Le Saint Jean, Montmartre, Paris

After visiting the Musee de l'air et de l'espace for more than 4 hours at le Bourget airport, we took the bus and the metro to Abbesses. The stairs are endless at that station to get up to Montmartre, and you recognize the tourists quickly, as none of us knew to take the elevator. Once at the top we understood why some people were waiting for the elevator, it is worth it.

As we exited the metro we were assaulted at once by people supposedly with petitions, one of the scams I've read about on travel forums. But no luck for them. It started raining and we ran to the closest cafe le Saint Jean. Luckily we took the last spot at the covered terrace outside with great for people watching at very typical Montmartre street, rue des Abbesses. The poor waiter was overwhelmed as many people arrived at once because of the rain. He apologized several times during our meal as he couldn't take care of everyone at once, and of resulting delay. But we weren't in a hurry and just soaked the Montmartre atmosphere, delightful.

The menu on ardoise was good with typical dishes and I hesitated between a duck confit, bavette a l'echalotte, but finally decided on a croque madame, idem for my husband and our son chose a croque monsieur. With a half of red wine. The croques came beautifully presented with a salad and fries and were delicious.

All for about 40E and we spent a very relaxing couple of hours.