Christmas vacation

It’s been such a long time since I’ve had a proper Christmas break!

We decided to escape to Paris for three days. The bf had booked a special hotel without me knowing about it and he even upgraded our train journey to first class.. lush!

The first day was a bit crappy as I was sick the entire time we were outside. We wandered around the Canal Saint-Martin, Marais, then to the Jardin des Tuileries and the Place Vendôme.

We tried to do a little window shopping in the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps but I was feeling so bad we headed back to our hotel. We watched the Beauty and the Beast wrapped in our big fluffy duvet – I enjoyed the movie so much!

The next day was magical! I had become myself again so we headed out for breakfast at Claus, Saint-Germain. It’s a place made for Instagrammers! Aside from the aestethics, our scrambled eggs with salmon, chestnut parfait and assortment of pastries were a pure delight.

The sun was bright and the air was fresh. We walked the whole morning and early afternoon around Saint-Germain and past the Jardin du Luxembourg. We tremendoulsy enjoyed window shopping at Bon Marché – I wanted to buy all the things!

As we walked, we talked and dreamt about our future, how much we love the Parisian parks… We might inject something from Paris into our dream garden by buying those Luxembourg chairs from Fermob. I always loved those!

Walking past the Invalides (the bf had never been), we stopped for soup and lunch. It was the middle of the afternoon! We stayed there for quite a long time. In the museum shop, we bought birthday presents for my dad who is Napoleon-obsessed. On our way out, we saw the loveliest winter bride as we were headed to see the most famous lady in Paris…

The Eiffel Lady as I like to call her has something special about her I had forgotten about. It had been ages since I had seen her up close!

It wasn’t long enough before it became all dark in Paris. We still had plans to go to the Museum and fortunately, Musée d’Orsay has a late opening on Thursdays. Again, I hadn’t been in there since I was in high school. I had very fond memories of the paintings I saw and enjoyed looking at them for a second time.

Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, Manet, … we saw them all. It was lovely and special to be there at nighttime. We went out for dinner at 10pm which so not our type. We walked along the Seine from the museum to Notre-Dame to have some lovely tapas at Sourire Tapas.

After dinners drinks were magical! We celebrated the bf finally getting a long-term job at Café Laurent. The piano bar wasn’t very far from our restaurant and is actually the bar of a hotel! I know there’s absolutely no link whatsoever between the two, but it reminded me of the New York hotel in Disney. It had the same vibe going on… The live music was wonderful, our cocktails were the best I have ever tasted (probably because I was too excited about everything) and the atmosphere and smell reminded me of my favourite holiday movies…

Don’t those photos coupled together make you dream?

(I had a side-car and the bf drank an old fashioned in case you were wondering…)

Back at the hotel, I slept like a baby. We woke up to rain and cold the next day. We had planned to go to Montmartre so we did. We ate breakfast at Marlette in Pigalle and then proceeded to climb the Butte Chaumont. We entered inside Saint-Pierre and quickly walked around the little streets and Place du Tertre.

It was so cold, we returned for the last time to our hotel to do what we do best.

An hour and a half later, we were already home in our pjs savouring the memories of our days in Paris..