DAY 7: We started the day meeting up with a friend for coffee and pastry at Ble Sucre (7 Rue Antoine Vollon, 75012)which, in my opinion, has some of the very best viennoiseries and fancy pastry in Paris. And because it's not in the center of town, the prices are incredibly reasonably priced as well. They also have some tables outside and have coffee to go and there is a lovely little park across the street where you can take your coffee and pastry if the tables are filled.

We had a fantastically buttery, caramelized kouign amann, and the best butter croissant of the trip, shatteringly crisp outside, soft and chewy inside. We also had a fantastic almond pastry and a delicious chocolate eclair. The eclair wasn't as good as the one from Pain du Sucre but it was still excellent (and it was half the price!) I wanted to try everything so we decided we'd come back here on our last day for breakfast and to buy things to take on the plane and we bought a pain au chocolate to have later for a mid afternoon snack.

After saying goodbye to our friend, we decided to check out a exhibit I had read about on the Tudors happening at the Musee Luxembourg. On the way we stopped into the church of St. Sulpice, which is just spectacular inside and out. Then we went to the wonderful exhibit with many original, of the time paintings of the Tudors. I've always been fascinated by this period of English histories and it was a wonderfully curated exhibit.

After a couple of hours in the exhibit, we went into the Luxembourg Gardens and ate our chocolate croissant and then wandered the gardens enjoying the gorgeous weather. When we exited the gardens, we noticed that traffic had been completely blocked and the side walks were packed with people. We joined the crowd, having no idea what was happening, and soon about 30 men in fancy uniforms on beautiful horses came prancing up the street, followed by 4 large hearses, followed by another 20 or so men on horses. It was quite the spectacle.

We learned that this was a ceremony for the induction of 4 French resistance heroes from WWII into the Pantheon, including two women, the first ever females to be inducted. You can read more here if you're interested: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32910113 We were in the right place at the right time to see the excitement!

Then it was time to head home for our rest before dinner at Bistro Paul Bert.

Bistro Paul Bert (18 Rue Paul Bert, 75011) What a fun meal! Classic bistro ambiance, packed and noisy, complete mix of French, English and other languages being spoken, wonderful service and great food.

We did one 42E 3 course menu and shared the entrée and dessert plus 1 plat of filet of beef w/ sauce poivre and frites off the special carte (32E) and it was plenty of food for 2 of us. Our shared entrée was white asparagus with poached egg and parmesan cream, which was perfectly prepared and really delicious.

The plat we chose from the menu was cote de cochon w/ cider jus, apples and perfectly roasted potatoes, which was really great. The filet of beef with fries was as good as their reputation claims, cooked perfectly rare, sitting on a pool of rich and zingy pepper sauce. The fries were crispy and delicious. For dessert we split Gariguette strawberries with glace fromage blanc. Simply wonderful. This was a super fun, excellent meal. With 2 glasses of wine and a bottle of water the bill was 86E.

This is all making me very hungry. I guess all that walking does the trick for you, I would just get very fat eating all of those pastries.

Any advice for someone staying in the 5th? And basically a first-time visitor (I was in Paris last in 1970.)

This is all making me very hungry. I guess all that walking does the trick for you, I would just get very fat eating all of those pastries.

Any advice for someone staying in the 5th? And basically a first-time visitor (I was in Paris last in 1970.)

You're killing us, but thanks for the report!

Wwanderer, my advice is to not over schedule. Spend plenty of time wandering and sitting in sidewalk cafes and people watching. And yes, all the walking allows for much eating. Take some time to get away from the tourist sites. Check out other neighborhoods. Go to a food market. Be spontaneous. And whatever you do, don't eat in restaurants right near the major tourist sites.

If you care about food, do your research and have a list of excellent boulangeries in every area. They will all have fantastic sandwiches (and pastry) which can be eaten in any of the numerous lovely parks around Paris. This is a much better lunch options than an expensive and sub-par meal in the places near any of the big tourist attractions.

And make reservations for your meals. Except for some of the wine bars that do great food and don't take reservations, any excellent restaurant you will need reservations for, some of them weeks in advance. Your hotel will make then for you if you ask by email and some restaurants (although not many) take reservations by email. We tend to do only one restaurant meal a day, usually dinner. We eat pastry for breakfast, a mid afternoon snack (often more pastry but occasionally a salad or sandwich)and then out for a great dinner at 8:30.

And ask specific questions here for help. A general "What should we do?" is hard to answer well. If you have specific questions, you'll get good answers. If you ask generally you'll get a lot of opposing information as everyone has their own preferences.

Have fun!

WW - depending on how long you are staying, you will find that guide books like Fodors and Michelin have good ideas for how to organise your time. You can [and probably should] adapt it to your own schedule, checking when the various sights have their closing days, seeing if there is something nearby that might also interest you, etc etc. No good doing an itinerary that has you going to the Louvre on Day 2, if your Day 2 is a Tuesday.

Basically the trick is to make sure as far as possible that you group sights together so that you are not endlessly criss-crossing the city - or that if you are moving around you use easy public transport connections. For example, you might think that the place you want to go requires 3 changes of metro, only to find that there a bus that goes straight there!

And give yourselves lots of time for strolling around Paris - one of the most lovely things to do is to go for a wander, sit and have a drink, wander again....

Day 8: Our last full day before departure day! What to do? We decided to breakfast at home, finishing up some eggs and cheese with toasted baguette and jam. Then we made plans to meet up with some friends for coffee and chat, the last chance we'd have to see them in Paris.

After that we decided to head over and see the St Michel fountain, another one of those iconic Paris monuments that I always feel I must see in order to really feel as if I've been to Paris. The whole area was mobbed with people as always, but still, I felt that deep love for Paris that keeps bringing me back as i gazed on the amazing sculpture of Saint Michel, slaying the dragon.

Next, it was time for lunch. We had tried several times to go go to Boulangerie Julian and found them closed so I decided to call and see if they were open and lucky for us, finally yes! I had been dreaming about their millefuelle, one of the few great ones that are actually frosted on top in the old fashioned way so we decided to go and grab the pastry and a sandwich and take them to Parc Monceau, where we had read there was an antiques show happening.

I arrived at Julien with enormous anticipation for the millefeulle and was sadly disappointed to see none in the pastry case. It was very busy (as it always is!)but I did manage to ask and was told they'd be available in half an hour. We left for a walk, spending some time in Jean-Paul Hevin choosing chocolates to bring home as gifts. This is serious chocolate, with serious prices, but really special stuff.

When we returned to Boulangerie Julien, I was stunned to see that they had completely changed their presentation of their millefuelle, serving them au natural, instead of topped with the classic white frosting with chocolate lines through. A disappointment for me, especially after waiting so long to fulfill my longing for something very specific, but since I've rarely met a pastry I didn't like, we bought one anyway, along with a sandwich of smoked salmon, creme fresh, and greens on a poppyseed baguette and headed to Parc Monceau.

This is one of my favorite parks in Paris for many reasons and I think well worth the trip. We sat on a bench and enjoyed our delicious sandwich and pastry and then walkd through the entire park, enjoying the flowers and trees and then spent the rest of the afternoon perusing the antiques booths set up around the perimeter of the park. Some very beautiful stuff!

By later afternoon we were exhausted and ready to go back to the apartment to rest up for our last dinner in Paris at Le Taxi Jaune.

Sounds like a great afternoon.

How was the naked millefeulle compared to your expectations?

AJ, The naked millefuelle was just average. The way they used to make them there were many more, thinner, layers of both pastry and cream and the frosting added a sweetness that I really enjoyed. Now they're like almost every other patissierres, a shadow of a copy of Jacques Genin's now famous one. The cream was better than some and they were very fresh so the pastry was crisp, but if you're going to make a special trip somewhere for a millefuelle, go to Genin where they're made to order and the cream is sublime and the pastry amazing.

Le Taxi Juane (3 Rue Chapon, 75003) Our last meal in Paris and the sadness about leaving was compounded by the sad experience here. We arrived for our 8:30 reservation and there was one lone diner in the restaurant. She finished her meal and left before our entrees arrived and then we were the only people in the place for our entire meal.

The food was fine and a few things quite good but the lack of other diners really detracted from everything. We started with croquettes of wild escargot, which were just lovely, crunchy on the outside, inside a garlicky béchamel surrounded a juicy escargot on lightly dressed greens and we also had a nice little crab tart.

Plats were beef cheeks and a huge piece of cod with lobster cream sauce. The fish was perfectly cooked but the lobster sauce was lackluster so the dish was a bit flat and needed something acidic to brighten it up. The beef cheeks dish was excellent. We shared a dessert of chocolate moelleux which was slightly over cooked,served with a mango sorbet that was just a tad too tart.

I really wanted to like this place and if the restaurant had been filled with people having a good time I might have liked it a lot, but even if the food were exceptional, which it was not, it’s just not enjoyable to eat dinner in an empty restaurant. Part of me wanted to write a glowing review so more folks would go here because I think it wants to be, and maybe once was, a really good bistro, but I had to be truthful about our experience. I’m not sure how this place can survive. With 2 glasses of wine and a bottle of water the bill was 110E.

plafield - that's a shame. My father would always refuse to eat in a place where there was no-one else, even if we'd booked; in his case it wasn't so much because of the atmosphere, or lack of it, but because he thought that all those who weren't there knew something he didn't!

Yes, it was a bummer. We did think of leaving and looking for some place else, but it was 8:30 and we were hungry and we hoped more people would come in at 9:00. It was not to be. Oh well.

DEPARTURE DAY: Fortunately, no one was renting the apartemtn right after us so we were able to arrange to leave our bags until we had to leave for the airport around noon. We packed everything up and headed to Ble Sucre to have breakfast and buy some treats for the plane. We ate another fantastic kouign amann as well as a butter croissant with our coffee and we bought a pain au chocolate, a bag of 6 citris glazed madelaines, and a bag of chocolate sables, as well as a baguette for the plane.

Next we hopped the metro 2 stops to Bastille and enjoyed the Richard Lenoir market, buying some great Ham and cheese and greens to make sandwiches on our baguette to eat on the plane. We also bought some jars of foie gras to take home as well as some fluer de sel and herbes de Provence.

After a stop at the apartment to make our sandwich and pick up our luggage, it was on to the airport and the very long trip home. You can bet we were happy to have all those delicious tastes of Paris to enjoy over the next 10 hours and the folks near us on the plane were giving us the evil eye as they ate their disgusting airplane food. I can never understand why everyone leaving Paris doesn't bring their own food onto the plane but we've never seen anyone else do it. We wouldn't consider not doing it, in both directions, actually!

Too soon, we're back home just dreaming of the delicious time we had. Fortunately, we've got 3 whole duck livers to enjoy and those will bring is right back. Until next time Paris....

Thanks for all of your reviews of places. I'm putting some of these on my list for our next trip!

What was your method of getting the duck livers past the agricultural inspection on arrival?

Lovely..Thank you!

yes, thank you for letting us eat our way [vicariously] round Paris with you!

AJ, because they're sealed in glass, fully cooked, they're legal to come in. In fact, you can buy them "duty free" at the airport and carry them on the plane if you like.