Paris A La Clé De Vos Cœurs

Square Jean XXIII
Beautiful little garden behind Notre-Dame

Not only does adding the word 'Paris' instantly get you blog views (seriously, within minutes of posting 'Un Week-end á Paris' my blog views tripled for the week which I'm either attributing to the added Google clicks, or people have just suddenly realised how fantastic I am... probably Google.) but it's also a wonderful city which I will be more than happy to spend many future weekends in.

It really is a beautiful and enchanting place. No wonder they call it the 'City of Love'.

Pont de l'Archevêché

After visiting Notre-Dame, I spent some time wandering (not gonna lie, this was mainly in search of a toilet - where is the 'Visit Paris by Toilet' app I ask you??) Before public toilets, the first place I found was a really pretty little garden behind the Cathedral. It had a lovely fountain and monument in it, and lots of lovely trees and flowers. Sadly it was packed and there wasn't a free bench to be seen. Coincidentally, it also had a public toilet, however the queue for this was about as long as the one for Notre-Dame itself, so I decided to desert the little garden in search of a café.

Love Lock Bridge - Pont de l'Archevêché

I wandered in what I think was a southerly direction, and almost immediately came across the famous Parisian Lock Bridge - the one on Pont de l'Archevêché, not the original one that had all it's original locks cut off my an Arts student, or the one that partially collapsed due to the weight of romantic metal (I think that these two are the same actually...)

I find these bridges interesting, but they also have an air of depressing wistfulness for the singletons among us, just like the rest of Paris as, let's be honest, it's for all those loved up couples out there. Paris is sadly just one of those cities filled with couples french kissing - and I don't mean the common friendly greeting kind either!

On the other side of the Pont de l'Archevêché was lots of painters and stalls with touristy gifts, art and postcards to sell. It was here that I found what I was looking for - cafés/restaurants with toilets!

View of Notre-Dame from Pont de l'Archevêché

I used my lovely 'Visit Paris' tripadvisor app to pick out a suitable venue. Most of them looked lovely but some had been rated with bad comments about food/service/facilities, and others had been given 'lovely, but will cost €€€'. In the end I gave up with Tripadvisor and stopped at what looked like a pleasant, reasonably priced cafe/restaurant called 'Cafe Panis'.

The restaurant was quite nice. I thought it would be a good chance to practise my french, but all the waiters just spoke to me in English regardless. They were even speaking to french people in English! It was very strange. Perhaps, as they were busy, it was just quicker for them to talk in English than to wait for me to struggle on in French...

It took me a little while to get served as the place was packed but once I did everything was great.

French Onion Soup
topped with Croutons and Cheese

I had been sat in the dark inside but as soon as some girls left, I asked if I could move to their spot so I could sit by the open patio windows. This was good for views, but people kept using it as a door and squeezing past me while I was eating. There was a door like 5 feet right so this was extremely rude in my opinion! The other bad thing about Paris is that everyone is smoking all the time. Gross.

Chicken Escalope on a bed of rocket, served with Ratatouille

I was starving (it was nearly 3pm) so ordered French Onion Soup to start, and Chicken Escalope with Ratatouille for my mains. It took a while for my soup to arrive but it was tasty - a proper soup with bits of onion in it, and with croutons and cheese on top! My main was also really tasty. The chicken was marinated in a lemony garlic sauce, and served on a bed of rocket leaves. The ratatouille came in a funny little pot.

L'Hôtel-de-Ville

I had planned to get a dessert, but I was due to meet Fran & Co. at about 4:30pm and was running out of time, so didn't (just as well though really as my Fitness Pal app tells me that meal alone added up to almost 1400 calories by itself!! For those not au fait with calorie counting correlations and the like, this is 200 over my net calorie intake goal...)

These two courses were a little expensive, but pretty reasonable for Paris - around 30€ for those two courses and a drink.

At about 4ish, Fran rang to say that they were at the Jardin Palais Royal and to walk over to meet them. I didn't realise it at the time, but this was actually quite a trek, and I definitely would have hopped on the metro had I known!!

Lovely buildings

On the plus side, I did see lots of interesting things on my way over there.

I walked past the Hôtel-de-Ville which was pretty impressive, and towards lots of shops. The buildings in Paris are gorgeous and a large number were built in the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism and Rococo eras, between 16th and 19th centuries. Some buildings look similar to those in English towns such as Bath but it all still has a distinctly French feel about it!

For anyone else moderately obsessed with Harry Potter... I found 'Rue Nicolas Flamel'! To be honest, this was really exciting for me. I later discovered that Nicolas Flamel was actually a real person! Back in the 14th Century, he was known for being a scholar, author, etc. and married a woman called Perenelle (10 points to Gryffindor for accuracy J.K!) They were also known for their wealth and philanthropy, according to the omnipotent and authoritative source of Wikipedia, and financially contributed to churches and building of sculptures. After he died, there were rumours of him dabbling in alchemy, and around 1700's (300yrs after he died) he apparently appeared at a descendants funeral, ergo beginning rumours that he didn't actually die and in fact had created the Philosopher's Stone, which as we all know, produces the Elixir of Life which gives the drinker immortality.

I didn't quite make it all the way to the Jardin Palais Royal as Fran, Charly & Kids were ready to leave by 5pm (I was only 5 mins away at this point) so I just waited in the Jardin Nelson Mandela instead.

The Jardin Nelson Mandela had a really cool, brand new play area which Fran has decided they'll go back to another time as Marc would probably really enjoy it.

We headed back on the tube, arriving back at the house in Le Vésinet at around 6:30pm. We were all exhausted by this point. I went upstairs to put my phone on charge and fell asleep straight away!

That was all for Saturday. I'll post all about my trip to L'eglise Madeleine next!

Syndicat Général de la Bourse de Commerce de Paris
To the West of Jardin Nelson Mandela

Eglise Saint Eustache,
just to the north of Jardin Nelson Mandela