We arrived a bit later than expected in Paris. I only took a half day work leave on Friday and it was almost 2PM when we left. I picked up Blondine and yours truly is driving the whole leg. Amsterdam (in this case Amstelveen) to Paris is about 5 hours without traffic. With traffic it is 6 to 7 hours. We were going smoothly until we reached Lille in France around 5PM. Rush hour. We got stuck for an hour just in Lille. Traffic was horrible!
Eventually we arrived past 8PM in Paris. It was already dark. We found the hotel but parking signs are not easy to follow in the city so we struggled a bit until we found parking around the block. I initially thought it was near the hotel (which in reality it was) but when I turned on my GPS to find our way back to the hotel on foot, it showed a very long route. We found out later that it was the DRIVE route, and this was even after I indicated WALK route mode. What is wrong with Nokia’s GPS? Well, no way I am going on foot with my big and heavy overnight bag in my high heels! So we grabbed a cab, and this was after some time of desperately hailing cabs that were not offering rides for whatever reasons. This reminds me so much of Manila. It is so annoying.
Anyway, we checked in to our cute hotel room. The ambience of the room brings back similar memories of our Venice hotel room around the corner of San Marco square. Our hotel is located right in the center of Paris, in the 8th arrondissement, between Montmartre and the Opera (the shopping area, Lafeyette, Printemps et al are just around the corner). Perfect location for a shopping holiday.
We were starving and looking at the time that its almost 9PM, not to mention we were tired, we decided to hit our luck around the corner. And we indeed found our luck for the night!
Garnier on St-Lazare, located in front of Gare Saint Lazare as I just found out now is one of the best seafood restaurants in Paris. Reviews say that its where you can find the best oysters in town. And I may have to agree with that! I thought someone said the restaurant has 1 Michelin star??? Hmm, not sure, cannot find their website.
We had a full-course seafood dinner, starting with fresh oysters and bread, main fish (dorado and sword fishes) dish, and fruit cocktail and rice pudding for desserts. To help our full-course dinner we ordered Bordeaux wine as our starter wine (with the bread) to warm us up and then switched to a local French white wine that I forgot the name to go with the seafood. We finished it with coffee, espresso for me and cappuccino for Blondine and some dark chocolates and meringue.
Food Rating: 5 stars out of 5. The service personnel were also very nice!
After the long drive, the traffic in Lille and upon arriving Paris centre, and the parking and waiting for a cab, we were quite happy to end it with a beautiful dinner at Garnier. We were quite satisfied with our first night in Paris. The night ended very well and we are ready for tomorrow’s shopping! Go!
Travel Period: October 2011
Destination: Paris, France
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