The best meal in Paris

By the end of our second day we had, for the most part, seen every major sight we had wanted to - thanks in large part to the bikes. All that was left on our final day was to go inside Notre Dame, otherwise the day was free. So after our breakfast at the patisserie with 1 euro coffee again, we hopped on our bikes headed to the gardens in front of the Louvre and to see both the Grand Palais and Petit Palais.

It was yet another beautiful day and knowing that we only had one item on the day's agenda, allowed us to be slower and more deliberate.

A couple of months ago David Lebovitz posted about Rue Montorgueil and how it was the place to visit if you only had a short time in Paris and wanted to find the epitome of Parisian life in about 3 or 4 blocks. When we found the pedestrian only street, I'll admit I was disappointed in how packed it was, but it was lunch time and the street is filled with good food (as we'd soon find out), so the crowds were understandable.

This street is lined with great specialty food stores, bakeries, wine shopes, cheese shops, cafes (of course) and is, in sum, a gastronomical delight. David described his favorite spots and as it was nearing time for our lunch, we decided we'd have a classic and romantic lunch.

First we needed a good cheese, and the description of one fromagerie with the term, "hoo boy" in it had us hooked, so we bought a large hunk of 30-month old comte cheese. Now we needed bread. We stopped by a bakery, bought a baguette and threw in a meringue and macaron in there for good measure.

Finally we needed wine. An inexpensive bottle of rose on display outside brought us into a wine shop, but upon looking around we decided on a pricier bottle of muscat by a vineyard - Perrin & Fils - whose Chotes du Rhone we love and buy regularly back home at Viniferous.

The nice young man rang us up and opened our bottle of wine, and we headed off to a nearby square with plenty of grassy, shady spots to sit. The cheese was incredible, the baguette a perfect mix of crispy outside and soft inside, and the muscat was like nectar.

We sat there for a long while, eating and drinking slowly, and enjoying the picturesque Parisian moment.

See all of our pictures from Paris here.