The Arc du Triomphe, at the western edge of the Champs-Elysees, is well protected by four or five lanes of heavy French traffic. Unlike us, you can avoid the indignities (not to mention dangers) of scurrying between cars across the Place Charles de Gaulle by using a passage which cleverly goes under the street. Just two blocks away from the Arc and (according to the indispensable Paris Access) not far from where Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald briefly lived, we found a delightful restaurant called L’Etoile Vert (13 Rue Brey), where the canard roti with cranberries was perfectly crisped and the desserts were incredible. At 110F prix fixe per person, the three course lunch was a feast and a bargain.
Regardless of what you think of I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre, it is absolutely the wrong way to enter the museum. Basically, it’s a line you wait on to get underground, . . . where you get on a line to actually enter one of the museum’s three wings. Take the metro to the Louvre’s station instead and use your Carte Musees to stroll in past everyone else. We admired the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, of course, but perhaps the most interesting piece in the collection is the building itself. The Louvre is really a work in progress, centuries in the making. At least nine major sets of alterations and additions have been made to the structure since it was first built in 1190 as a fortress to protect Paris. Directly under the Wing Sully is the carefully excavated foundation of that first castle. Visitors walk around the base of the castle through what was once the moat, getting a sense of Paris in the Middle Ages.