5 Nights in Paris

​In early November we popped on the train with our dear friend, Maria in tow and headed to the city of lights for five nights.  This would be Maria’s first visit to France and only our second.

In the name of brevity (we saw and did and walked a lot) I will spare you all of the details and only try to hit on the highlights.

Our AirBnB was a little further out than we’d imagined, but we had a view of the Eiffel just around the corner, so I’m not complaining.

Day 1: DISNEY!

We hit up the happiest place on Earth for Nora’s birthday.  Check out my blog here to read all about it.

Day 2: La Grande Epicerie

Okay, so I have to admit here that this was not necessarily one of my highlight as I can’t stand grocery stores or grocery shopping of any kind no matter how fancy (Kroger Clicklist is my bestfriend back home).  But visiting La Grande Epicerie was definitely the highlight of Maria’s trip and I love seeing people find their happy place.  The phrase “kid in a candy store” has never been more fitting and even though I gave her shit the whole time like “Maria, stop! No one needs that much truffle,” or “No, Maria, you may not buy my daughter ninety-six flavors of chocolate (she did anyway)” it was still a joy to watch her be so happy along the aisles.  And as a side-note, I later discovered that LGE stocks Casamigos, my all-time go-to and much missed favorite tequila, so now I guess it is also my happy place.  

Day 3: Sightseeing 

Today we were all about sightseeing. We started with a little pizza at Uno (pretty damn delicious) and then squeezed in the St. Eustache Church, including an art exhibit by Dhewedi Hajib (absolutely stunning) and Notre Dame to which Nora said, “I mean, it’s just a church, why do they need to rebuild it?” Clearly not my finest parenting moment.  I must say, even though it’s being restored/rebuilt after the 2019 fire and you can’t go in or even that close, Notre Dame is still a must-see.  Notre Dame is absolutely stunning in size and beauty.  Plus, they have a really cool exhibit surrounding the grounds of the cathedral with drawings that children submitted of how they remembered Notre Dame.  Some of the drawings were pretty magical. 

Uno – pizza is always a yes for me.

St. Eustache Church

Dhewedi Hajib

Notre Dame

Artwork along the fence

Yeah, why rebuild??

Later in the evening we took a dinner cruise on the Seine and I’d have to put that onto my list of favorites Paris activities.  It was just so nice to see all of the Paris sites lit up at night –and the dinner and wine weren’t bad either.

Look what we spotted on the dinner cruise.  Look familiar?  See this post where we were a little creeped out by something very familiar. Turns out you can find James Colomina’s little red men in Tolouse and Paris. Day 4: Ramen!

I’m sure I’m not supposed to admit this – I mean Paris is you know, Paris!  We are supposed to fall in love with sites and the pastries and the bread and the romance of it all.  And that stuff is all good, but let me tell you, we went to Paris and we fell in love with the ramen.  Oh, the ramen!  Ooh, la la.  I can’t tell you how often we’ve talked about this ramen.  I randomly found a recommendation for Naritake Ramen and we decided to give it a try.  We waited 45 minutes outside and after looking at the menu (which is pretty small, with very few options) I was not all that hopeful that I was going to enjoy lunch.  Oh my gosh, how wrong was I?!?  The ramen was truly the best I’ve ever had!  Trust me, you have to try it.  In fact, we recently made a trip back to Paris, and I hate to admit it, but the primary reason for the trip was just to eat at Naritake again.

Please note the Christmas cloak.  It was worn all over Paris.  What can I say?  The girl has her own style.