Bonjour from Paris! I had some very grandiose dreams of posting a daily recap and photos at the end of every day, et voila – day three and here’s the first post. We are go-go-go all day long, so in the evening when we get home (around 10pm), we just fall asleep!
A quick summary from our first few days in the City of Lights: When we arrived at our apartment rental on Friday at 3pm, we were starving, so walked to nearby Cafe Le Buci for lunch and wine. We both loved our meals, and Isla was eating up the attention of people walking by our table waving back at her. We headed towards Rue du Bac metro, as we wanted to go to Montmartre to see Sacre-Coeur, but unfortunately, there was a fire in the metro, so it was closed. We decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower, which was 3 miles from our apartment. It seemed like a great idea on the way there, but on the way back we were pretty tired! With jetlag and a lot of moving around, we were exhausted and went to the Monoprix (France’s Target equivalent) to get groceries, which we ate for dinner and then all went to sleep.
Isla woke up around 7am, so we ate cereal and then headed out to Les Deux Magots for coffee (I’m such a dork about this place – read the history here). Sasha headed back to the apartment to do another load of laundry, so Isla and I roamed around for 15 minutes, before meeting him and heading across the Seine towards the Louvre. We’ve both been before, so we skipped out on this tourist activity and walked through the Tuileries towards L’Orangerie – one of my favorite museums in the world (second only to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam). Afterwards, we walked to the metro then traveled to Montmartre, where we ate lunch at Le Carrousel (Creperie Broceliande was on the agenda, but was closed for vacation) and made friends with an English couple visiting from Vienna. Isla walked to a few tables, making new friends. She loves it here.
We then took the funicular up to Sacre-Coeur, as the stairs are hard to manoeuver with the stroller. We walked around the beautiful church, then strolled down the winding streets towards Le Moulin Rouge, stopping only to get Sasha a crepe. Afterwards, we took the metro to St. Paul in the Marais, where we wandered down Rue de Sevigne, stopping into Sandro and Comptoir des Cotonniers, two of my favorite clothing stores here. We got gelato and frozen yogurt at Amorino, then went to Places des Vosges to lay on the grass and eat it. It was already 5:30pm at that time, so we walked for 40 minutes back to the St. Germain area (stopping for many photo opps), and fed Isla dinner, bathed her, then put her PJs on and put her in the stroller (she fell asleep minutes into our walk!). Our dinner search was a bit of a fiasco, as the places I had read online to go to did not have any vegetarian options, so we kept going from one area to the next looking for the ‘right place’ and at 9:30pm, we were too exhausted and no longer hungry, so called it quits. We have had a few good laughs about it since.
This morning, we woke up late and were scurrying around to get out of the door to go to the French Open. We took the metro from Mabillon to Boulogne – Jean Jaures, and walked for five minutes to the Roland Garros stadium. My parents bought Sasha and I special level passes for his birthday, as all of the general entry tickets sold out immediately. We were so grateful for this gift, as it was nice for Isla to be able to roam around the carpeted indoor lounge, given that one of her shoes fell off while walking around the stadium. No strollers were allowed into the grounds, so our fail-proof plan to have her nap while we walked around didn’t quite pan out, but she was a trooper none-the-less. She had the guests and lounge staff loving on her quickly with all of those waves. We bought her a big pink Roland Garros tennis ball, which she tried to give to everyone near her. It was adorable.
We left around 6pm after watching Roger Federer and Jo Wilfred Tsonga (my two favorite players!). It was such an incredible day – one we’ll never forget. We got on the metro and went back to St. Germain, where we ate at Cafe Bonaparte. We loved our waiter and had our favorite meal yet. Sasha ate beef tartar for the first time and was rather nervous he was going to die from the raw egg and beef! Such an American (ha).
Tomorrow is our last day in Paris (wah!), and then we leave for Russia. It’ll be another busy, busy day, as there is still so much to do and see before we leave my favorite city. More photos to come soon! xo
I started taking French lessons in 6th grade, as part of a rotational elective. And I was immediately hooked. My fascination for the capital city, Paris, grew and grew over the years, and I continued studying French for 10 years (I minored at The University of Texas).
