48 hours in Paris. That’s all we had. Although we did manage to do quite a bit in that time. We arrived Thursday evening and went straight to Montmartre (home of the Moulin Rouge, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, and many others) for dinner at a small café where we listened to a small group of street musicians playing jazz before heading back by the Sacre Coeur basilica and on to our hotel. Because we’ve both been to Paris before, and we didn’t necessarily feel the need to do ALL the touristy things, the next morning we headed for a leisurely walk down the Champs-Elysees (and a few “parallel” streets) to the beautiful spa, Royal du Monceau Raffles. After our relaxing appointments we enjoyed lunch on a sidewalk café on the Champs-Elysees before rushing back to our hotel to get ready for the highlight of our stay in Paris – an hour long Flytographer shoot with their very first photographer, Goncalo. It was so much fun and such a great service. In over 100 cities around the world, anyone can hire a professional photographer for 30 minute – 2 hour sessions. This especially comes in handy when we both stay behind the camera all the time and only photograph each other separately, because neither of us is interested in handing our camera to a stranger. Our shoot was located in the 5th arrondissement and the Ile St Louis areas of Paris near where the Notre Dame cathedral, the Pont des Arts and Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore are located. We ended up with some great shots commemorating our mother-daughter adventure and our short stop in Paris. When we left Ile St. Louis to head back to our hotel, we paused to admire the sun setting over the River Seine and decided to find a place to relax with a view of the sunset. Somehow we ended up at the Louvre – we enjoyed sitting on the steps of the former palace, watching the day turn into night, and the people who congregate in the courtyard in the evening. At about 10 o’clock, as we were getting up to go back to our hotel, we noticed the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance and decided to walk a bit – “it can’t be that far, right?” We followed the river and arrived just in time for the 11o’clock lights. It wasn’t until we stopped attempting to capture the sparkling icon that we realized we had not had dinner yet, so we sat down at a tourist-filled creperie and ate Taylor’s favorite French food: nutella and banana filled crepes. The next morning we woke up early to go back to the 5th arr and Ile St Louis to take our own pictures and grab some espresso, tea, and croissants before heading to the largest flea market in the world – Les Puces. We didn’t buy anything, but we saw a lot of great antiques and tchotchkes we could have bought. But we did leave with the knowledge that we would be able to come back in two months on our next short stop in Paris and maybe then we could make a purchase. From Les Puces we headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and head to the airport for our short flight to Morocco! It was a very fast, but full two days in Paris.
2 Comments
Irene Wong
8/15/2014 04:36:01 am
I'm SO enjoying your narratives and pictures. Look forward to your postings each week.
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Hello Irene,
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