Yesterday we went over to the Marais so I could stock up on my favorite perfume Quel Amour from French perfume house Annick Goutal. The packaging alone is worth the visit.
We then walked around the Marais and ventured up to the north where it's quiet and not so touristy. We stumbled on a lovely little cafe and stopped for salad and wine sitting as you do in little French cafes watching the people go by. I love sitting listening to all the French conversation, they are often so animated in their discussion.
As we'd been walking for so long we decided to get a taxi to Les Invalidis. I have this little app for G7taxis which lets you order a taxi from wherever you are and once you confirm you can see on a map how far away it is, brilliant really as speaking frenglish isn't always successful on the phone.
Off to les Invalidis we went with the taxi driver getting frustrated with road closures, so we were dropped off early and walked the rest of the way. The reason for the road closure was that the king of Spain was in town. I have never seen so many police, we sat with many others and waved him as he went by in his flag flying car surround by police escorts.
It was in to Les Invalides we went so we could visit Napoleans tomb. It was a magnificent building as they all seem to be in France. Lots of people visiting, mainly appeared to be French tourists.
Today we headed to Champs Élysées to visit the Louis Vuitton shop. We were served by a lovely young French girl who delighted in serving us friendly Australians. We sat and sipped champagne and may have made a purchase or two ;)
Laduree for lunch, delicious sliders and champagne, macarons and coffee, then off to Chanel's flagship store on Rue Cambon where we drooled over the new season bags as well as the gorgeous classics.
We then hopped into another taxi out the front and asked him to take us to the Tuilleries, he looked at us as if we were mad and pointed to the end of the street where we could see trees...yes the Tuilleries :) we wandered up and found a cafe where we sipped Rose under the shade of the trees. There were many families there as today is the warmest it's been so they were all out soaking up the sun.
We realised we hadn't been to Angelina's, the famous tea house opened in 1903 and has a reputation as a place of sophistication and indulgence. Angelina became the place to be, Proust and Coco Chanel rubbed shoulders with the biggest names in fashion in Angelina's salons. Although we'd been eating all day, we managed to fit a coffee and eclair in.
A funny story, this morning before the LV shop we had breakfast on champs élysées. When we sat down a young French man in his 20's sitting a few tables away said a friendly bonjour, I mumbled a quick bonjour and promptly turned away as I didn't want to engage in conversation. When we went to pay the bill the waiter came and explained that the young man had paid our bill. What? Not necessary, we exclaimed. Why would he do that? Apparently his mamam had recently died and we reminded him of her. We were torn between being horrified incase it was a scam and using our manners to say thank you. I said a quick merci beau coup, whilst Sue had her nail file ready, and hot footed to LV in case he was following us. On reflection it's sad that we were worried that this young man was up to no good when in actual fact he was being kind. A sign of the time we live in.
Some pics xx
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