A Parisian Bed Picnic

After an unforgettable meal at Ledoyen, we hopped back on the Metro and rode it to Monmartre, where we took the funicular up to Sacre Coeur. “Funicular” is one of my favorite words.

No photography was allowed inside, but you can find some amazing photos of the interior by cheaters on Flickr. I can’t really condone that. I wish I had some photos of the inside, though. Oh, it’s hard to be good. The view was nice:

We wandered through Monmartre a bit and then headed to the 2nd arrondissment, where we stopped at a lovely bar called Drôle d’Endroit near The Marais. They have a red crocodile on the ceiling.

Then, we were wandering and thinking about dinner, but kept getting drawn in by the beautiful meat and cheese shops along the street.

We made our decision and skipped along cheerily from shop to shop, preparing for the event of the evening: a bed picnic at Hotel Lindbergh!

A hotel room bed picnic is a terrific way to taste local ingredients (and be sure you know exactly what you’re getting, unlike at restaurants, where for all you know the veggies came frozen).  We picked out the most beautiful meats, cheeses, breads, chocolates and wine for a fraction of what it would have cost us in a restaurant. Then, we spread it all out on the bed, popped a movie into the laptop and feasted like kings. We even had some leftover for snacks the next day (but less than we thought we would!). It doesn’t look impressive, but trust me, this was a darn fine meal, and a perfect way to sample the local Parisian fare. Here’s the majority of our selection:

Divine. Bonus: pajamas.