Honeymoon (Part 1): Paris, France

Tuesday: Day 1 (Paris, France)

The Monday following our wedding, we left for our honeymoon. Our first stop was PARIS! The city had my heart as soon as I saw these romantic trees lining the sides of the street...


We checked into the Hotel Belloy Saint Germain and got hooked up with a top floor SUITE upgrade and a special delivery of chilled champagne, what?! Our travel agent made these details happen, I'm sure. It was so honeymoon-esq, and we felt so special. We might have gotten a little tipsy. Champagne in France is strong.

Our 6th floor suite also had windows that open inward, and you can step outside and see the Notre-Dame Cathedral!

Notre-Dame is the skinny/tall tower in the background.

We went exploring and found ourselves in the Jardin de Luxembourg (Gardens of Luxembourg) built by Marie (Queen of France) a long time ago.

There are lots of little narrow streets that were so adorable. Pictures don't do it justice. It's November and almost wintertime, but Parisians still find time to appreciate the pops of beauty in their flowers everywhere.

Also, I love that the buildings in Paris are so ornate and so very different from American architecture. We peeked into many apartments from the street, and there wasn't one window that didn't have a chandelier lighting up a room! So lovely.

Late that night, we found a little restaurant, entered, and said, "Bonsoir, deux s'il vous plait." (Good evening, two please.) They handed us an English menu anyway (we failed to pass as Parisians haha) and we ate yummy foods.

With love from Paris,
Anne (and Jason but he's actually sleeping right now) <3

Wednesday: Day 2 (Paris)

The next morning, a van picked us up before the sunrise. We headed out into the French countryside to the Champagne region where they make ALL the Champagne in the world. If it's produced elsewhere, they cannot call it "Champagne," it's just sparkling wine.

Reims Cathedral, where the Kings of France were crowned and Joan of Arc received her Army
that saved France from the British.

There was a real life Pensieve.

Pretty sure this is Dumbledore's phoenix podium.

Champagne vineyards galore!

Small private winery called Dauby (pronounced Dobby). Neither of us are Champagne drinkers, but we really enjoyed this!

Mercier, a larger Champagne house that was fancier but not as good.

Back in Paris, we strolled over to Notre-Dame, where there was a mass going on. We took some silent photos and looked for Quasimodo. I think we spotted him in the tower, up top, or perhaps he was in the bell tower that's not visible from the front of the cathedral... hmmm...

Then we walked to Laduree... the place that started it all, and The Ultimate Place to get macarons in all the world! We ordered chocolat chaud (hot chocolate), espresso viennois (espresso with whipped cream), and mini macarons.

This place made my heart so happy! The restaurant, tables, dinnerware, everything was decorated with a classy and very French-esq tone. It was so cute, so delicious, and not too overly sweet. Jason loved it too, and he's not a sweets person, but he knew this was my dream to come here and totally supported me in it!

Pont des Arts is a pedestrian-only bridge also known as "Lover's Bridge," where couples will write their names on padlocks, lock it to the bridge, and throw the key into the Seine River, symbolizing that their love is locked forever. Parisian authorities are searching for ways to discourage it, because the weight of the locks actually caused a part of the bridge to collapse a few months ago. So we only walked across and took a picture. But it was sweet to see how many people wanted to lock their love in on this bridge.

On the other side of Pont de Arts is the Louvre. We only stopped to admire the humongous palace grounds.

We stumbled upon the Latin Quarter of Paris accidentally... and found this hole in the wall restaurant with bright red Parisian walls upstairs and a pretty French girl who didn't speak any English. So with the little bit of "travel French" that we knew, we successfully ordered and enjoyed a delicious dinner, paired with two glasses of red wine that we expertly selected using "eenie meanie miney moe."

French onion soup, foie gras (tasted like cat food, meow!), beef bourguignon, veal dish

During dinner, we sat next to this huge group (3 long tables worth) of Parisians and some lady came by and started rattling off in French to us. Jason froze and then said in English, "Sorry, we don't speak..." We were both caught by surprise and it didn't even occur to us that we actually knew how to say, "Je ne parle pas francais," (I don't speak French). But she smiled and said in English, "Sorry we're so loud!" Which was nice of her, but more to the point, DID SOMEONE ACCIDENTALLY ASSUME WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN PARISIAN? 

Success. Maybe?

We spent some time walking along the Seine River at night. It definitely is a different feel to Paris than in America. Perhaps it's just that we're on our honeymoon and feeling very much like we're in the City of Love... but maybe it's just the magic of Paris! This was my number one spot I wanted to visit in the world, and it is quickly becoming my favorite city in the world. Jason loves Paris as well. We will definitely come back here in the future.

With love from Paris,
Anne (and Jason but he's sleeping again lol)

Thursday: Day 3 (Paris)

[Aside:]

Bonjour, monsieurs et madames. Is that even the plural of sirs and ladies? I don't know, but I hope you all are impressed by the little bit of French I feel comfortable with just after 3 days in Paris! haha. 

We are currently sitting on the 2nd floor of a first-class car of a high-speed train traveling ~200 mph from Paris to Barcelona. We're here for 6.5 hours, so perhaps I'll try to compose a novel about yesterday, much like how Jo Rowling started with Harry Potter (the idea came to her on a train much like this, after all)!

Our last day in Paris was a free day with nothing on the itinerary, so we were able to explore as we wished. The sun rises about 8 am so I started the day watching the sunrise from the comfort of our suite. The sky turned a dusty pinkish lavender behind Notre-Dame as the sun made it's way into our lives this morning.

It felt so perfect with the windows cracked open. Jason said that he also enjoyed seeing the sun rise... from behind his eyelids (he did not get out of bed to watch with me, lol).

We're staying in the 6th district (Saint Germain des Pres), essentially center of Paris, but the Eiffel Tower is west in the 16th district. After breakfast, we rented two city bikes and made our way over. Bike lanes are in the street in Paris, so you could actually trace your finger along the side of the bus as it drives past you! It was of course, no big deal for Jason. However, it was a pretty life-threatening 20 minutes of my life, so there was no photographic proof other than the one of us at our destination.

After sipping on some espresso near the Eiffel Tower, we meandered over to the prettiest bridge in the city, Pont Alexandre III (the Bridge of Alexander the Third). Check out those classic street lamps, the four gilt-bronze statue columns around it, and gold adornments everywhere! I thought this might have been the bridge from the last episode of Sex and the City when Big tells Carrie that she's the one, but upon a quick YouTube search, I found that it's not even similar. 

Ciel de Paris (Sky of Paris) is the restaurant on the 56th floor of the tallest building in the city called Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower), which is very special because at some point, no buildings in Paris were allowed to be taller than 6-7 stories, so as to not compete or block the view of the Eiffel Tower.

Oh yeah, we were seated next to the window for dinner... with a freaking gorgeous view of the Eiffel Tower and the whole city of Paris!! 

This was our splurge dinner in Paris, a 3 course meal with a bottle of wine each, Perrier sparkling water, and coffee as digestif afterwards. We had champagne as an apertif (pre-dinner drink) and a bottle of red wine during dinner. I don't know if the French normally drink like this or if this place is just really fancy, but we got through the whole bottle of champagne and only half the bottle of red. The food was amazing and our decaf espressos after dinner came topped with a second light show of the Eiffel Tower (it sparkles with light every hour on the hour for 5 minutes).

Absurdly amazing. Maybe also due to the fact that it was so crazy, Jason started tearing up a little because it just then hit him that we're MARRIED! It was super sweet and kind of funny.

After dinner, we took a lovely stroll on the Pont Alexandre III in the moonlight and ended the night taking silly pictures in the reading nook of our hotel. It's true, we are pretty ridiculous.

With love from the French countryside,
Anne (and Jason, and yes he's sleeping on the train right now)