Vacation 2009 - day 15

May 5, 2009 - Orleans/Paris

Up for a hotel breakfast, went out to scout which stores opened when for Stacey. Since this was our last day in France, she wanted to see if she could find some good clothes or good food.

Back to the hotel to check out and then to the train station. Stacey shopped for a while in the mall next to the train station and then for a while at Cop Copine, Stacey's favourite brand, and one that is hard to find in the US. Afterwards, we caught the train to Paris.

We found our hotel, the Hotel Bervic. It's right in the center of Paris, very conveniently located near the Gare du Nord train station, which seemed like a very bad neighbourhood. Very scummy and dirty, with bars on all windows, etc. Reminded me of the San Francisco Tenderloin. The hotel room wasn't particularly clean, and had no towels. We had to ask repeatedly to get them, and to go up and down the four flights repeatedly of stairs (no lift/elevator) to get them. I'm not sure you could pay me enough to stay there again.

We tried to get into a nice restaurant Stacey knew about, but they were full up. We ended up eating at a place called Brasserie Lipp. It looked good from the outside, but the food we got was pretty terrible - mediocre fish and overdone veal in cream of mushroom soup!

Then back to the hotel, to get ready for the plane out the next morning.

(pictures from Paris)