Paris Weekend

I spent last weekend in Paris. Who says that?

Thursday:

Between booking the tickets in advance, and traveling at the weird times of Thursday evening, and Monday morning, we got a great deal for around €70 round trip. A 3.5hr train ride...how could we resist? After work I met my travel buddies Josh, Ashly, and Rachel on platform 10a to take off for Paris. Josh packed us snacks...or should I say...packed us each an individual tupperware with a sandwich, tomatoes, crackers, carrots, nuts, banana, and tangerine. It was adorable...hence, the first image of this post:

Friday:

Woke up early and hit the ground running.

Our Apartment, and the view of the church across the street:

Walked past the Louvre. Took some photos. Kept on moving:

Went into Less Art Décoratifs museum to see a Sagmeister show. Turns out the museum workers were on strike, so we were able to enter for free. Thanks guys!

Museum entrance and Jean-Paul Goude exhibit:

Sagmeister Exhibit:

After the museum, we wandered over to the Marais district with the intent of eating at Schwartz cafe.

The lovely Hotel de Ville:

We just missed the last seating for lunch at Schwartz cafe, but the area was overflowing with amazing places to eat. After stopping in a bakery to grab some fresh backed Challah, we settled on this little crepe shop:

My first official French crepe! Huzzah!

Next we headed over to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. This is the cemetary Jim Morrison is buried in, though we did not take the time to find him. We just wandered around and enjoyed the beauty of it all. After the cemetary we headed to a little restaurant, Obododo, for a wine, and then took the metro to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame was beautiful. Of course. It also had the city's Christmas tree out front. For the record—Rachel was not impressed with their tree.

Then we hopped the metro south to eat a Chez Papa—A restaurant Josh and Ashly had been to during their last visit here. It was amazing! If I'm ever in Paris again, I'll definitely go back:

When the waitress took our group photo, the joining table decided to join in the pose. Makes us look like we have quite the gang :)

Saturday:

Got up and headed to the George Pompidou Museum. There was a long line, and we had a lunch date to make, but we were still able to make it in to view the Edvard Munch exhibit. Then we hopped over to lunch, and back to the museum again to finish up.

For lunch we met some friends from Amsterdam and Paris at Glou. The food was amazing. The company was amazing. It was a proper 3 hour French lunch. Wonderful!

Back at Pompidou after lunch:

Enjoying the sweeping scenery from the top floor of the Pompidou:

After the sunset at the museum we attempted to head in to the center to scope out the Eiffel tower. The rush-hour traffic on the metro proved to be a bit of a challenge, and we had a tight schedule, so we made it this far:

We next ran back to the apartment, grabbed a quick bite, and headed off to an ONRA show:

Sunday:

As per Pierre and Neeza's recommendation, we headed to Ladurée for tea and macaroons. The place was very lovely. I grabbed some macaroons to go. They wound up a bit smashed in the end, but my belly still enjoyed them:

Then we headed across town to grab a proper breakfast/lunch/brunch. We initially tried to eat at the Charlot, but it wound up being a bit of a mad house. While waiting for a table, I wandered across the street and discovered a market with tons of places to get food. So our crew decided to head there for lunch instead. It was delicious!

Turns out the market (Marche des Efants Rouges) is the oldest covered marked in Paris:

From the market we headed up to Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (pictured above in a view from the Pompidou):

The basilica was very beautiful, and had a little Christmas market in the courtyard in front of it. We were a little Christmas-marketed out from last weekend in Cologne, so we cruised through it quickly and started wandering the streets around the basilica.

We happened upon this place, Restaurant Le Basilic. It was serving French Onion soup, and was too adorable to not go in. So we had a little wine and soup:

 

After warming our bellies, we wandered the rest of the way to Moulin Rouge to quickly scope it out, and then hopped on the metro to head to the Eiffel Tower:

We walked the stretch of lawn leading up to the tower and out the other side. I took way too many pictures, so here are just a few:

It was getting late, and we had an early train to catch, so we headed back to our area of town. I don't remember the name of the first place we stopped at, but we grabbed some hot chocolate to warm up and snacked on a cheese platter:

Then we wandered over to another place, Les Philosophes, to have our final bottle of wine, and say goodbye to Paris!

We woke up at 5:20am Monday to catch the 6:30 train home. Sure, it was early and I was running off of no sleep...but it was worth it!

Happy lap on the way home: