Scenes from Paris

Tour de Eiffel

Bonjour and happy Friday, friends! If all goes as planned, Brandon and I should currently be driving from Interlaken to Montreux. And I should clarify, Brandon will be driving. A stick shift + steep inclines + foreign countries is not a good combination for moi.

Everything has been stunningly gorgeous so far and I’ve already taken a ton of pictures that I still have to sort through, but I did have some downtime earlier in the week while the husband was at the conference so I went ahead and put together a post from our time in Paris. The last time we were there was five years ago, during the summer and it was hot and crowded. This time we were only there for 24 hours but even in that small amount of time, I realized that autumn is a wonderful time to visit. The weather is beautiful, the streets aren’t even half as crowded and hotel rates are much cheaper. Good thing too because I’m sucker for a room with a view. I booked us a night at Hotel Duquesne Eiffel located in the 7th arrondissement and it didn’t disappoint.

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Although the rooms were a little on the small side but it’s Paris so that’s to be expected.

The location, however, was perfect. We were within a 20 minute walk from virtually everything, including the Invalides right around the corner which we passed on our way to lunch at Le Pain Quotidien.

Les Invalides Paris

Le Pain Quotidien Paris

I started with a juice made from carrots, mango, apple, and parsnips {sounds strange but it was really good} and I also ordered a grilled vegetable platter with lemon lentils and beet hummus for my meal which was phe-NOM-enal.

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From there we strolled along the surrounding streets of the Saint-Germain des Pres neighborhood which I have to say is one of my favorites in all of Paris. Everything is so clean and well-kept. We peaked into a few bakeries and eventually a wine store so that we could grab a bottle for a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower.

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Seeing how we were only there for one day, I really wanted to relax and just take in the surroundings and the picnic was perfect for that. We talked for a while and people watched until the wine started to kick in. Then the jet lag quickly caught up with us so took a walk along the Seine before heading back to the hotel for a nap. After we got some rest, we woke up to a gorgeous sunset view from the hotel room.

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Le sigh.

For dinner, we went for a long walk so that we could try a restaurant called Le Soufflé. I ordered a mushroom soufflé and for dessert we shared the pistachio and chocolate.

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Unfortunately I wasn’t impressed. We’ve been to a few soufflé restaurants back in the states (Café Jacqueline in San Francisco is amazing and Rise in Dallas is a close second) and they both blew this place out of the water. I was really surprised too because I would expect an authentic French restaurant to be the best but it lacked flavor and the ingredients just didn’t taste fresh. And pretty much every single table was speaking English which made me question whether or not it was a known tourist trap. I guess Yelp doesn’t work the same in France, ha! Oh well. C’est la vie!

 

Have you been to Paris? What was your favorite thing to see or do?

Have you ever had soufflé?