Honeymoon Day 10: Pastries in Paris

1/8/2017
Honeymoon Day 10: Pastries in Paris

Today is our only full day in Paris on the trip, so let's make the most of it! We had a bit of a late start, but went FULL TILT with HOURS of walking! Yay! This is the best way to really experience the epicness of Paris and we went all-out.

One of the first stops was based on Michal's friend Gavin's recommendation, a place I hadn't been to before, Sadaharu Aoki (a Japanese patisserie) in the Galleries Lafayette. I think I had wandered into the shopping portion of Galleries Lafayette on a previous Paris trip, but had never been to the food area before. It was an awesome and lucky find. It was a bit like the epic Food Hall at Harrod's in London -- tons of little counters of different foods, all amazingly prepared and the option to try lots of stuff (and insanely fancy, to boot).

We picked up two cheeses including an amazing smooth goat cheese. To go with the cheese we picked up some awesome confitures (jams) that went amazingly well with it. There was a long line for an Italian Pizza spot, so I grabbed a slide there as well as some tasty looking Cannelloni to go. Also, gotta stop for a nice espresso and also to pick up some pastries -- we got a Tarte Yuzu and a Millefeuille Vanille.

Fun espresso area, the dude was awesome and we chatted about coffee in San Francisco a bunch.

Baguettes!

Amazing fresh pasta

Crazy different kinds of pink and purple salt

This pizza rocked

As always, the cheese in France is the best

This was the goat cheese we got, called Pelardon Fermier A.O.P. It was insanely creamy and tasty.

Armed with all of this amazing food, we continued on with our walk through Opera (wow!!) The architecture in Paris is always overwhelmingly amazing, and as always it did not disappoint. To make the day even more perfect, we stopped in at the world-changing Baguette place, Eric Kayser. Now, with some pastries, some incredible cheese, and probably the best damn baguette that you can buy in the entire world, we headed to my favourite park ever, the Jardis de Tuilleries.

Opera architecture

Crazy epic buildings

Someone give this goose a sippy-cup!

YUUUUUUUUUUUS

Arriving at the magnifique Jardis de Tuilleries, we found a nice bench and had the most romantic picnic of all time. #honeymoon :) Staring into each other's eyes, laughing, dancing, smiling, and eating the heck out of an incredible baguette with amazing cheese and perfectly-matched confitures... now THIS is a honeymoon!!

Gluhwein!!!!

Cannelloni was awesome

To accompany cheese... they're not kiddin'!!!

OMG THIS WAS AWESOME

Dessert, mais oui!

Dancing in the park

My silly love

So that was friggin' ROMANTIC and amazing. Paris, you are awesome. And to think we just "stuck" Paris into the honeymoon plans because we needed to fly out of CDG... silly!!! This place is so awesome and perfect and no wonder so many people come here for special romantic trips. Ahhhh Paris.... c'est le belle vie :)

And then... more walking! A.k.a. do the Paris thing! We walked and walked, eventually across the Seine and towards Ile de la Cite. At one point we wandered by Notre Dame and were like, "Uh, yeah, I guess let's take a Notre Dame photo..." having both seen it before and been inside on previous trips. "We're such jerks!" we said to each other and had a good laugh. While I suppose it seemed a bit silly to be in Paris and literally not go to any museums or art exhibits or historical stuff... but with only a day and a half here, we needed to focus on the most necessary things -- including, of course, Berthillion gelato.

Ferris wheel with Eiffel Tower in the distance

The obligatory Notre Dame photo

Seine river, you magnificent fiend

So off we went, giving a very short nod to the continued epic architecture, and headed to my favourite Ile St. Louis ice cream shop, Berthillion. We got to the shop and it wasn't busy and was starting to get dark. I asked the dude if I could have a taste of a couple of flavours. He said, "normally no, but for you it is OK." hahah oh man, special treatment, this place already is amazing. I got two flavours, unsurprisingly, Passionfruit and Cafe.

The best damn part of the whole experience was when he then started to hand me the cone.... he spun the cone in his hand over, I thought he was gonna drop it... OH NO!!!!!! But this was totally on purpose, like a Buster Keaton hat-trick or slight of hand... hahahaha!!! It was SO funny. So, so funny. It was like a trick that he would presumably usually only do for a young kid, but I enjoyed it just as much. It was so awesome. Talk about adding some fun and sillyness to an already awesome day. That gave me a really good laugh. I could have sworn he was gonna drop the ice cream! Haha, amazing.

We had been walking for 5+ hours, so we took a short break off our feet to stop for a Kir and espresso and rest our legs a bit. We continued to walk and went into our favourite crazy housewares store called Pylones, and I got a black cat scrubbing brush holder which is awesome. We also bought a Citron Sucre crepe on the side of the road to keep us going -- gotta have it.

Me, VERY pleased with my gelato cone

Back to our Crepe place from last time we were in Paris!

We continued walking to our neighbourhood from the last trip, near Maubert–Mutualité. We found our old crepe dude from the previous visit and he was still in the same spot. Amazing. We got a Nutella-Banana crepe for good measure and then ultimately we took the Subway back to the Champs-Élysées after SO much walking.

Celio Star Wars boxers?! I must find them in my size!!

Our crazy hotel was near the Champs-Élysées this time which was crazy as I've never stayed near there before. We got off the Subway near the main shopping area of the street and bought our Salt and Pepper grinders at the Puegot store. Sooooo excited about those :)

We went into the giant Celio store there (kindof like a French Gap or UniQlo). I love that place. Unfortunately with all the amazing cheese eating and so on, I wasn't finding much that fit well at the moment :) So that was a fail but... they had Celio Star Wars Boxers ("boites")!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't find my size there, but I will try to get them tomorrow.

After a glorious day out, we headed back to the hotel to chill for a bit. Here are some more photos of the crazy interesting room and all the odd and fun art in the room.

"Phone's ringing, dude"

Crystal thing on the wall

Even the door handles were fancy

Weird shifted desk thing

Cool carpet

After a short relax, we headed down to the bar area to grab a small dinner. I got a Matcha latte and a salad, and Michal got a Gratinee (French Onion soup). It was nice and relaxing there at the hotel after a busy and epic full day out.

Michal LOVED these mugs -- they were also designed by Philippe Starck (who also designed the hotel), and were made by the super fanced Raynaud Limoges chinaware company.

Magic salad

We took another look at the mugs at the shop, but it was 220 Euros for 2 mugs!! Oof. So we didn't get them, but Michal loved the concept anyhow :)

An awesome and long day in Paris. Action-packed!