Paris: Trois Jours

For our third day in Paris we on met up with our friends to spend the rest of our time in Paris with them. Since our friend Megan's parents were leaving Paris and heading back to the U.S. that afternoon, we met them for lunch before they left. We went to this cute Parisian cafe that had the typical street seating, but elected to sit upstairs since we were a large group. When looking at the menu we were pretty sure we wanted get something simple since we had plans to get macarons later that afternoon. Tara and I ultimately both decided on the Croque Monsieur which is basically a ham and cheese sandwich but grilled and then topped in cheese. We knew it was a basic French sandwich so we decided it was something we should try. We actually ended up having it three times while we were in France! 

After lunch, we said goodbye to our friend's parents and thanked them for being so nice to us and treating us to such great meals! We then headed to our new hostel to check in. Since it was only Tara and I before, we previously had a two person private room. Now, Megan was staying with us so we decided to change hostels entirely to get a three person private room in the center of Montmartre. It was cool to completely change the area of Paris we were staying in so that we got a good glimpse of two different places. Montmartre is where Moulin Rouge is located and is really close to Sacre Coeur as well. Aside from being in a convenient location near patisseries and a grocery store, it was on a cute side street that fit a small square of buildings.

After checking in, we got in the elevator which only had a capacity for three people! As there were four of us (our friend Maddy who was staying in Versailles was with us too) with all of our luggage it was funny being squeezed tightly into the smallest elevator any of us had ever seen. 

After the interesting elevator ride, we checked out our room which was really cute with three pink beds in a row, a nice white desk with an orchid on it, a television, and a sparkling clean bathroom. We were pretty lucky getting really nice hostels for low prices in great locations.

After settling in, we were ready to explore more of Paris, but first we needed to eat a Parisian staple... MACARONS! If you know me, you know macarons are my favorite dessert ever and I'll get them from wherever I can, whether it be the Culinary Institute of America near my college, Laduree in New York City, or my favorite French bakery in Saratoga. Except now we were in Paris and able to have the best macarons the world had to offer, from the city they originated in! Beyond excited we headed to Pierre Herme across from the Tuileries Garden to get the macarons we had been waiting for! 

We chose to go to Pierre Herme because besides being featured in Gossip Girl, there are no Pierre Herme shops in the US. Laduree, Paris's other famous macaron shop, is located in NYC as I mentioned, and we also frequented the Laduree in London's Covent Garden. That's why we wanted to try something different and just looking at the flavors Pierre Herme offered, we knew we were going to get it. 

We decided to be somewhat adventurous and Tara chose Olive Oil & Vanilla and Salted Caramel while I chose Venezuelan Chocolate and Gold Dusted Chocolate Ganache. As you can tell, not every place (or any place for that matter) has these flavors! If you're unfamiliar with macarons, have a closer look at them in the picture below! 

As you can tell, it's not like the coconut and chocolate "macaroon" cookie we have in the US. Instead it's made up of two crunchy outer shells with a delicious, creamy filling on the inside. The flavors are endless when it comes to macarons, so they never get boring. Plus they taste great with a spot of tea and don't make you feel guilty after eating them (except for spending the 2 euros a piece!) After all of us picked out our macarons, we found a bench overlooking the Champs Elysees, and stared at the Arc de Triomphe in the distance as we enjoyed every single bite!

After we finished our delicious macarons we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. Since the Arc de Triomphe is located in the center of a massive traffic circle, everyone is directed to an underground tunnel to get to it. It was really impressive being right up next to it and it was fun to watch all the traffic whirl around us. 

We then took a stroll down the Champs Elysees, popping into stores and keeping an eye out for possible restaurants for dinner. There are a lot of stores along the Champs Elyeese that were familiar to us in the US. However, they were a lot larger than the versions we see in American shopping malls so it was still interesting to look inside. 

We stopped in H&M for awhile and some of us even bought a few things since the Euro seemed so cheap to us after using the Pound for so long! We also window shopped at some of the more upscale retailers like Cartier. 

By that time we were all getting hungry so we stopped at a little restaurant that seemed to serve a little bit of everything. Being on a budget, we found that no matter where you go, pasta is probably the least expensive thing you'll find on the menu. So most of us got pasta with a large amount of melted cheese on top. The French really love their cheese!

After dinner, it was starting to get dark, so we thought it would be the perfect time to take another visit to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle from a different vantage point. Trocadero has an amazing view of the entire Eiffel Tower and is a must see if you want to see the tower sparkle in its entirety. I definitely recommend standing right next to it as well, but in order to take the full tower into perspective, the viewing area at the Jardins de Trocadero is great. It was simply magical to watch and we all didn't want it to end. 

Paris: Deux Jours

On our second day in Paris we planned on visiting the Musee d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower! We hopped on the metro and headed straight for the museum, since we had heard that the Musee d'Orsay always has really long lines to get in. On our way we stopped at a little cafe that had a street window where you could order bakery items on-the-go. We ordered two chocolate croissants in French! Well, it was probably as basic as it gets when it comes to speaking French. Nonetheless, we felt very Parisian as we took bites of our delicious croissants on our walk to the museum from the metro stop. It ends up that the reviews were true about the waiting line, because we had to wait for about 30 minutes to get in! It was worth it though because the museum was great.

 

It is also much smaller than the Louvre, so we were able to really take in every painting, sculpture, decorative art and photograph the museum holds. My favorite part of the Musee d'Orsay was their extensive impressionist collection. 

Impressionism is my favorite painting style and I got to see a lot of my favorite artists like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Mary Cassatt and Pierre Auguste Renoir. I especially loved seeing Degas's "The Ballet Class," a few of Monet's Rouen Cathedral series and Renoir's "Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette."

My favorite was probably Monet's Rouen Cathedrals as I've always been a huge Monet fan, but I also loved Edouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass. For anyone who watches Gossip Girl, (yes I had to bring this up) you may know this painting as the one Blair Waldorf was standing at when she first met Prince Louis of Monaco. They bond over the fact that it is both of their favorite paintings and I can see why. It's really interesting in that it depicts a nude woman having a picnic with two fully clothed men. There was a lot of disapproval of this painting when it was first exhibited. Some people thought the woman should not be nude while the men were clothed, others were uncomfortable with the subject matter of real and current people (as opposed to the usual nudity of goddesses and supernatural beings), while some saw it as a statement about prostitution in Paris. Either way, people were pretty upset about this piece then, but now it has its own wall in the Musee d'Orsay for all to see! It definitely jumps out at you and is a piece you'll always remember. 

After looking at the Impressionism section (and getting yelled at in French for taking pictures), we made our way further around the museum seeing sculptures, wood work, and more paintings. We also took a moment to look through the huge clock on the museum's top floor to see the Seine outside below. 

After thoroughly enjoying the Musee d'Orsay we headed to our next stop... The Eiffel Tower! I was really excited to see the most iconic image of Paris as I've constantly reblogged Eiffel Tower photos on Tumblr and dreamed of seeing it in person. As we rode the metro to the "Tour Eiffel" stop, you could see the top of it from the metro windows! The ride there gave us a glimpse of how much the Eiffel Tower literally towers over the city as we could see it out the window no matter how far we were. 

Finally we got to our stop, followed the tower until we got closer and closer and were right there! When it's in front of you, it's a lot bigger than you would imagine. Just the support beams alone were much more humongous than I had expected. We made sure to take plenty of pictures and just stare at it for a while.

As it was about 4pm Paris time, we knew the sun would set soon and we'd be able to see the tower all lit up. Since our hostel was in Saint-Ouen, 20-25 minutes north of the tower, we thought it best to stay in the the area and wait for it to get dark. Since we were pretty hungry we roamed the nearby streets looking for a place to get dinner while enjoying the walk past cute shops and patisseries, with the tower overlooking us. 

After checking out a few menus we decided on a restaurant and got pretty basic meals. We made sure to get seconds of bread because there's no better time for baguettes than in Paris! About 2 hours later (seriously... service is so slow and chill all over Europe) we finished our meal and went back to the Eiffel Tower. It looked amazing all lit up and I can definitely understand why Paris would be called "The City of Lights" since the tower lights up everything!

As we stood at the tower's front we were approached by several people selling cool little souvenirs hoping we would buy a mini Eiffel tower or light up toy. Usually we would say "no merci," but I knew that the Eiffel Tower sparkled at some time increment and wanted to ask one of the salespeople when. I ended up asking one of them which resulted in him trying to get us to buy his souvenirs, but ultimately giving us the answer to our question. The tower was going to sparkle in only 10 minutes! We waited it out and when the time hit the hour the Eiffel Tower began sparkling from top to bottom.

The second it started, everyone around us started cheering and then continued in excitement oohing and aahing. It lasted for a full minute and I took a video so I could re-watch it as many times as I wanted. It was so beautiful and unlike anything I had ever seen before. I think if I lived in Paris I would never get bored of it. As the tower stopped twinkling a minute later, we were sad, but knew that then, if not already, we were definitely in love with Paris. With three days left we had a ton more to see and rested up before our next day meeting up with our friends to see the Arc de Triomphe.