Paris Day One - First Night and First Restaurant

We took a bit of a rest in our wonderful Paris hotel and then went out to explore the neighborhood. We walked a little north and west of our hotel and found ourselves in a rather iffy area with lots of young men hanging out on streets corners. Our urban radars were going off like crazy. It also started raining. We originally wanted to walk up to a park square nearby but instead we headed back to our hotel area and fortunately we did not need to go off in that direction any other time. Everywhere we would be going to over the next few days was in the other direction from the hotel including the subway.

The rain let up and we walked down the Rue de Echiquier for a block and then went up the Rue de Faubourg to the restaurant with the name 52 Rue de Faubourg Saint-Denis. This place was on our list of restaurants near the hotel that we researched ahead of time. We had great food and wine while listening to obscure classic sounding r&b and soul jazz. In addition to the bottle of wine with dinner I also had a pint of La Marise, a Belgian pale ale from De Proefbrouwerij. Very tasty.

After that relaxing dinner we went back to the hotel and we got a call from the hotel management inquiring about our safety. We found out later that there was a terrorist attack at a restaurant down the street from the hotel about a block from where we had dinner. It was kind of shocking but we really never saw anything that raised alarm. Apparently the attack was done with a knife and there was no shooting. We were very tired from traveling and being in a new city so we slept OK anyway.

Good French food and wine.