The setup for the free breakfast at the hotel was a bit unusual. The hotel was somehow connected to the adjacent restaurant, which you accessed by going outside and into another entrance (as opposed to entering the restaurant via the hotel which happened to also have an entrance for the general public). It was an, um, interesting place. It was made to look even older than the building was, with roughened walls painted an ochre shade with some slats showing – I guess a shabby chic look? Other parts had a kind of kitschy wallpaper pattern that would’ve been popular in, say, the 40s or 50s. There were deer antlers on one wall, interesting artwork throughout, and a creepy male mannequin wearing a leopard print Speedo and with a gold chain around the waist from which hung gold letters spelling ROCKSTAR (in case you thought anyone else would be wearing such a thing).
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| Ye Olde Pen Shoppe |
There were no servers in the restaurant when we entered. There was, however, a guy in the kitchen in the back who was clearly trying to prep for the regular restaurant hours (the restaurant was clearly not open to the public for breakfast or even coffee at this time). Inevitably, when hotel guests had questions, they sought that poor guy out who got more frustrated with each request as this was clearly not his job. Turns out it was the job of the hotel clerk who finally wandered in. She added a few more croissants to the basket (apparently, three was the perfect amount to set out at any given point in time). My wife asked if there were eggs as there was an electric egg boiling machine and, probably 15 minutes, she finally brought the eggs out. I don’t know if these machines are different in France, but this one took well over 15 minutes, though apparently the eggs were good. The coffee was less good – I think the packets of instant Nescafe up in the room were far better. But hey, a free breakfast is a free breakfast and the croissant and yogurt were at least enough to get me on my way.
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| Cheese so special it is roped off -- VIP cheese |
We did a bit of shopping that morning. No, not fancy things that one might associate with the high fashion of Paris or something. No, we hit places such as Zara and H&M so that we had a few more cheap t-shirts and things to wear in the hot weather. What’s interesting to me is that the stores have different merchandise in Europe than in the US so we ended up with some things that may be a bit unique. My favorite find was a bizarre white t-shirt with what looked like a frame around some artwork of a woman with a crazy red hairstyle which was then accented with the a few sequins of the same color. Totally NOT my style, but hey, EUR 5!
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| I can't unsee this, er, "art" |
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| Some of the interesting art |
We went to the Musee d’Arts Modernes et d’Art Contemporain (MAMAC) which has some, er, interesting exhibits and also happened to be very close to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around and enjoying the city and had a lovely dinner at another restaurant recommended by a friend – Citrus.
The setup for the free breakfast at the hotel was a bit unusual. The hotel was somehow connected to the adjacent restaurant, which you accessed by going outside and into another entrance (as opposed to entering the restaurant via the hotel which happened to also have an entrance for the general public). It was an, um, interesting place. It was made to look even older than the building was, with roughened walls painted an ochre shade with some slats showing – I guess a shabby chic look? Other parts had a kind of kitschy wallpaper pattern that would’ve been popular in, say, the 40s or 50s. There were deer antlers on one wall, interesting artwork throughout, and a creepy male mannequin wearing a leopard print Speedo and with a gold chain around the waist from which hung gold letters spelling ROCKSTAR (in case you thought anyone else would be wearing such a thing).
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