Day 23 - Paris Goodbyes

Today we said goodbye to Paris for the final time. Up early and showered and enjoyed a petite dejeuner in the dining room here at the hotel. The old world charm worked a treat and before long we were on our way.

We ended up doing a complete loop of the right bank today, all on foot. Started with a walk down to the end of Rue de Rivoli to Place de Bastille and then walked along Rue de Lyon until the start of Avenue Daumensil where the Promenade Plantee begins.

The Promenade Plantee is a 4km long garden built on top of a disused 19th century railway viaduct, and highly recommended in a recent article in The Age. The Lonely Planet guidebook adds "seduction springs up in the most unlikely places, and perhaps none more likely than this viaduct carving through the busy Bastille quarter". True, the garden was very nice - cherry trees, maples, roses and lavender, but the abundance of homeless men sleeping on pieces of cardboard and the overwhelming stench of urine was too much for us. Nothing seductive about this place in our opinion. A clever idea, but not quite working as it should. We feel tempted to tell Lonely Planet to take it off their Top Ten things to do list.

So, we took a detour and sought out the "Le Pure Cafe" used in the film, Before Sunset. With a bit of map-work, we found it and took many photos - very stylish and very quaint.

Then it was back off into the city, walking along Bd Voltaire, through Place de la Liberation and eventually Bd Haussman, which houses the big department stores in Paris, Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, H&M and others. Had a little look through these (and made a few purchases), then made our way through the Madeleine area down to the Tullieries Gardens again and sat beside a fountain for a while, to give our feet a break. Then we met up with Rue de Rivoli (at the other end) and walked and walked all the way back to the hotel.

Tonight we had a most marvellous dinner for our final night in Paris. Kym had full say in the restaurant selection. We traipsed all over the Marais area looking at the menus and eventually selected a nice little restaurant just one block from our hotel where we had the most delicious meal ever. The restaurant was called The Mauvais Garcons (The Bad Boys) and it was a knockout. We sat at one of the three tables on the front courtyard. We both enjoyed the grilled camembert and green salad with caramel porto (a caramel and port wine dressing) to start - OMG this was so scrumptious - we could have left after that! For the mains, monsieur had the lamb with thyme and potato au gratin and legumes, whilst madame had the duck with caramelised honey pear. So delicious, without being over the top. To finish, perhaps a raspberry cake with coulis was enjoyed by madame, whilst monsieur may have devoured a hearty slab of apple flan dusted with icing sugar and drizzled caramel sauce. Well worth it. We tipped handsomely to show our gratitude. The restaurant was extremely busy by the time we had left. Highly recommended, and a fitting way to finish our stay in France.

Our bags our now packed, ready for departure tomorrow and the long haul flight back to OZ. Gosh, that flight is awful, but it will be nice to return home after a very exciting time here in France. As they say in the classics, "the honeymoon is over". Bon soir et a bientot!