch we had a leisurely walk back along the Seine. This gentleman was perusing one of the many book selling stands that are found all along the river.

Near the city hall, there is an installation called Paris Plages. It is a beach, thought up by the mayor. Most people think it's a waste of money and apparently not many people use the "beaches". 
Tonight's dinner was an interesting story. We walked around for over an hour just looking around. Many stores and businesses are closed for the summer now. We found a little cafe recommended by our tour guide. It was early for dinner, around 7:30 and there were only a couple other people there. We ordered from the menu formule, which is basically a preset menu with a few choices. The people before us ordered and then we asked for pretty much the same thing. But they said there were now out of both! I was not overly happy and wanted to leave but Marilyn persuaded me to stay. In the end we tried some other items on the menu that were excellent but I still don't understand how you can be out of the menu specials at the very beginning of service!!

This was the salmon tartare that we both had. It was really interesting with the salmon, some chorizo and fine herbs mixed together. The swirl is reduced balsamic vinegar.

Pork chop with chanterelle mushrooms and mashed potatoes.

This is Marilyn's filet de beouf with a galette of vegetables and mashed potatoes. The beef was perfectly cooked.

We are off to the ship tomorrow. There will be a Seine river cruise in the morning followed by transfer to the dock where the River Baroness is moored. The next post will be from the ship!