Musée Carnavalet

Saturday afternoon, we had lunch with the sister (Maddy) of one of Maggie's college friends (Erika) - along with three Australians Maddy met while traveling in Italy. Our intention was to go to a crêperie called Breizh Café, which David Leibovitz reviewed on his blog. Unfortunately the place was packed when we got there (and we thought 12:30 pm would be unfashionably early!), so we ended up having to pick something on the spot, which isn't a position we like to be in. Luckily we stumbled upon La Tartine, an old-school-looking restaurant with entrances both on the Rue du Roi de Sicile and the Rue de Rivoli. As their name suggests, they specialize in tartines - basically open-faced sandwiches - which you can get with a multitude of toppings, in several sizes.

Maggie had a sliced duck breast tartine.

Neat idea, good (but not great) food, reasonable prices, pleasant atmosphere - we feel like we lucked out.

After lunch, we walked our new friends over to the (closed) Musée Picasso - mostly to confirm that it was closed. My plan for the afternoon had originally been to check out the Musée Carnavalet, and I somehow managed to drag everyone there with me. The Musée Carnavalet purports to be the museum of the city of Paris, but in reality it's an eclectic collection of objets d'art, signs, paintings, maps, reconstructed storefronts and historical rooms, and other random flotsam and jetsam preserved throughout Paris' history. Through January 3, the museum is presenting a special exhibition on Paris during the French Revolution, which looks fascinating (we didn't have time on Saturday).

Housed in two former hôtels particuliers (French for huge, old, private residences), the museum is much larger than it seems at first, and in two hours we probably only saw half of the collection. Not that we were really trying to see everything - the museum is free, so we felt no pressure to take it all in during a single visit. Can't wait to go back!