Paris. Home to croissants, crepes, and macarons. Home to sidewalk cafes and blooming gardens. Home to the Mona Lisa. And for the next week, home to me. I was planning to be here three years ago in April 2020, but obviously the global pandemic changed my plans. So here I finally am, with only a rough plan for how I will spend the next six days in the City of Light.
I arrived around 8AM this morning after a fitful four hours of sleep in my Delta One Suite. We seemed to hit a patch of turbulence each time I started to drift off to sleep. I opted to skip the dinner service but I devoured the chia seed pudding and croissant for breakfast, having only picked at the less-than-mediocre food in the Delta Express lounge for dinner last night.
I thought the crowds at Amsterdam Airport last summer were bad… that was nothing compared to Paris Charles de Gaulle this morning. With my Delta One ticket I was able to use the Sky Priority immigration line and it still took me almost 45 minutes to get through. You can imagine how long the regular lines were!
I successfully navigated the ticket booth and trains and I was walking through the doors of my hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Prés by 10AM. Since I couldn’t get into my room yet, I was able to use the restroom to freshen up and change before heading out. The weather is cool and damp today, but fortunately it looks like the only unpleasant weather day while I’m here. I walked around the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and down Boulevard St. Germain before deciding I wanted a crepe for lunch.
I headed to Breizh Café, well known for their delicious crepes. I ordered a ham and cheese crepe with scrambled eggs and it was oh-so-good for my first Parisian meal. Despite the cool temperatures (50 degrees or so), I opted to sit outside so I could do some people watching and soak in my surroundings.
After lunch, I headed to a place I remember fondly from my last visit to Paris in 2014: Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens). The flowers were all in bloom and, even though it was cloudy, I found myself wandering around for almost an hour, taking pictures and enjoying all of the spring colors in bloom.
I decided I didn’t have the energy for another full meal today, so instead, I ate my way back to my hotel. I first stopped at a place I had walked by earlier, Viandas de Salamanca. It is a charcuterie type shop, and they had little paper cones of chorizo, salami, cheese, and ham in the window. I really wanted a cone of ham and another of cheese, but for some reason, the gentleman told me I couldn’t buy one of the ham ones. He suggested I could come back in 10 or 15 minutes and maybe I could buy one then. It left me puzzled, but I walked away with some cubed cheese in a cute little paper cone. I have been nibbling on it all afternoon. Then it was off to a little crepe stand (Mich Sandwiches) in Place Saint-Michel that I went to several times when I was here last. There’s probably nothing special about it, but the woman who worked there at the time was so sweet and it was the first thing I ate when I arrived on that visit. The stand is still there; the woman wasn’t (at least not today). I enjoyed my Nutella crepe while I headed back toward my hotel.
My hotel room is small, but nice and bright and has a little mini-balcony overlooking the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (I’ve already heard some bells ringing). Bonus: they left me a little dish of macarons! My last stop of the day was a quick trip to Monoprix (similar to a U.S. Target store) to buy some soda and snacks for “dinner” since I’m way too tired to go out. I also had to invest in a charging cable for my phone since it seems I left mine on the plane this morning. I’m hopeful that a good night’s sleep will re-energize me to go out and explore more of the city tomorrow!
Traveling with Laura 