Oh hey, Monet!

Paris! I went there, over two months ago! And I know I've promised approximately four times now that it was recap time, but now it REALLY IS recap time. Mostly because I have the free time to appropriately express everything I want to say and share. 

Things will be a bit out of order, just because there's no easy way to lump things we did into nice day-by-day categories. We took several day trips, and those will come first because they're easiest to get down on paper! Without further ado...

One of the biggest must-do’s on our list for Paris was to take a day trip out to Giverny, home of Monet’s famously beautiful gardens and the site where he painted the bulk of his most iconic works. We booked the “Giverny and Monet” half-day tour for the Wednesday midpoint of our trip, which conveniently departed from an office two blocks from our apartment. Score!

The tour was nowhere near as small and private as our Montmartre or Versailles groups, but for this trip, it worked well. We boarded a coach bus with about 25 other people for the hour-and-a-half trip northwest. The countryside of France was beautiful, if intermittently rainy…the theme of our trip was "marginal weather across the board." On the drive out, our guides filled us in on the course of Monet’s fascinating life and how he ended up in Giverny. Upon arrival, we were unleashed (with hundreds of others) into his stunning gardens!

Monet’s home is the site of two gardens, both of which were laid out, planted, and tended by the artist himself. One is a more classic French rectangular garden, the other a stunning Japanese-style garden centering around a small pond where his famous water lilies still grow today.

Since words couldn’t possibly describe…photos!

The pathways through the Japanese gardens were winding and twisty, and every time we turned it felt like there was something new and gorgeous to marvel over. The on-and-off drizzle made everything extra-fragrant and offered up some pretty fantastic lighting for Emily to play with settings on her fancy-schmancy camera. 

The famous wisteria-covered bridge, featured prominently in this painting…

Of course, some water lilies! We were too early in the season for blooms, but the effect was still unbelievable.

His traditional garden, which stretches the entire length of the front of his home, was mindblowing. The arches are covered with climbing vines and every flowerbed was already lush with tulips and irises and hundreds of other flowers I couldn’t describe.

The tour also included a peek into his home…which I fell in love with the instant I saw the pastel pink façade and bright green shutters.

Monet and his family lived in the home until his death in 1926, and in 1966 when it was donated to the Académie des Beaux-Arts it was fully restored to consistency with Monet’s time there. The home was flooded with light from every side…perfect for an Impressionist…and his valuable and extensive collection of Chinoiserie sculpture and Japanese engravings are scattered and hung all over the home.

Emily fell in love with his studio, with good reason: how amazing to see (replicas of) his paintings as they would have been displayed in his time!

I couldn’t get enough of his cheerful yellow dining room…

…or the copper pots and hand-painted blue tiles that covered his kitchen.

So charming! I’ll be running away to be an Impressionist gardener and painter any day now, thanks.

To keep our Monet day alive and thriving, we had our lunch at La Palette…which felt like the kind of place Monet could have hung out back in his day!

After we finished up and stopped at our apartment to drop off souvenirs, we couldn’t resist a trip to l’Orangerie, the petite museum in the Jardins de Tuileries that is best known as the home of Monet’s Water Lilies paintings. The museum is at the opposite end of the Tuileries from the Louvre…and as the skies had cleared and the day was gorgeous, we enjoyed the walk from our apartment. Though we didn’t have advance tickets, the wait for entry was blissfully short…and well worth it when we arrived to see these beauties:

Can you even believe how stunning they are? The scale and scope and sheer massiveness of each of the eight paintings totally took my breath away, especially with the memory of the living garden so fresh from that morning.

Each painting has its own wall of two separate oval salons, flooded with soft white light and quiet as a church. The museum was so uncrowded, we could get right up and really examine each painting. I fell in love instantly.

Look at how fantastically detailed they are! Being able to scrutinize them from a breath away was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. 

As much as I loved him before, Monet’s rocketed to the top of my “favorite artists” list. Next time we’re in Paris, I’ll be checking out the Musée Marmottan-Monet for sure…since we returned, I’ve heard from numerous people that it’s a must-see for Monet lovers. I can’t recommend Giverny more highly to those lucky enough to visit Paris in the spring, summer, or fall...I absolutely loved our little peek into his fairy-tale gardens and home!

Where we shopped in Paris...

Naturally after food, we also had to figure out the best possible places to get our shopping fix satisfied over the course of our ten days in Paris! Who doesn't dream of having their "Devil Wears Prada" or, heck, "Passport to Paris" moment there? The city is overflowing with insane places to shop for anything from antiques to couture, and we took full advantage of it (on pretty much everything except antiques and couture...). 

Our hands-down favorite neighborhood for shopping was the Marais, a fashionable area in the 3rd arrondissement that was home to dozens of adorable boutiques and stores. Some of our favorites: 

nina kendosa, 31 Rue du Turenne: We stumbled in here on our first full day and fell in love. Everything was made in France, and the colors and textures were to-die-for. I bought a little cream jacket that I ended up wearing almost every day for the rest of the trip, and Em purchased a great dress. 

Comptoir des Cotonniers, 33 Rue des Francs Bourgeois: Mom was on a quest to find the perfect French jean, and this place was just the ticket. The two women working could not have been sweeter (and were kind enough to converse with me entirely en Français!), and they also had the perfect little black dress that I, alas, just couldn't justify. We spotted more locations all over Paris! Definitely a French staple. 

Merci, 111 Boulevard de Beaumarchais: A famous French home goods store that changes its theme every few season. This spring was focused around the idea of a garden. Everything was interesting and unique and so fun to admire. And their cute courtyard Fiat didn't hurt either...

Fragonard, 51 Rue des Francs Bourgeois: A gorgeous little perfume and gift shop where, unfortunately, the service was so terrible we all resisted purchases. Think towels and linens, pillows, decorative objects, and of course endless varieties of perfume. 

Coton Doux, 3 Rue Saint-Croix de la Bretonnerie: Novelty patterned button-downs. Emily had her eye on a macaron-printed one. I'm officially on their mailing list. Plus, the two hotties working were the best practice I've ever had at flirting in French. BAM. 

Scotch and Soda, 42 Rue Vieille du Temple: Emily bought the quintessential French jacket here...not quite a trench, not quite a cocoon coat, and she looks amazing in it, n'est-ce pas? (Her beret is also a purchase from Le Marais, from a little hat shop right off the Place des Vosges. It's literally a Raspberry Beret!! Prince would be so proud.)

La Chambre aux Confitures, 60 Rue Vieille du Temple: A jam, honey, oil, candle place that had seriously the most insane combinations of condiments I've ever seen. I got a lavender-apricot candle that I can't wait to burn...yum. 

Antoine et Lili, 51 Rue des Francs Bourgeois: A pink-fronted little hippie store full to the brim with the cutest vintage-y dresses, jewelry, and accessories. Em loved it. 

Carré d'Artistes, 29 Rue Vieille du Temple: Translating to "Artists' Market," this was the most incredibly charming, precious art gallery. Every painting is original, the gallerist was so friendly and helpful, and all three of us purchased paintings. 

Outside the Marais, we also got sucked into a few amazing boutiques...notably: 

Des Petits Hauts, 70 Rue Bonaparte: Oh my goodness, basically a pastel den of glitter and perfection. The jackets, shoes, and jewelry were all amazing. We went twice. 

"La Boulangerie" pop-up shop, 31 Rue des Trois Frères: This place doesn't have a website and their inventory changes daily because it's all locally crafted. We may or may not have been drunk on wine and fondue from Refuge des Fondus. And we may or may not have spent 90€ on yellow striped t-shirts with maps of Paris on the elbow pads. Like, we all three got the same one. Oops. 

Speaking of Montmartre...if you're looking to purchase art, DO NOT DO IT FROM THE TOURISTY BOUQUINISTES ALONG THE SEINE. Go to the Place du Tertre, which we have on good authority from a French impressionism expert is THE place to buy. Painters set up all along the perimeter of the square and display/work all day. Em and I both bought pieces, hers from the cutest man ever. 

Other favorites: 

Shakespeare & Company, 37 Rue de la Bûcherie: This place will forever, FOREVER have my heart. While there are hundreds of antique bookstores in Paris, none possess quite the charm and sheerly random magic of S&Co. I bought an edition of "The Tempest" from the late 1800s with watercolored illustrations, and of course a copy of Le Petit Prince. 

FNAC, on the Champs Elysées: completely saved our entire trip (and all these blog posts) when we were able to make an emergency trip there after everything else closed at 7pm to get a piece to Em's fancy camera's charger. Basically a French Best Buy. Super convenient for any electronic needs, which, let's be real, are more common than we'd like. 

Atelier Cologne, 8 Rue Saint-Florentin: We stumbled upon this place randomly in the middle of a rain shower and fell in love with the gentleman working, who was the company's international head of sales. He told us all about the stories behind the fragrances, and hand-embossed leather atomizers for Mom and I. She bought a fig scent, I bought one that literally translates to "the drunk citrus" and smells like a French 75. 

All three of us also bought Longchamps bags at their flagship store on the Rue Saint-Honoré. Apparently they're 30% cheaper in France because they don't get taxed as an export...woo-hoo! 

Finally, I have to plug the two most obvious places ever: museum gift shops (hi, bright-red Venus de Milo) and tourist kiosks. They're nothing groundbreaking, but who goes to Paris (or anywhere, really?) and doesn't want to pick up a few fun trinkets or gifts that are super cheesy and fun? They also saved Mom and Em's asses for one day after both their umbrellas mysteriously vanished...although they were NOT pleased about the cheesy Parisian monuments all over them and replaced them the next day at BHV, our favorite Marais department store. Ask me about my looooovely polyester scarf someday, hmm?

What we ate in Paris...

WARNING: VERY LENGTHY POST FULL OF PHOTOS OF FOOD AND WINE AHEAD. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY HUNGRY OR SUFFERING FROM A SHORT ATTENTION SPAN. 

Obviously food in France was one of our primary concerns and points of excitement. It is, after all, famously one of the culinary capitals of the world! Emily spent hours researching hotspots and classic locales, and meticulously whittled down a giant list to the perfect smattering…one lunch spot and one dinner spot a day. While the list changed over time, we ended up with what we thought was the perfectly scheduled and planned meal rotation.

Um, think again.

While I had made reservations at nearly all our selected restaurants (often struggling to communicate over the phone, and once, hilariously, getting totally chewed out by an elderly French woman), we ended up going off the beaten path after several days just because we had so much fun winging things. The results? Mind-blowingly delicious.

Petit Déjeuner/Breakfast

First, and foremost: I need to get this immense source of shame confessed and out of the way before I get too far into this. We got coffee at Starbucks. Literally. Every. Morning. I’m so mortified to admit it. There was one down just two blocks from our apartment, and they had these Nutella cookies…and free WiFi…Starbucks saved us MANY times when we needed WiFi. I’m embarrassed we didn’t have a more classic French café au lait every day, but…Starbucks it was.

Moving on to a MUCH more impressive breakfast: Angelina! We grabbed a late lunch there our first day, and brunch our second-to-last, and both were absolutely lovely. The Belle-Epoque gem on the Rue du Rivoli used to be Coco Chanel’s fave hangout, and everything was delicious…the butteriest croissants, the sweetest jams, and a “chocolat chaud a l’Africain” (dark hot chocolate) that was so decadent it tasted like drinking ganache. We loved it there! Like having a tea party in a jewel box.

Classic French Cuisine

The French are known for their three-hour, three-course meals, and we tired of these pretty quickly. Our two notable stops were Café Constant and Le Petit Prince. Café Constant is an offshoot of a Michelin-starred restaurant, and we dined there our first night. Everything was amazing, from Em’s veal Cordon Bleu to my steak a l’Aquitaine with scallops to Mom’s herbed roasted chicken. We finished with mind-blowing profiteroles.

Le Petit Prince was NOT our favorite dining experience, largely as it was the first (and really, only) time we suffered the stereotypical snobby, terrible French service. My food was delicious… a pear-and-Morbier tarte I’ll remember forever for my “premier,” beef in a Roquefort sauce for my entrée. Em’s sea bass, on the other hand…we laughed our asses off at her reaction when it arrived ever-so-prettily rolled up, but with the skin and fin still attached. While the food was (mostly) delicious, I think you could do better at other classic French bistros.

Crêpes

We were obsessed with crêpes from about day 3 on, but had weirdly done absolutely zero research on crêpe places. I Googled “best crêpes Paris” several times to find good spots…

Our first crêpe experience was for dessert after a late-night wander through the Marais. We stopped in Suzette and had three different ones…a Nutella-and-coconut, a chocolate-and-banana, and an amazing apple-cinnamon with house-made caramel. They were fantastic!

After a particularly exhausting and stressful evening and with very low blood sugar, we headed to Crêperie Framboise very near our apartment for a late-night dinner mid-trip. The savory crêpes were much edgier and more out there…I had the “Marius,” a concoction of goat cheese, spinach, apple, walnut, and honey…and they totally hit the spot.

We headed to Montparnasse, the official “crêpe district,” for our last crêpes of the trip and checked out Crêperie Josselin. Universally heralded as the best “traditional” crêperie in Paris, the ambiance was unbeatable…as were the traditional buckwheat flour, Brittany-style crêpes. The service was also impeccable and SO friendly!

The randoms…

Not going to lie, several of my favorite meals in France fall into this bucket…

Café Ragueneau: Right underneath our apartment, we dined here twice because the people were so lovely and the Croque Ragueneau, with pine nuts, Serrano ham, and béchamel was so decadent.

La Palette: A to-die-for croque madame, a bar covered ever-so-atmospherically in used paint palettes, and a beautiful afternoon to eat outside. (Please also note: Emily is basically French at this point.)

Refuge des Fondus: A Montmartre hotspot where the service is bossy in a good way, wine is served out of baby bottles (supposedly to avoid the alcohol tax!), and the cheese fondue will leave all others forever inferior. We had a blast and left our name among the thousands of others in the graffiti.

The Pink Flamingo: A gourmet pizza hole-in-the-wall in the Marais, covered in neon graffiti and featuring a VW bus outside as its only advertising. We shared two…a Cuban with 72-hour marinated shredded pork, and a fig-and-gorgonzola…and they were both pretty near perfect.

Luxembourg Gardens: We lunched here one day with a bottle of wine, macarons from Gerard Mulot, and a few park-café sandwiches. The people-watching and fresh air and sunshine made an otherwise-unremarkable lunch pretty darn fun.

Galeries Lafayette: Similar to Harrod's in the UK, the food halls are endless and crazy-enticing. We got two éclairs (salted caramel-chocolate and vanilla hazelnut) and loved them. 

Ladurée: Duh, iconic macarons in the prettiest pale-green shops you'll ever see. We munched them all through the trip and I got myself a "to-go" box at the Charles de Gaulle stand, too!

And of course…wine.

We knew we were in for exactly our kind of trip when Air France greeted us with this spread upon embarking in Boston…

That’s right. Free champagne AND free wine. We were in heaven. 

French culture centers around wine the way American culture (supposedly) centers around 32-oz Big Gulps of soda…wine is ubiquitous, and no meal or even break in the day is considered complete without it. Our days quickly settled into a great rhythm of exploring all morning, starting with wine at lunch, taking a mid-afternoon break to rest our feet and re-up our BAC, and of course enjoying (still more) wine with dinner.

We quickly fell in love with Sancerre, a very smooth, drinkable wine similar to sauvignon blanc. We drank it everywhere...it's best served very cold and obviously we found it very refreshing...A few of our favorite stops:

Café Martini, 11 Rue du Pas de la Mule: A darling Italian wine café in the heart of the Marais, just up from the Place des Vosges. One of the first (and last) places we drank red wine on the trip.

Le Café du Musée, 17 Boulevard des Invalides: Adjacent to the beautiful Musée Rodin, I bonded with the waiter over our mutual love of the museum and we drank WAY too much wine here while waiting out a surprise rainshower.

Restaurant d'Orsay (inside the Musée d'Orsay, on the second floor): An absolutely stunning setting to feel all fancy and cultured. The waiter was so incredibly kind and funny, too...always a plus. (Please note: Emily is now more French THAN the French.)

Les Deux Magots, 6 Place Saint-Germain des Prés: Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald's favorite hangout. We loved the people-watching on the Boulevard Saint-Germain!

Bateau-Mouche, Quai de la Bourdonnais: A dinner cruise on the Seine to view the sights. NOT our favorite, but noteworthy purely because we were starving, the food was terrible, and we didn't get to cruise the sights because the Seine was flooding too high! That said...when you give Americans bread and wine in France, Americans get a little crazy. We don't even have to be on boats...

Like...just a little crazy. (We may or may not have had a substantial amount of wine in Paris.)

Hungry yet? Désolée que je ne suis pas désolée...sorry I'm not sorry, friends :)

Planning Paris: Tips and Tricks

Paris. Paris! To be totally honest, I’ve put off a lot of writing about this amazing trip because trying to break it down into manageable chunks has seemed so…unmanageable. Ten days of total immersion in another city, especially one I’ve always loved and had up on a pedestal a bit, is tricky! With that said, we would have had a way less successful and jam-packed trip if we hadn’t done a ton of planning and research up front. Before I jump into recaps, I think it makes sense to share a few things that really helped take our trip to the next level…and a few things I wish we would have done differently.

First and foremost, I can’t recommend getting off the “hotel” track more highly. Paris is an incredibly expensive city to visit (CBS puts them in the top ten), and hotel rooms in the heart of the city are both astronomically expensive and comically tiny. We decided almost right away to search for a flat or apartment on AirBnB or VRBO instead. I stayed in a VRBO condo on my trip to Puerto Rico in 2014, and loved the experience! We quickly narrowed our desired location down to the 1st arrondissement, home of the Louvre, Ile de la Cité, and Jardin des Tuileries. It’s walkable to so many places and the historic feel and beauty of the area made for a perfect setting to stay in. We lucked out and found an absolutely beautiful flat for only $150 a night! With a kitchen, living area, washing machine, and plenty of space to spread out, it felt like a home base way more than a hotel room could. I know we all appreciated the luxury of a little extra room, especially once we started shopping!

We spent months making and refining lists of what we wanted to do and see while in Paris, and decided to book tours well in advance of when we were departing to make sure we had an organized, manageable schedule. My mom and I both did a ton of research…I was able to leverage some of my experiences from 2010 to ensure we saw my must-sees, and we both scoured sites like Viator, Rick Steves, and Frommers. Once we had our list figured out, my dad put together a handy Excel grid for us to fill out day by day, and we started booking! We tried to add variety to each day…not clustering the museums all in one day, spreading our day trips across the ten days, building some unstructured time into every day…and it worked out near-perfectly to do so.

One of my favorite surprise money-savers was my dad’s discovery that we could book a lot of our tours at a discount using Verizon SmartRewards. Since we’re on a family plan, we get a certain number of points every month that can be used toward shopping, restaurant and travel discounts. We booked all but one of our tours through the site and ended up saving hundreds of dollars doing so…I definitely recommend checking out your cell phone provider’s site to see if you can do something similar!

Getting around Paris can feel completely overwhelming. The city is 47 square miles, after all, and alternates between quaint, labyrinthine streets and uniform, standardized Haussmanian boulevards. Finding landmarks and figuring out where we were was a constant challenge the first several days, and still wasn’t easy by the end of the trip in many arrondissements. We relied heavily on the “Plan de Paris” pocket map booklet that our AirBnB hostess, Louise, left for her guests at the apartment. Organized by neighborhood, it also includes metro and RER (train) information and lays out the city in exquisite detail.

We also leveraged the offline “Ulmon Paris” map app on my iPhone pretty heavily after some friendly Ohioans told us about it over dinner on our third day. It doesn’t use cell phone data, and you can look up hundreds of restaurants, shops, and landmarks within the app. It made it a bit easier to get around the areas I wasn’t totally sure of! One of our hugest lifesavers, too, was the fact that Emily went through and looked up addresses for every single restaurant and boutique we wanted to check out…it was so helpful to be able to look up where we were going in advance!

Now for the little things…first off, everyone who’s been to Europe knows the outlets are different. Make sure you bring both an outlet adapter and a converter…the adapter makes your plugs fit the outlets, but the converter (critically) adapts the electrical current to work. Also, I found it helpful to keep a list in the Notes app of my phone with my passport number, our address, key contact details, and other necessary information.

Finally…my biggest regret…I wish we would have taken the time either in advance or on our first few days to figure out the Metro. Our first three days in Paris were dominated by rain, so it was just plain easier to duck into a cab than to take the time to a: find the nearest Metro station b: figure out the line we needed and c: negotiate all the changes necessary. In 2010, my friends and I did it with no problems, but we always wanted to hurry and get to where we were going. Further into the trip, we walked a ton more, but still relied on cabs when necessary instead of the Metro. I’d advise getting a longer-term pass on day 1 or 2 of a trip and really trying to make it work…we could have, and in hindsight, it would have saved us a TON of money.

Whew! With all that out of the way…I can’t stress any more how important it is to do a little leg-work in advance. If wandering around and winging it is your thing, then that’s great (and I’m officially jealous!), but for us, it was critical to have plans and an itinerary, and all the up-front work we did definitely made our stay way more enjoyable. 

Liz in the City of Light...

So, remember that time not so long ago when I headed off to Paris for ten days of adventures with my mom and Emily? Oh yeah, me too…and now I have the photos to prove it!

Photo courtesy of Emily and her genius fancy camera. 

That’s right, campers. Emily has carefully culled her 1500 photos down to a more manageable portfolio and generously shared them with me, which means it’s time to revisit the City of Light from the City of Lakes. It’s going to be a Herculean effort to get all my thoughts and all her images together, though, so the next week or so is going to be pretty Paris-heavy around here. Get excited for travel and planning tips, restaurant and boutique reviews, more than you ever wanted to know about champagne and Monet, and a LOT of the prettiest images imaginable. Buckle up and bonne chance, mes amis! It’s Paris time!