Paris

I’m back from my first big adventure of 2018!  Actually, it was my first big adventure since the middle of 2016, given circumstances beyond my control that kept me pretty much homebound for the past year.  I can’t begin to express how happy I am to have left that stage of life behind and plunged back into exploring and experiencing the world.  I missed travel.  (I mean, really, really missed it).

My first trip of the year was to two cities I know well: I lived in London for a year and have lots of family there, and I’ve been to Paris several times and adore it (because, obviously, Paris).  I wanted this visit to mix discovery of new places and returns to old favorites I already knew and loved.  I think I did a pretty fantastic job of combining the two, and would wholeheartedly recommend stealing any of the following experiences for your own London/Paris trip (which hopefully you’re planning as we speak, right?)

Anyway, here they are: my favorite things that I saw, did, ate and drank in London and Paris.

Fortnum and Mason’s tearoom wall, London. Is this not the cutest thing ever?!

Melissa’s London and Paris Highlights

London:

• The National Gallery. This has always been one of my favorite museums in London, but honestly, I’d forgotten what a cool experience a visit there can be.  Not only is the art untouchable (I spent lots of time with the Impressionists, Turner, and Constable), but the inside of the museum is majestically designed and the location right on Trafalgar Square can’t be beat.
• Fortnum and Mason’s. How did I live in London for as long as I did and never visit the Queen’s grocery store? Fortnum’s was such a delightful experience: I shopped for shortbread and tea (Harry and Meghan’s special wedding blend, which I brought back for a friend), and enjoyed hot chocolate (good) and an ice cream sundae (amazing) in one of their dining spaces.  Also, the walls where we ate were covered in cartoon-style drawings of every British monarch going back centuries.  Love it!
• Hatchard’s and Stanford’s bookstores. Okay, once again—how did I never visit Hatchard’s bookstore before in all my time in London?  It’s an institution I was somehow oblivious to, located right next to Fortnum and Mason’s and pretty much guaranteeing you a perfect afternoon combo.  The choice of books is overwhelming, and as a store attendant helpfully pointed out: “We have a whole section just on Churchill, in case you were wondering just how British we are.”  Ah, London.  I also popped into Stanford’s travel bookstore, one of my favorite places in the world, which is chock full of guidebooks, maps, globes, travel literature, and books about any place you might ever want to visit.
• Café Nero. Every time I go to London, I hit Café Nero at least once for their excellent Hot Chocolate Milano—thick, Italian style hot chocolate topped with whipped cream.  Happiness in a to-go cup.
• Green Park. I had a wonderful time (on a rare good-weather day) strolling through one of my favorite parks just off of Buckingham Palace.  I love nature retreats in big cities!
• Spending time with family. My mom is English, so I have a large family who live in or not far from London.  We had a family gathering at my aunt’s house in Bath, where I got to catch up with relatives, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a decade (!), as well as a dinner with several cousins in a posh wine bar called 28-50 Mayfair with excellent food in central London; highly recommended.  It was great to spend time with family and friends in London before moving on to Paris solo for a few days.

Paris:

Cafe Angelina hot chocolate!

• Café Angelina. Whenever I’m in Paris, this is one place I always make sure to visit.  And if I have friends going to Paris, I tell them they absolutely have to check it out.  Angelina’s is a beautiful (albeit tourist-thronged) café just a stone’s throw from the Louvre, which serves the ABSOLUTE BEST HOT CHOCOLATE IN THE WORLD.  (Though strong honorable mention to Les Deux Magots.  It’s hard to choose, really! Paris’s chocolate bounty overflows, which makes me kind of want to move there someday…)
• Musee D’Orsay. I’d only been to the D’Orsay once before, ten years ago, and as a lover of Impressionist art, I was keen to revisit it.  Although I had a bit of a snag buying my ticket online (and ended up having to buy another one the day of—ugh), and got there later than I’d planned after my excursion to Versailles, I still really enjoyed the museum, and can’t wait to return and spend more time there.  Not only is the art itself fantastic, but the location—a former train station—is pretty hard to top!  Plus it’s right near my favorite cafes and restaurants in St. Germain de Pres.
• Wandering St. Germain de Pres and the Latin Quarter. I did a ton of walking over my two days in Paris, most of it taking me to or through the fifth and sixth arrondissement neighborhoods—the Latin Quarter and St. Germain de Pres.  Both are favorites of mine, and I had a wonderful time browsing through the stacks of books at Shakespeare and Company, poking into the shops along Boulevard St. Germain, and having my second epic chocolate chaud in two days at Les Deux Magots—while pondering the fact that if I return often enough to sit at every single table, eventually I’ll have to hit one that Hemingway and Fitzgerald once sat and wrote at.  Yet another excellent reason to keep going back!
• Dinner at Le Relais de L’Entrecote. One of my favorite restaurants on earth, and definitely my top choice in Paris.  It opens at 7 pm for dinner and there was a short line out the door, but it moved fast and was more than worth the wait.  All this restaurant serves is steak and frites, with salad and bread as accompaniments—excellent quality, and they keep refilling your plate till you’ve had enough, so the quantity is pretty impressive too!  Only 26 euros for the entire meal: a steal, especially in this popular neighborhood.
• Climbing all the steps up to Sacre Couer. As this was my first time staying in Montmartre, I figured it would be worth checking out the Basilica Sacre Couer.  I saved it for my last day, and I have to admit I didn’t quite anticipate the number of stairs I’d have to climb; every time I thought I was done, I realized there was another layer I hadn’t seen from below!  But I knew I might never be back, so I pushed myself to reach the top and I’m so glad I did.  The church is beautiful inside (there was a sign saying not to take photos, which I abided by even if others didn’t, so you’ll just have to trust me on this until you can visit yourself).  I did get some nice photos of the outside from up close to commemorate my trek!

As you can see, my week in London and Paris was pretty much perfection, and I’m already plotting my return.  I’d love to make London/Paris a yearly trip if possible, knowing there will always be new discoveries awaiting me to complement the old favorites I can’t wait to visit again.  And really, isn’t that what travel should be about?

Have you visited London and Paris?  Do you love them too?  What are your favorite spots in each city?

Usually, when I plan a trip, it’s to the most exotic, exciting, adventurous place I can think of—South Africa, Thailand, Israel, or at least somewhere in Europe I haven’t visited yet.  But there’s something wonderful about re-visiting places you know well and love.  And that’s why I’ve booked my first big trip of 2018 to Paris and London!

To say I’m excited is an understatement.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I haven’t been out of America since September 2016 (ah, Slovenia, what a great adventure you were!) and I am SO READY to venture out into the world again.  I’ve missed traveling.  I’ve missed the excitement of trip planning, the joy of arriving at a new destination, eating local food, attempting to speak a new language: all of it.  Traveling is a fundamental part of what makes me who I am, and not being able to do it has been tough.  But in six weeks, I’ll be back on the horse (or rather, the plane) once again!

Trafalgar Square, London

As you may remember, my original plan for my first big trip of the year was just a tad different…I was planning to go to South America.  Chile and Brazil were at the top of my travel wish list, and while I still very much want to visit both, the timing didn’t work out this time around.  So I’ll be going next February instead (yes, I’ve already planned most of my 2019 travels—I can’t help it, this is how I roll!)  In the meantime, I figured my spring trip should be to a place where I could visit family, and also revisit places that I love while discovering new ones.  So I picked London, where I have loads of family I don’t get to see very often, and added on a few days in Paris because, well, Paris is always a good idea, oui? (Bien sur!)

I’ll be leaving at the end of April and spending four days in London followed by three days in Paris.  My plans are still tentative, but so far, here’s what I’ve got:

The Louvre in Paris

Melissa’s London and Paris Itinerary

London—I always hit the British Museum and the National Gallery when I’m in London, as well as my old haunts in Covent Garden and Soho (like Stanford’s travel bookstore!)  This time, I am also thinking of tea at Harrod’s or somewhere similar (a London experience I haven’t had yet!); popping by Buckingham Palace (The Crown has exerted its influence on me); and possibly doing a tour of the WW2 underground bomb shelters, which a friend recently did and highly recommends.  I want to have at least one Brick Lane curry.  And of course, I’ll spend lots of time catching up with aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins’ kids.

Paris—I’m lucky enough to have been to Paris several times already, but it’s a place I can never get enough of.  I’m sure there’s still loads for me to discover there, which is one reason I decided to book an AirBnB (for the first time ever—thanks, friend-of-a-cousin, for having an amazing rental available!) in Montmartre, where I haven’t spent much time before.  I’m excited to be able to live like a local there for a few days, wandering around the streets, discovering new restaurants and soon-to-be-favorite cafes, and just relaxing and taking in that magical Parisian feeling that’s so hard to put into words.

But, it wouldn’t be a trip to Paris without revisiting some old favorites!  I’ll be hitting the Louvre (and as a corollary, Café Angelina across the street, which has arguably the world’s greatest hot chocolate!); the Musee D’Orsay; the cafes of St. Germain-de-Pres (if Fitzgerald and Hemingway wrote and/or drank there, I’m in); and one of my favorite restaurants on the planet, Le Relais De L’Entrecote, where they serve nothing but steak, frites, and salad…basically my culinary heaven on earth.  And I plan to eat all the Parisian pastries I can handle (maybe I should start building up my tolerance now?)

Hot chocolate at Cafe Angelina in Paris

Versailles—One totally new place I’ll be visiting on this trip: the Palace of Versailles!  I’ve never been, because I could never bear to tear myself away from Paris long enough to go there.  But my mom has been raving about her trip to Versailles for as long as I can remember.  She saw it when she was 21 on her first big trip to Paris, and she’s been urging me to go for years.  Yes, Mom, it’s finally happening!

All in all, this should be a fantastic trip filled with reconnecting with people and places I love, while discovering just enough new ones to keep things interesting—a perfect itinerary for diving back into the world again after a long break.

And of course, eating All. The. Chocolate.  All of it.

Have you been to Paris and London?  What are your favorite places/things to do there?  All suggestions welcome!