Coffee – Page 8 – It's all about the coffee

Coffee with Napoleon

A weird experience this morning, in Paris and literally could not find a croissant to buy. We normally grab one from just near the station and both shops there had sold out! Had to wait until we got to our destination to find a cafe that was open to get one. Finally found one and kept moving to our destination which was Invalides (pronounced on-ver-lay).

Following on the theme of coffee with dead military leaders, last year it was Wellington and Nelson, today it was with their arch nemesis Napoleon.

We headed over to the Hôtel national des Invalides which is where he is buried, or rather entombed in a massive marble sarcophagus. The building would roughly be equivalent to our war memorial in terms of how the French treat it. The building is gigantic and his tomb quite imposing. It’s said there are 6 coffins within the sarcophagus, kind of like a Russian doll.

The coffee for today was from a commercial Nespresso machine. Fine for Nespresso but really no better than the ones you get at home. Nespresso is a Swiss product, have the French surrendered their coffee culture to the Swiss?

Here is a portrait of Napoleon, obviously upset and depressed with the state of coffee in the French Republic

The coffee was very small. Apparently Napoleon was rather short too. Is there a theme on this in the cafe maybe ?

After looking at his tomb we went and checked out a special exhibition on Napoleon that traces his military strategies. Very interesting, especially the section on his defeat and the battle of Waterloo. Whilst his downfall and defeat is covered, the battle of Waterloo is only mentioned briefly, certainly no dioramas that were heavily used for his victorious battles.

Here is were he rests

I gave Napoleon €2 and he gave me €0 back

We then went a few metro stations down the line to Cité where the conciergerie, which was used as a prison during the revolution and it where Marie Antionette was held before her head was liberated from her body. Very interesting little art work in the building where they have pumped part of the Seine is pumped through the building to remember how is flooded about 100 years ago. Lots of signs telling you not to touch or drink the water

After some time here, I took Emma down to the Arc de Triomphe, whilst Sharon wandered around Les Halles. The Arc is great and the view is spectacular, but there are a lot of stairs.

Travel

Markets and Coffee

This morning we caught the metro down to the Marche Bastille Markets, which are apparently some of the best open markets in Paris. I’d say a good 30-40% of the stalls are the usual dregs and dross you would find at any market, plastic toys, phone cases, t-shirts, fidget spinners, tourist shite etc.

There were some amazing produce stalls though and Sharon was in foodie heaven looking at everything. Meats, seafoods, breads, cakes, spices, produce. You name it, they probably had it.

The one thing conspicuously absent was coffee. At home a place like this would have had lots of coffee vans or stalls.

I found one place that looked promising, however on closer inspection it was just pod coffee dressed up. Coffee was disappointing and not even rateable. My Nespresso is many times better. I did find a second place that was doing espresso shots from all sorts of interesting beans. This was way better than the last one. Emma had a taste and thought it was “festy”. Straight espresso shots are obviously an acquired taste after a few more years…

A line of pod machines. Not worth €2.50

The decent espresso. Not going to bother showing you the other one. This was worth the €1

We had a crepe with Grand Marnier poured over it. This was scrumptious and only cost €2.60. From hot plate to our hands in less than a minute.

We bought some local French salt from a vendor who explained the differences between each salt offered, spices that were added and the region from where it was sourced. He was surprised to have Australians there at the market.

After the markets we headed over to the Centre Georges Pompidou, which is a modern art gallery that has all the workings of the building on the outside, not hidden behind a facade. Essentially the building is inside out. We didn’t go inside to the exhibition but did buy tickets for €5 each to go up to the roof for a fantastic view over Paris as the building is slightly over the height of most others. Interestingly if you are under 25 entry is completely free to the museum.

Lunch was had at a little cafe on the same square, not cheap, but quite good food and relaxing atmosphere under trees on the square. Emma’s lunch included the most delicious vanilla ice cream.

Not far from here is Saint Chapelle with some magnificent stained glass windows. Note though you need to go up a small flight of stairs on the corner to get to the second floor where the magnificent windows are. When I first walked in I was thinking “I paid €30 for this? What a rip off.” Then I went upstairs and the jaw dropped… pictures don’t really do it justice. Each individual glass pane is unique, they each tell a story in pictures from the Old Testament.

After a small break at the Apartment we were back up at Montmartre for some more shopping and then dinner. First time ever I’ve seen a French waiter come back to the table and take out order again as he forgot. Very unusual to see a waiter use pencil and paper here in France. It’s just not de rigueur. Here in Montmartre there is a square that’s closed off from traffic with lots of restaurants and artists drawing portraits. Most of the restaurants here will do a three course meal for €16.50 drinks extra. Wonderful atmosphere on a cool summers evening.

The area we had dinner tonight:-

Remember what I said on my bike share post that the French disrespect the shitty bike share bikes just as much as Australians do ?

Travel

Coffee with Shakespeare

Once Sharon & Emma had completed the cooking course and I’d finished my bike ride, we met up at the Shakespeare & Co bookstore. I’m still amazed at the irony that one of the worlds best English language bookstores is right in the middle of the beating heart of the francophone universe. Sharon bought a couple of books…..

I decided to grab my second coffee of the day there. The cafe isn’t too bad, the coffee was certainly good by Paris standards, not quite as good as my first one this morning. In some ways the cafe is just like a Shakespeare play. Long… Hamlet type long. I waited in line so long to order my coffee, I think the King of Denmark actually died whilst I was waiting.

The coffee queue at the cafe attached to the bookstore. Sharon in the queue near the end.

The coffee was ok, even if ordering it took forever

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Travel

The Mouse in Paris

Today we did something Emma really wanted to do, which was visit Disneyland Paris, officially Disneyland Parc.

Getting here is actually super easy, just take the A line RER train to the end of the line and that’s right at the entrance to Disneyland. There are two Disney parks here, the bog standard Disney and a Walt Disney Studios Park. We just visited the standard one. The trip on the RER takes about 50min. The train is a similar layout with double decker carriages to Sydney trains. It was air conditioned and very clean. As a bonus the “navigo” cards we got yesterday work all the way here so we didn’t have to purchase tickets.

Leaving the train it’s virtually like we are no longer in Europe. It does feel like the middle of California, the only reminder is that announcements are mostly in French and you pay (exorbitantly) in euros for everything.

In many ways we picked the perfect day, it wasn’t too hot, only got to 24c at the most, and with the France vs Belgium game stacks of people left before 8pm.

We had lots of fun and went on some great rides like Indiana Jones “Temple du Peril”, Starwars, space mountain, big thunder mountain and a lame dodgem car ride. Emma loved them all, although I’ve discovered I can’t handle the dark roller coaster rides like I once could. Where I can see ahead it’s not an issue. I’m writing most of this over dinner hotdogs and fries….. (aaarg, the irony of being in the global food capital and eating hotdogs again….). Finishing it off on the ride back to Paris on the train (Good way to pass the 50 minute ride)

Emma now loves rides and was happy to go on as many as she could, a massive change from a few years ago when it was impossible to coax her into a roller coaster. She even mentioned she didn’t want to go home and was sad the day was ending. A successful family day out.

We got a few fast passes which cut down wait times from about an hour to 15 minutes. You can only hold one fast pass at a time, and most of the passes closed operation at 2pm as they had all been allocated for the day. Disney have this really thought out, what do you do when you hold a fast pass and just need to wait (But not in the actual line) ? You visit the stores and buy things!!

The highlight of the day is the light and firework display. It was fantastic. My hot tip for Disney ? Everyone goes to watch the main street parade. Sometimes it can be good, more than often it’s super lame. Use this 1 hour window when people start heading to the centre of the park for the show to get some rides in with smaller queues.

We positioned ourselves as near the park exit as we could so we could bolt to the train as soon as it was over. We missed one by seconds and had to wait 15 min for the next one. I was a little stressed that we would not get on the train with the throng of people, but it was actually fine. We got seats easily and out carriage was mostly empty. It would seem most people either drove, left early, caught busses or stayed in the hotel.

Having the “Navigo” (Paris oyster/opal card) paid dividends too, we just cruised past the people trying to buy paper tickets then stick them into the turnstiles. They have limited turnstiles that take tickets, all of them take the tap and go pass.

I’ve now been to Disney parks 7 times and weather wise this one was perfect. Past times have either been extremely hot (USA – Florida) or extremely cold (Disney Sea – Tokyo). Emma has been to 4 Disney parks herself. Not bad for a 14year old ! As far as transport goes it was also the easiest, even easier than the train in Tokyo for Disney which until now I had thought was the best. Sorry America, but the French have whipped your ass when it comes to organising transport to theme parks.

As for the Coffee? Two words, frickin disgusting. Machine made and I suspect powdered milk. Avoid avoid avoid

Is it worth coming here ? If you love Disney, don’t mind taking a day away from your Europe holiday to do an American thing, Pay a few hundred Euros to stand in queues all day and then pay the same on merchandise and food, then you will totally love it 😂😂 🇺🇸

Shit-Haus Coffee :-

Nice trains :-

Travel

Kitchenalia Café

Our day started early with a knock on the door from the apartment manager, she was here to try an fix the internet. It’s virtually unusable in this apartment, I’ve been relying on the SIM card I have in the phone. Thank goodness I have 15g of data, but it means uploading video from last nights ride is not an option.

I’m not really a fan of this part of Paris, it was a last minute compromise given what happened to the one we booked, but I can’t complain to hard, it’s still Paris and only a short ride on the metro from the really nice areas. It’s not that much better here than it is between Gare Du Nord and Gare du Est IMHO

I did grab a Starbucks first thing in case I had the same issue as yesterday, however I need not have worried as I found a rateable coffee (7/10) right near the kitchen shop we visited. This is *the* store to visit in Paris if you are into cooking utensils. After we had looked and shopped here we grabbed coffee next door

Here is the kitchen / cooking store

After here we wandered a bit further away from the Les Halles part of Paris and found some pastry and grocery stores with interesting and wonderful products

It’s amazing the care the French put into displaying and looking after ingredients. It’s no wonder French food is amazing

Tinned Snails, COMPUTER SAYS NO!

We then found a small mall with all sorts of cool shops

There was one with steel letters on display. Of course I let my inner 13 year old out to play a little, bit unfortunately Sharon’s outer teacher took over and made my display slightly more high brow before we left

We are now also the proud owners of the French equivalent of Opal/Oyster cards. It took quite a bit to navigate the French bureaucracy, find someone who spoke English and get some photos printed, but we did it, we have them and no need now for paper tickets. Vive Le France 🇫🇷!! Vive la révolution 🇫🇷 🧀🥐🍷!!!!