Paris

Bonjour :-)

This is going to be a LONG one.

A few weeks before mine and Jack's 3rd anniversary we decided to have a lil weekend away for the occasion. While he was thinking along the lines of the Lake District and Cornwall, I had my sights set on Paris. He was stubborn at first, he said he was NOT going to paris, as it smells.. but I just chanted "Paris! Paris! Paris!" for about 20 minutes solid until he gave in :-) 

We started looking for hotels, flights and more importantly restaurants, but didn't decide on anything until our anniversary had been and gone. 

We finally found a fairly cheap hotel that wasn't grody and then went on the hunt for cheap flights. I was SO EXCITED and counted down the days until we went on 14th September. 

Our flight was at 6:25am to ensure we had a full day there, so we got up in the middle of the night and eventually got to the airport after I forgot a few essentials (toothbrush, waterproof..) The flight was so quick, like 50 minutes and we were in Paris in no time. We headed straight to Notre Dame but didn't go inside as the queue was huge and I needed a wee.

Then we went to Sainte Chapelle, which was a m a zing..

We then stopped for some lunch, where we both had salmon tartare which was glorious. After lunch we went to Centre Georges Pompidou. Jack was moaning about his sore feet so I wandered about alone and saw some really cool art. My favourite was this installation by Ernesto Neto called We stopped just here at the time. It's fabric filled with different spices and it smelt really good! 

We then headed to the hotel, which we had written down completely wrong on the map so got lost and walked around Paris in the pouring rain for hours before actually finding it. The hotel was lovely, such good value for money! Here is a picture of the lobby.

The hotel was called Lorette Opera and I would definitely recommend it! It was in a nice quiet area in the 9th district, but with a lot of cafés and restaurants a short walk away and a metro stop a minute down the road for easy access to the more touristy center.

The sun came out the following day and I was so grateful, the weather was glorious and just what we needed for that day's attractions!

We didn't manage to go up the Eiffel Tower as Jack didn't listen to me when I said we should book online and the queue was about 4 hours long just to  buy the ticket, before another queue to actually get up. I would have probably pooped my pants at the top anyway..

For our final day, we had booked a table at Maison Blanches for lunch. We did a bit of window shopping along the designer roads (there were buzzers to get in and doormen with gloves on) and then I went to the PSG shop to get my brother a shirt for his birthday. I then sat outside this very red hotel to change into my heels.

The restaurant was lovely, with a great view of Paris:

But the windows were so huge I had to squint for about 15 minutes before they put the blinds down a bit.

It was almost time to go home so we sat outside a lil cafe for the last few hours drinking mojitos and wine.

I had such a lovely weekend, I do love a short city break! As well as a chilled out beach holiday too, if only I had infinite money..