Bercy Village and the Île Saint-Louis

Today I got to sleep in, but unfortunately had a midterm at 10:45am for French History.  The exam was easy and at noon I turned it in and walked out.  For lunch I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich since I didn't have much time until our outing.


At 1pm we got on the metro and headed to Bercy Village.  This is a new and redeveloped part of Paris that's radically different from the parts I'm used to, but still very quaint.

After looking around a bit here we wandered through the nearby Parc de Bercy.  The park was nothing like the classical gardens I've seen in other places around the city.  Instead, it's very modern and fun.  There were giant carrots sticking out of the ground:

large ivy covered structures that looked like something out of the the Shire:

a small vineyard:

and lots of other interesting things to stop and look at.  After we wandered around the park for awhile, we took a bus to the 4th arrondissement for a walking tour of  Île Saint-Louis, the second and smaller island in the Seine.

The island is just a few square blocks, so there's not much to see, but we did see a lot of cute bakeries and candy shops, a large 17th century church.  The highlight of the tour was a stop at Berthillon, the most famous ice cream parlor in all of France.  The store is family-owned and operated and uses all natural and traditional ingredients to make their ice cream.  No artificial flavorings, dyes, or preservatives.  It was without a doubt some of the best ice cream I'd ever tried.

One our way back to the Foyer a few of us stopped and looked in some stores that we passed on the way, but I didn't see anything that I really wanted to buy.  For dinner we went out to a nearby brasserie and I got a delicious rotisserie chicken, salad, french fries, and a molten chocolate cake with english cream.  It was a wonderful meal and because of the smaller portion sizes here I didn't feel disgustingly full after eating it either!


I'm currently sitting in bed and about to go to sleep.  I'm going champagne tasting tomorrow and have to be up at 6:30am, so the sooner I go to sleep tonight, the better.