A weekend in Paris — CHLOE HYDE

I recently took a quick trip to Paris, leaving London Friday night and returning on the following Monday night. We took the Eurostar from London St Pancras and thanks to an amazing sale, I managed to get a Standard Premier ticket on the way there. Having experienced the usual seating on the way back, I can definitely say that Standard Premier is a lot nicer! I had a single seat next to a window (not attached to a row of seats) and had food and wine served at my seat. I highly recommend it if you can find a good deal!

We stayed at Hotel le A, a boutique hotel near Champs-Élysées. The hotel was really nice and the staff were welcoming. While this was a good location for seeing the tourist hot spots (close the Arc de Triomphe and not too far from the Eiffel Tower), I would prefer to stay in a more interesting neighbourhood next time I'm in Paris. As with many central locations, it felt like quite an inner-city area rather than a cosy neighbourhood to be explored.I had initially organised this trip to the extent that we wouldn't need to do much thinking but a few unfortunate circumstances messed with my plans:

The protests caused a number of road closures, which led to a comedy tour of the Louvre that we had booked for Sunday being moved to the Saturday.
Terrible weather on Sunday meant we couldn't spend any time outside.

Saturday was originally planned to be the 'walking around and seeing pretty things day'. We still managed to spend half of the day doing this. In the morning, we found a local cafe to have a typical Parisian breakfast (croissant, baguette with jam and butter, coffee and orange juice). We then headed towards Champs-Élysées thinking we may decide to go to the Arc de Triomphe first. Road closure and a lot of police cars made this an easy decision so we instead walked straight to the Eiffel Tower. I had been up to the Eiffel Tower twice before (in 2009 and 2011) and Asher wasn't that bothered, so we just decided to walk around the base of the tower and get some photos.

We then made our way along the Seine to The Louvre for our comedy tour. The walk is flat and quite easy (although I am an avid walker) and you get a nice view of pretty old buildings and bridges along the way. Laugh your way through The Louvre was great. The guide, Cedrik was very entertaining and seamlessly combined art history with a lot of laughs. Great for anyone with a good sense of humour (although probably not for the easily offended). The tour ended with a hot drink (included in the ticket) in a nearby hotel.

I had heard that there is a lot of good fabric shopping in Paris so I did some research after I booked the trip to decide which shops to visit. If I went back again wanting to do fabric shopping, I would possibly arrive in Paris a day earlier. I realised that a lot of fabric shops in Paris are only open Tuesday to Saturday, which made things slightly complicated, given our Saturday afternoon ended up being mostly filled with the comedy tour. Thankfully, Anna ka Bazaar, the fabric shop I was mostly hanging out for, was open until 7 pm. I managed to get out there in time to have a good look around and buy some of their own beautiful fabric from the Atelier Brunette label.

In the evening, we had pre-booked a French dinner at Le Bouclard, near Montmartre. We found this restaurant by reading reviews before going to Paris and it certainly lived up to the hype. The food was amazing! So good, that I may have overindulged slightly. I opted for the three-course menu, starting with the crayfish tail gratin. This was as amazing as it sounds (or possibly even better). For mains, I had the tarragon chicken. I don't usually order whole pieces of chicken when I go to restaurants as I always expect it to be a bit boring. This dish was the recommended main, so I decided to give it a go and I'm glad I did - the flavour was amazing! For dessert, we shared one of the best creme brulees I have ever had. I highly recommend this restaurant if you're looking for a good, traditionally French dinner while in Paris.

As mentioned, the weather on Sunday took a bit of a turn for the worst, but I guess you can't expect too much of January in Paris! The combination of strong winds and heavy rain made most of the outdoor adventures on our list near impossible. We started the day with breakfast at Ladurée on Champs-Élysées, which I had expected to be a treat. It honestly was a waste of money - the service was terrible and the food was very average. If you are going to visit the restaurant, I would only recommend going for tea and cake/macarons.

We then made our way up Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. As we arrived at the arc, we thought we may have gotten lucky with the rain stopping but sure enough, as soon as we got to the top it started to pour down! I managed to get a few photos (and get myself drowned like a rat) and then we headed back down. I had seen that there was a museum in an old stately home nearby, Musée Jacquemart-André, which seemed like a good option to hide from the rain. Unfortunately, the queue to get into the museum was over three hours long. We then walked back to our hotel to shelter from the rain and re-strategise.

We decided to visit the Louis Vuitton Foundation, a contemporary building designed by Frank Gerhy. The building itself is an amazing example of contemporary architecture and certainly a big change from the traditional architecture around Paris. The building is located next to Jardin de Acclimatation, a beautiful garden full of rides and entertainment. I haven't seen a garden quite like this anywhere else. It was kind of like going to a fun park but without the hefty entrance fee and a lot more tasteful. We decided to go on a roller coaster which seemed like it probably should've been for children, but I can guarantee it shocked me!

In the evening, we took the train to Île de la Cité to visit Notre Dame and then walk on to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We also stopped by Shakespeare and Company, the famous English bookshop. I, of course, couldn't help but buy a book! Unfortunately, as we made our way to dinner, the rain set in again and got incredibly heavy very quickly. We found our way to the restaurant, Les Deux Magots, albeit a little soaked. This historic restaurant famous for hosting a number of well-known artists throughout history has really nice food, but be prepared to pay for the name. I had the sea bass and then we selected our dessert off the silver tray - so delicious!

Monday was a much quieter day as Asher had work commitments. I decided to have breakfast at a boulangerie - back to the baguette with jam and bread! I pre-booked a ticket to Musée Jacquemart-André, the museum we had been unable to get into on Sunday. I'm not sure if the visiting Caravaggio exhibition was the reason, but the massive queue was still there on Monday. Thankfully, I had a skip-the-line ticket, so I was able to walk straight in. This museum was well worth the visit. it was originally a home owned by a wealthy couple from the late 1800s, who collected an incredible amount of art on their travels around Europe, especially Italy, much of which is in the house on display. My favourite room was the winter garden, a tiled hall area surrounding the staircase, full of beautiful plants.

In the afternoon, I made my way to the 18th arrondissement to visit two large fabric department stores that I had heard of - Tissus Reine and Le Marché Saint Pierre. Le Marché Saint Pierre is the larger of the two but I preferred the fabrics in Tissus Reine. I bought some pretty blue cotton with a white seagull print to save for a summer dress. These two shops are both very close to Sacre Couer, so I made my way up the hill and got some beautiful photos of Paris. Thankfully, the weather was much better this day and the sky was mostly clear. I then made my way back to the hotel before getting the Eurostar back to London.