La huitième fois à Paris - part one.

Following our merveilleux trip last time at approximately the same time of year, Jul, Amandine, and I decided to plan another trip to Paris. Christine and Philipp were not able to make it this year but Gary decided to come along and fill the void! Hurrah! Having had my life revolutionised by the discovery of short-term rentals, I managed to score an apartment on an incredible location on rue St. Honoré, pretty much the centre of the city :D.

The living room/kitchen combination

Our place is the one on the 3rd floor!

Happy faces!

And you know what else made us happy? The realisation that we were living on top of this bakery! Please note the macarons that look like burgers!

But we resisted the lure of the bakery to have a €13 3-course lunch menu option at a restaurant on our block. This was my *main*, I was too hungry to photograph the entree (soup) and dessert (fruit salad).

Another delicious looking bakery in our street.

They make everything avec amour!

Since we had a few hours to kill before Amandine and Gary were to arrive, Jul and I decided to take advantage of our killer location and take a walk around our neighbourhood, where we scoped out local places like...

le Louvre,

le jardin de Tuileries,

and Place de la Concorde.

Fromage!

Despite the incredibly merdique weather, we decided to keep on strolling because Paris is most beautiful in the rain. (Actually, I'm not sure I agree with that but I feel as though I have to quote the movie :P)

We kept heading down the Champs Elysées and crossed the river at Pont Alexandre III

Why  hello!

Jul was looking very French with her matching accessories.

Being my usual clownish self.

Notre Dame de Paris still looking majestic at 850 years old (just forget about that major mid-19th-century restoration, okay?)

We decided it was okay to be tourists again and went inside where Jul was horrified that prices for votive candles started at €2 (Paris prices!)

Mmmm, atmospheric

Seriously, I should just photoshop a ghost or 10 into this picture.

Still stuffed from our massive lunch, we decided to purchase some quiches from our downstairs bakery for a light lunch and wait for the Londoners to arrive. Then the weirdness happened. Through a comedy of errors and misunderstanding, they were arriving the next weekend! :O And that's why they will not feature so much in my stories of this weekend :/