Started off the day by sleeping in. It was cozy and much needed. It must be all the Parisian air we’re taking in. Whatever the reason, it just felt good.

After getting cleaned up, we headed up the Boulevard St Germain. Today we’re going to Le Bon Marché and Le Grande Épicerie. It’s not too far of a walk and will give us a chance to see some of the surrounding neighborhoods.

There were so many quaint little shops along the way. The various chocolate shops caught my eye, but I restrained myself. Numerous shops selling clothing, shoes, jewelry, candies and other items dotted our path.

The traffic wasn’t too bad, but there were plenty of people walking around. The stores must have been busy, as people were carrying lots of shopping bags. It looked just like the Hallmark holiday movies.

When we arrived at the store, we immediately headed around the corner to check out the window displays. There was plenty of Christmas music playing, people smiling and little kids staring in awe at the holiday characters. The window displays were adorable, with charming animated characters – green bunnies playing instruments, pink flamingoes having an exercise class, crabs and octopuses having a dance-off and little purple laughing fuzz balls.

We then crossed the street to their huge food hall called Le Grande Épicerie. Holy smokes, now that’s a Super Marché ! Just about anything you could possibly want was found here with so many choices. Several floors of every imaginable holiday food and beverage item, beautifully displayed.

Dazzled by the market, we headed back towards our hotel. Along the way, we stopped into the Zara store to look at their mouse house and holiday decorations.

Exiting the store, we now had our own shopping bag to look cool.

And it’s a good thing we looked cool, because we got ourselves lost again. Or, I should say we were directionally impaired. A zig, a zag and we were back on track. No worries.

Given the time, we decided to skip lunch and went back to the hotel for a cup of warm tea and a pastry.

Dinner this evening was at Willi’s Wine bar, a perennial stop when we visit Paris. Tonight we journeyed over via bus. The bus stop is right across the street from us in front of the Saint Germain Des Prés Church. We hopped on and it only took seventeen minutes to get there, including a three minute walk.

We were early for our reservation, but they had our table available so we were promptly seated. We had our first beverage and our order in before our scheduled reservation time.

We started with a glass of champagne just to whet our appetites. For starters, Sue had a rabbit parfait, while I had a roast quail. Both were delicious. We then had a bottle of Volnay burgundy with our main course. We both had the braised leg of venison with winter vegetables and red cabbage. Again, it was tender and delicious. For dessert, we both had a Praline mousse with thin pastry and roasted almonds and hazelnuts.

Having enjoyed our meals and having a chance to chat briefly with Owner Mark Williamson, we happily set off for home. We once again used our tickets for the bus and twenty minutes later we arrived back in our room.

It was a nice night and a good day overall. We had a chance to relax for a while before calling it a night.