Evening street scene on Ile St. Louis.
Our Silver Paris
Welcome to my Paris travel journal,
where I share our experiences of our special journey to Paris.
Please use these posts as a guide for your own travels
to this amazing and wonderful city!
Or simply read, and dream...
After oohing and aahing over la cathédrale de Notre Dame on our first evening in Paris, we found ourselves on Ile St. Louis, in front of a restaurant, with an ice cream stand. We watched for a bit as person after person went up and ordered an ice cream cone. Then, we looked at each other, smiled, silently agreed, and got in line. We had no problem ordering in French, and we each got a single cone, Fernando's being vanille, and mine being chocolat noir.
Can you see that we're smiling in our self-portrait below? The glace was out-of-this-world delicious.
Back at our appartement, I casually read through one of our tour books and happened upon a section focusing on Ile St. Louis:
At No. 31 [rue St. Louis-en-l'Ile] is the original Berthillon, maker of the city's most delicious ice cream. It has become so popular in recent years that queues often stretch for a couple of blocks despite two newer branches on the island. ~from Paris Walks, p. 122 (ISBN 0-7627-4160-0).
We hadn't gotten our ice cream from the original, but we had inadvertently stumbled upon one of the branches of Berthillon. We had actually already tasted this famous ice cream! I read the passage to Fernando, and we fist-bumped. Woo-hoo!
At the end of the very next day (Monday), we decided to go on another walk to the Seine River. Curiously, we ended up in front of that Berthillon stand again. This time, there were some new flavors among the choices. I asked in French what one of them was, and the young lady told me what the flavor consisted of--in French. I was lost. The young man working the stand jumped to my rescue, and translated that agenaise was dried plum and rum flavor. Well, of course I needed to try that one, and Fernando decided to try a sorbet, mangue (mango).
Tuesday evening. Fernando--sorbet de fraise (strawberry). Me--glace de noisette (hazelnut). The young man from Monday evening was there again, and smiled when he saw us. He spoke excellent English and let me try speaking French anyway. We told him we'd be back.
Wednesday evening. Fernando--glace de noisette. Me--glace de moka (mocha). Our ice cream man grinned this time.
Thursday evening. Fernando--glace de chocolat blanc. Me--sorbet de pêche de vigne (literally, "peach on the vine").
Our ice cream man wished me an early happy birthday, once we told him it was on Friday. I'm glad he did; this was the last night we would enjoy a Berthillon ice cream. There was one other special nighttime jaunt Fernando wanted to do with me, and that would be saved for my birthday--and another post.
Treasuring life's moments,
Christine
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Oh my, looks and sounds so yummy. Glad you got to try so many different flavors. :)
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