Montmartre and L'Africain at Angelina

When I ventured out for our morning croissants, the sun was shining and it was almost warm. So we planned to go up to Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre today. However, when we emerged at the Abbesses Metro station, it had once again turned cloudy and was drizzling a little.

We walked over to the base of the hill and the kids found yet another carousel to ride. Then we took the Funicular up to the top. It's a pretty short ride and we took the funicular more for amusement than anything else. Luckily for us, it decided to be sunny while we were at the top, looking down at all of Paris. Which made for a nice few minutes.

After a quick tour of the church, we walked over to Place de Tetre. When Amara and I had been here about 5 years ago, we had her portrait drawn by an artist here, and it now hangs in our house. So I had been hoping to find the same artist and have a portrait done for Mei. I remembered where the artist sat, and that he was a Japanese man who's name started with an M. Alas, we could not find him. So Mei had her picture drawn by another Japanese artist whose name started with an M!

During the course of the sitting, the weather switched between heavy rain, light drizzle and sunshine about 6 times. Even the artist acknowledged that this was very unusual weather. The portrait came out great - we'll have to get it framed when we get home. We also bought a nice modern watercolor since no trip to Europe would be complete without picking up some art.

We then headed over to the Tuileries where we got in line to have tea at Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli. Again, the presence of hordes of tourists at peak season surprised me - lining up for tea was not something I had expected. The girls had their famous Chocolate Africain - a very rich and creamy hot chocolate that's more like melted chocolate, served with a big pot of whipped cream to thin it out. Plus a few of their pastries - the hands-down winner was the Tarte au Citron, or lemon tart.

I managed to squeeze in a short shopping sojourn to Dominique Picquier, a lovely design shop that I had visited some years before. I indulged in a new bag there - as many of you know, I have a bit of a weakness for purses and bags...

Later that evening, we wandered over to the Bastille to search for a restaurant that I had found in a guidebook. Sadly, it didn't seem to be there anymore. So we ended up having dinner at Hippopotamus - I would liken it to a French Outback Steakhouse :)

Finally a quick stop at Amorino for gelato topped off a full day of Parisian wanderings.