Or Gluten-Free Adventures in the City of Baguettes

Mary Jo left last Thursday and Terryl was supposed to arrive the same day. In fact, we thought they nmight even meet each other. Alas, it was not to be. Poor Terryl’s flight was sent back to Boston after flying for an hour and a half because of a noxious odor on the plane. Instead, I had a chill day and she went home for a nap and arrived Friday after rebooking and being delayed several hours again.

We took a stroll over to the Tour Eiffel after dark (which here is about 9:30), because why not? It’s beautiful and a great way to jump into being in Paris. The Tuileries will be closed until after the ParaOlympics, so we decided to go to the Jardin du Luxembourg for our Paris park fix on Saturday. There we found the ubiquitous Instasign! The only one I’ve seen here. You can’t go wrong wandering the streets of Paris and strolling through the parks. We also hit the grocery store to make sure we had some food for the arrival of her daughter, Megan, who has celiac disease.

Megan arrived Sunday and was game to start Instaposing. She hadn’t been abroad before, so this was a big adventure for her so, obviously, we headed back to the Tour Eiffel for a photo session. It was the nght of the Olympic closing ceremony, so it was a bit crowded, but we found some spots for photos and then had a cocktail on a docked ship overlooking the tower. (Note to self: Docked boats rock and make you a bit seasick.)

Terryl had carefully laid out where we could get gluten-free food, which as it turns out was not as big of a challenge as we thought it would be. For the record, Megan recommends:

• The baguettes from Noglu (which also has stores in New York)
• The chocolate beignet and other pastries from Copains
• The croissant from La Manufacture du Sans Gluten (sorry, FB page), which she kept asking if it was really gluten free because it was so good
• The Italian food at Su Misura
• The pizza at Little Nonna. Both Terryl and Megan said the crust of the pizza tasted like real pizza crust, but the pizza crust in the US is like a cracker. (Anyone know why there’s no real gluten-free pizza crust in the US, or at least in the Boston area?)

We also ate at Kapunka Thai, which is gluten-free (yes, we realize that a lot of Thai food is naturally gluten-free but this way we didn’t have to worry about soy sauce or other stealth gluten and Indian at New Jawad Longchamp, where I ordered my food spicy and it really was.

Monday was supposed to be very hot and it did not disappoint. It hit a high of almost 97 degrees F (or 36 for you Celsius thinkers). Luckily, it a dry heat (really? at that temperature, OK, it’s better than 90 percent humidity but it’s still hot). We had planned for it with a trip to Gallerie Lafayette and the Glasswalk, which is a plexiglass walkway that juts out into the rotunda. It’s free, but you need a timed ticket and you get five minutes to do your posing and get out of there.

From there, we took a cab over to O Chateau for our scheduled tour de France of wine tasting. We got there early because it was air conditioned and just sat and relaxed until the tasting started. We tasted a champagne, two whites, a rose and two reds. They were delicious, but I could be biased by the fact that the pours were very generous. Our sommelier, Bastian (short for Sebastian), was knowledgeable and quite cute (which we’ll get into a bit more later). We had been debating a champagne tasting Seine cruise. It is put on by O Chateau as well and we got a 10 percent discount when we signed up at the wine tasting.

By the time we finished dinner, it had cooled off, but we may have underestimated how much cooler Tuesday would be, since instead of broiling heat, it was humid but a mere 85 degrees F (29 C). Luckily, we had the cruise scheduled for the evening. We started out at the Palais Galliera, or fashion museum. You may be surprised to know that I had never been before since it wasn’t high on Steven’s list. It’s a fairly small museum, but had a fun exhibit on the history of sports fashion. Hard to believe what women had to wear to play sports back in the day. Of course, these days they wear practically nothing!

Tuesday, we did some obligatory souvenir shopping at the Olympic store. That place was still packed, although there wasn’t a line outside anymore. The Olympics were a huge success with Parisians and tourists alike. In fact, even the trains ran on time. I’ve been taking the Metro way more than I normally would because of my hip injury. During the Olympics, the trains were great and frequent and the stations did not smell like pee. Alas, this ended with the Olympics. Despite the €4 price (up from €2.10 until the end of September) the pee smell was back and there were slightly fewer trains. We had to wait 5 whole minutes once! Oh well, nothing is perfect.

So, back to Bastian. (Yes, that’s him in the pic.) The champagne cruise was about an hour long and, again, he likes a big pour. We tried three champagnes, each one more delicious than the last. What’s not to like about watching Paris stream by as you sip some bubbly with excellent friends? As we were leaving, we asked Bastian to recommend a dance club for Megan, since we felt bad making her hang out with the old folks. Then, I forgot (really it was an accident) my walking stick on the boat and Bastian went to get it. By that point, he was leaving, too, and Terryl and I hung back and let the young folks chat. They exchanged info and decided to go out dancing Wednesday night. Yay!

We hit young woman paydirt on Wednesday. First, we stopped at the market, where Megan found some bracelets she liked. Following that, I thought we would find some thrift shops Megan might like in the Marais. She did find a store she liked, but it wasn’t a thrift shop. It was Subdued, which is apparently a better version of Brandy Melville (which I had also not heard of). If you care to link on the link you will see all the clothes young women wear. Megan definitely went home with a suitcase fuller than the one she came with and, trust me, that one was packed for many wardrobe changes.

Because Megan was heading out with someone we didn’t know to a place we didn’t know, we decided to drop her off and hang around the area just in case. Bastian was very sweet. He met her at the train and they walked to the club, Virage, (which he picked because he knew it was close to us — nice guy) while we hid so he wouldn’t know we were there. We walked over to a bar called Octopussy and had a beer while she learned to techno dance. A good time was had by all. We got back to the apartment around 2 a.m. and crashed.

Thursday, their very last day, we decided to check out Monmartre because you have to as a tourist. We went into Sacre Coeur (very short line). Of course, the building is beautiful and then decided to hump it the 292 steps up to the top for the famous panoramic view of Paris. Well worth it and not as bad as the number makes it seem, but the stairs can be a bit slippery and/or steep, so caution is warranted. Plus, they are spiral, so dizziness can be a factor. Keep a hand on the wall!

Monmarte was, not surprisingly, very crowded, so we wandered down to Pigelle and had a final Parisian cocktail. I ordered another French 75, in very bad French, and it came with the champagne on the side. I dumped the champagne in it, but then the waiter came back to say they were bringing me another one because the bartender was new and didn’t make it correctly. At least, that’s what I got out of it since he thought I spoke French. Hmmm. Anyway, he brought a different one. Then he talked more and asked which one I liked better. Well, I liked the first better, but whatever, I’m sitting in a bistro in Paris with two wonderful women in the sunshine and someone thinks I speak French. I’m not going to complain.

We changed into our fancy, Terryl and Megan’s last night in Paris clothes and went out for Italian at Little Nonna, where they make that good pizza dough. I had gnocchi, which was also good and then we headed back so they could pack. As I sit here typing, they are boarding their plane back to Boston and I’m awaiting the arrival of my next and final guest, Susanna. Fingers crossed there are no problems.

One week left before I head back to Chicago. It’s going very quickly.