Down in the basement of the La Tour Notre Dame Best Western was a small room with brick walls and archways and nice tables with chairs crammed up against the wall to provide enough seating. Many Europeans don't do breakfast. At most, it's a hot drink and roll. Occasionally, juice accompanies the meal. I learned pineapple juice is quite popular in France. Breakfast at our hotel was called a "buffet," but was more like a continental breakfast. There was granola, yogurt, milk and hot drinks upon request, three hard cheese varieties and individual cream cheese packets, eggs boiled while you wait, croissants, wheat bread, and rolls with chocolate chunks (pain au chocolate). There was always pineapple and grapefruit juice. Occasionally, a mixed fruit juice the amber color of apple juice was available, and fresh squeezed orange juice cost 2 euros extra.

Our first morning, I had grapefruit juice because my throat was unhappy, a croissant without condiments to experience a true French breakfast (after all, the croissants are pretty buttery in flavor), and a cup of hot chocolate to warm my throat after the juice.

Along with his yogurt and granola, Paul had an egg and cheese sandwich. Paul put a fresh egg in the boiling vat of water and picked up the cute little wooden timer with white powder slowly falling from one side to the other. At three minutes, the powder ran out, and Paul thought he'd better turn it over once more. Perhaps the eggs had already been cooked a bit if the timer was so short; but it didn't hurt to make sure. Well, we were wrong. The egg hadn't been precooked and the the yolk ran over the plate as Paul hit the shell with his knife. Leaving the yolk and scooping the cooked whites onto a sliced roll with cheese was the end result.

Part of the joy of the breakfast was eating in an old, remodeled building. The rest was what we had eaten enough to give us energy to get through a busy day of being a tourist.

See how far breakfast took us in Paris, here.