Gay Paris Part 2

Hello lovely readers.  I left you the last post on my pastry and chocolate tour.  Like I said before, the instructions were a little confusing (either that or my friend and I are a bit retarded), so we went off map for most of it.  We did however make a concerted effort to find one particular shop on the tour.

Described as the best macaroon shop in the whole of Paris, we knew we had to see what all the fuss was about.  After getting lost a lot, and a lot of "Parlez-vous Anglaise?" we found it!  And there was a huge queue going right out of the shop and along the street........EXCELLENT, we thought, it must be good!  Well where is this AMAZING macaroon shop I hear you ask, well here it is:

Alex pronounced it "Pie-ree Her-mmm" which had me in stitches, I love her Franglaise! (of course you should pronounce it "Pe-air Er-may")  I made her say it a few times just for my amusement.

Once inside there was a team of ladies and gents all working very hard to get peoples orders to them quickly.  What was nice is that they payed attention to their customers and spoke to them in their language if the weren't French.  The tour informed us that the Rose macaroons were particularly good, so Alex bought just one little rose one.  I opted for more of the luxurious little macaroons and bought a box of 7, all different flavours, so I could take them home for my parents.

This is the lady helping me to my fab little box of treasures.  I did speak to her in French, but she replied in English :( I so wanted to try out my little French but oh well!  For the huge queue out the door, the whole process was very quick and very professionally done; I think they are used to long queues!  Again local Parisians were shopping here, another sign that this is a pukka place to go!  It was again expensive, but the packaging was beautiful and the service excellent.  I shall tell you how they taste a little further on in this post.

Now we had finished our walking tours we headed to the Metro (which is incredibly difficult to find btw!  Not like huge light up London underground signs) to head to the Place de la Concorde - a must go place for tourists.  By now it was starting to get darker and it was bloody freezing!  This meant only one thing............CREPE TIME!!!!

Alex likes to take photos, hence the how to make a crepe montage ;)

They were just what we needed to warm us up and keep us going until dinner.  Look how happy it made us!

I'm afraid the crepe was so amazing this happened to me

There was some sort of German Christmas Market type set up with a Ferris wheel right outside the metro stop, where we bought our crepes from.  We walked around it taking in the sights then headed to the bridge over the river to look at the Eiffel Tower.

That cute white and yellow bag is the Pierre Herme bag for Alex's Rose macaroon

A lovely couple took Alex and my photo, ironic really that we were in the most romantic city in the world - Alex's other half will regret not taking her first ;) teehee.  You can just about see the Eiffel tower in the background.

After freezing our butts off on the bridge with the wind coming off the river, we started to walk again to keep warm.  Onwards up the Champs Elysees to spy a view of the L'Arc de Triomphe.  About halfway up the road is a perfect view point for taking photos...............in the middle of a VERY busy road.  The last time I went to Paris I had done this exact same walk so I wasn't too worried about taking photos, but Alex being a Paris virgin, braved the busy road to stand in the middle and snap the L'Arc de Triomphe.

This picture of course is not the L'Arc de Triomphe but I liked it so had to include it, I think it sums up how magical Paris is in the snow.  Alex took this piccy and I just love it, it's just like the perfect Paris postcard!

Once we reached the viewing point of L'Arc de Triomphe it was getting pretty late (and even more cold!) so we decided to head to Gare du Nord to find a restaurant in the area to have our dinner before heading back to the Eurostar.  I guess by now you're guessing it was pretty much a day trip to eat yummy food.  So I shall not disappoint!  This was our lovely dinner at a cafe just over the road from the train station.  I think it was called something like Gare du Nord Cafe, or something equally as original.

A scrummy cheese board!  I enjoyed an Earl Grey tea, which I have to say was very welcome by that point, and Alex being the wine fan she is had another small glass of red wine.  We shared the cheese board and had it with fresh French bread.  Deeeeeeesquishous!  I'm not sure what type of cheese it was, but my favourite was the one on the far left at the bottom of the pic (next to the one with holes in).  There was a scrummy blue cheese, good old Camembert, a goats cheese, Emmental and some sort of hard cheddar cheese which was most probably French.  Again a little pricey, but as we were sharing, it kept the costs down.  Alex then made a little faux pas by asking for the bill in Spanish, but I think the waiter was used to our poor French by that point and just laughed.  We big fat failed in our French attempts!  Next time I'm not going to wing it and actually take a phrasebook with me!

After dinner we took a stroll around the block to find a supermarket to get a bottle of fizz to have with our macaroons on the Eurostar home.  We just so happened to walk past the apartment block where three women had been executed a few weeks previously, in an attack on Kurdish activists.....................scary!!!!!!  We wondered why there were so many flowers outside the building eeeeek.  Anyway scariness over we bought our champers and headed to the Eurostar.  A lovely end to a lovely day we enjoyed a glass of bubbly and ate our macaroons.

Alex had her Pierre Herme Rose macaroon and I had my raspberry macaroon from La Grande Epicerie (on the right).  I have to say now that I am back in England and have eaten my macaroons from Pierre Herme, they are in fact THE BEST MACAROONS IN THE WORLD not just in Paris!  The flavours are incredible for such a tiny little thing and totally worth every penny of their price tag.  Don't believe me?  You will just have to try them for yourself.  Heaven in a bite!  I recommend all 7 flavours I tried which were: Rose, Cassis, Hazelnut, Dark Chocolate, Passion fruit and chocolate, some sort of citrussy one and coffee.  Don't be put off by the price as you will thank me for trying them :).

I hope you enjoyed my pictures from my trip to Paris.  Pretty awesome for a business trip haha.  I think next time I go I will save up some spending money so I can hit the antique and vintage clothing markets that I didn't have time to do this time around.

Lots of Love
Betty xxx