Backblogging our trip - Paris April 19-21

We promised to update the blog with pictures once we got a chance. We'll be posting the full set of pictures on our website once we're done editing them.

At the start of our trip we spent 3 days in Paris. We mostly spent the time running around to museums and biking around town using Velib, the "free" bike system. There's a good article about in in the New York Times here. Favorite museums were the Musee de Moyenne Age, which has a fantastic collection of illuminated manuscripts and unicorn tapestries, and of course the Musee d'Orsay for an impressionism overload. Also, I think that Rich has already blogged about the enormous set of eight Monet waterlillies paintings at the Orangerie.

We had a nice dinner at Au Trou Gascon our last night in Paris. It featured cuisine from the Southwest of France. This is where we began our tragic love affair with Armagnac. I also ate Foi Gras for the first time. It was alright, but certainly not good enough to justify the animal welfare issues - for me anyway.

Here's some pictures: (1) me riding a Velib bike near the Bastille in a protected bike lane; (2) a gargoyle contemplating Paris, including the Pompedieu center; (3) Notre Dame Cathedral - this gives a good sense of a sunny day in Paris in the spring; (4) the spiral stairs leading up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.