Paris day 3

Wednesday 24 September 2025. Well it was cold and rainy again this morning. No wonder we slept past the alarm and didn't get up until almost 8:00 am. But no matter, we are here just TO BE HERE; if we can see a few friends and experience some wonderful things all the better.

We dallied at our digs until late morning when we finally got ourselves together and headed out for the day. Our first objective was lunch at Carette's at the Trocadéro, followed by a stop at Passy Cemetery and then a visit to one of the museums at the Palais Challot, all located right around the Place du Trocadéro.

Leaving the apartment we walked up rue de Cotte to Avenue Faubourg de Saint-antoine and the Ledru-Rollin metro stop. We took the 8 to Bastille, switched to the 5 to Place d'Italie and then connected to the 6 which was a long ride across the left bank crossing the river near the Eiffel Tower and finally stopping at the Trocadéro.

Well, best laid plans of mice and men, as they say. It was still raining lightly when we made our way halfway around the place to Carette's where there was a very long line of like-minded folks waiting to be seated. Discretion is the better part of valor as someone else said, and we walked a further block or so to the Cafe du Trocadéro where we spent the next two hours savoring a delicious lunch accompanied by a superb glass of Chablis followed by a lovely raspberry tart.

Susan had the classic warm goat cheese salad and I had a very flavorful and filling chicken salad in a Chinese style with mint and coriander -- and it turned out to be nearly all chicken joined by the occasional piece of cabbage -- and boy was it good!

picture courtesy of The Fork

From the cafe we continued our walk around the place to Passy Cemetery; you can see the retaining wall of the cemetery in the photo below which also holds a strikingly handsome memorial to the victims of WW1.

Once inside we walked to Division 4 and the gravesite of two or our favorite painters: Edouard Manet and his sister-in-law Berthe Morisot. It's a lovely little cemetery with plenty of wonderful sculpture and some other outstanding figures of note: Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, Pearl White, the last emperor of Vietnam and two  tragic members of the Pashlavi family of Iran, to name just a few.

It was still raining when we left the cemetery and past the statue of Ben Franklin in a small park across from the cemetery entrance. The Square Yorktown is dedicated to the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. Franklin lived nearby during his sojourn in Paris.

After saying adieu to Franklin we continued our walk around the place past the Maritime Museum and of course stopped on the terrace to grab a photo of the Tower in the rain.

you can see Passy Cemetery in the upper left; the museum of architecture is in the right wing

We then popped into the museum of architecture, officially titled the Cité de l'Architecture et du patrimoine. This holds a curious yet fascinating collection of casts of bits and pieces of medieval buildings from around the country as well as works by more contemporary architects. It also houses a gallery of stained glass and wall murals which was unfortunately being restored when we visited.

The upper floor of the museum is dedicated to "modern" architecture from the late 19th century forward. Some interesting stuff - we'll leave it at that.

lots of models of recent architectural projects around France and beyond

Besides the stained glass gallery closure, part of the main floor was also closed off as well and none of the elevators worked. The museum is interesting to be sure but not worth your time if time is short. 

Leaving the museum we popped down into the entrance to the Metro, which is handily placed in front of the museum, and took line 6 all the way back across town to Daumesnil where we switched to the 8 and a short ride to our stop, Ledru Rollin, and home.

Dinner consisted of the last of those tasty haricot vert and the few remaining blanched potatoes sautéed with onion and some the shredded rotisserie chicken. Not too shabby!