So, a little while before I left Australia, my lovely friend Steph (who we will meet in a moment) messaged me and asked if I fancied going to Paris. More specifically, if I fancied going to Paris the weekend after I arrived.

I had a million and one things to do when I got here (or so it seemed) and they were all time sensitive (or so it felt), so I did what any sensible person would do.

I said, ‘Of course I’ll go to Paris!’

So off we went, tagging along with Steph’s brother and his friends as they finished off a mammoth Europe trip that I was tired just thinking about. And when I say ‘tagging along’, I mean it. Steph at least had some legitimacy being there – I was this weird seventh wheel who just kind of appeared. Sorry guys!

Now, Steph, apart from being a superstar producer in the making who helps me with my bags at the airport, gives me a roof over my head, and buys me chocolate spread as a welcome present, is also one of my favourite people to travel with. Our travel equation goes as follows: 40% research and planning, 40% on the ground exploring, and 20% patting ourselves on the back and saying ‘crushed it!’ and ‘we're doing this so well!’.

It’s worked for us for years, and if it ain’t broke…

One of the reasons we’re so big on the research front is because we like being tourists, but not being touristy. A lot of tourist attractions are fantastic – that’s why they’re attractions, after all – but we also love reading other peoples’ experiences and seeing what else is out there. The amount of little gems that we’ve come across travelling together is amazing, and we never would’ve found most of them if we hadn’t researched beforehand.

We also love different, quirky little souvenirs. Things are both beautiful and functional, that we’re going to use frequently and that won’t just sit in a corner collecting dust. For example, we both collect tins, and we have a number of tins from places we’ve been together.

So our usual routine is to research a place before we get there, each with our particular focus. Steph is the movie authority, I am the souvenir person, and we both look up food before we look up anything else. Birds of a feather.

And this was Paris! So, effectively, we searched for the best patisseries and boulangeries in the city and then just planned our route around them.

We were staying in Montmatre, almost just around the corner from Sacré-Cœur, which proved to be the perfect hub if you’re happy to do a mix of metro and walking. It was also very strange, as I had become kind of addicted to the stage musical version of ‘Amélie’ only a few weeks before leaving Australia.

‘Off the train in Paris, half a mile from Sacré-Cœur,

The city’s waking up for me.

A sign says an apartment’s vacant on the second floor

And suddenly I hold the key.’

Bless Steph, she put up with me humming and singing random bits of the soundtrack for the whole trip, interspersed with one little snippet of ‘God Help The Outcasts’ in French when we went to Notre Dame. Someone give that girl a medal.

So, to kick off our adventure, where did we go but the Café de deux Moulins, the same one from the film of Amélie, which happened to be around the corner from where we were staying. 

Before I say further, I should mention that on this first day, we woke up to snow. Continuous snow. Non-stop, nearly all day. Very cold, very slippery. Snow, for those Australians reading this, is lovely. When you’re inside. When you’re outside, and you have all these plans to explore this amazing city, it can really get in the way. Things close down, walking from A to B suddenly takes much longer, you get tired and cross quicker, and the last thing you want to do is take photos. Well, the last thing I wanted to do was take photos. I tried, but my handy-dandy camera eventually ended up in my bag for fear that something would happen to it. Also my hands were freezing. So there.

Stop 2, Le Grenier à Pain. This award-winning boulangerie was on the same road we were staying on, and boy was it good. I ended up eating a fair bit of snow along with my pastry, but it was worth it.

We then went to Sacré-Cœur, but due to the snow and the fact that I didn’t have sensible shoes for snow (NB: still haven’t got any…) we just looked and didn’t go up to the church. Very pretty, very cold. Also saw someone in a car stop in the middle of an intersection so that the passenger could lean out the window and take a photo.

Our next two destinations were right next to each other, and represented the way we work pretty well, I think. Macon et Lesquoy is a fantastic little boutique that sells embroidered brooches and patches. They also have enamel pins, artwork, and a host of other cool things, but they are known for their embroidered range. And well they should be; I could’ve bought the whole store. This was one of the places we were really excited to go, and I picked up a pen brooch that I just love.

The other place was, of course, another boulangerie. By this time we hadn’t eaten for at least 40 minutes, so it was time. Du Pain et des Idées is known for its Pain des Amis (bread), its chausson aux pommes (apple tart/turnover), and its escargot pastries. You know, the scrolls that you get in the supermarket that never taste quite as good as you’re expecting. That wasn’t an issue here. Apparently the flavours of the escargots change with the seasons, but during our visit there were pistachio, almond, and berry and cream cheese versions. We tried the latter, and it was probably one of the best pastries I’ve ever had. Seriously. This one is a must visit if you get a chance.

Du Pain et Des Idées

After being fortified with pastry, we picked our twisty and occasionally confused way to the big highlight of the day – Sabé Masson.

Steph and I love perfume. Love it. So this was a very exciting find for us. Sabé Masson’s signature product is a soft perfume, kind of an intensely perfumed stick of body butter. The wonder woman in charge is Isabelle Masson Mandonnaud. She started out at a little place called Shop 8, which would eventually become Sephora, alongside her (later) husband. After years in the beauty business, she opened Sabé Masson with the aim of making fragrance more accessible and caring to the skin.

I know this reads like an advert. I wish they were paying me to advertise – I’d take my whole fee in fragrance. The Sabé Masson store is a lovely little place on what feels like a random little street off a main road. Their selection of fragrances is pretty extensive, and they’re all based on mango or shea butter or similar. The shop lady was very kind and not at all pushy, and we had a great time smelling literally everything they had and trying to come to a decision. We both ended up going for one of their limited edition fragrances, Après la Pluie, les Bons Temps (after the rain, the good times/weather). The complete limited edition set is inspired by a classic French children’s book and all three of the scents it includes somehow do smell like childhood.

Yes, Sabé Masson has an online store and yes, you can order it pretty much worldwide, but if you do get a chance to go to the store in Paris, just go. It really was one of the main highlights of our trip.

After Sabé Masson, we realised that what we’d thought was a random little street actually lead to the expensive-and-artisan part of town. Cue us walking into a couple of stores, realising we couldn't even afford to look, and quickly walking out again. And then we got to Alix de Reynis.

Alix de Reynis is a ceramics store, and, my goodness, what a store it is. Again, if I could have just bought everything in stock, I would have.  They also sell jewellery, which is lovely, but some of the ceramics were so beautiful that they made my heart ache. Everything is made on site, in the workshop that is UNDERNEATH THE STORE! There’s literally a trapdoor and a staircase in the middle of the shop. I keep forgetting that older cities have layers underneath that they can actually use.

Anyway, this is one of the shops I’m coming back to one day when my ship comes in. Or if anyone is feeling particularly generous today, you will notice I have included the link (hint hint).

In the afternoon, we were meeting up with Steph’s brother and his friends at Shakespeare and Co., the bookstore on the bank of the Seine. By this time it had stopped snowing, thank goodness, so we were actually able to look at Notre-Dame and the flooded Seine as we passed instead of huddling in our hoods.

The Seine was so high, and flowing so fast. All of the riverside walks were underwater, a playground was underwater, there were doorways underwater. I have no idea where those doors lead but it wasn't going to be good for anyone on the other side of them. The river was so high that there was barely any space between it and the undersides of the bridges. Sucks to be anyone who booked a river cruise that weekend!

Shakespeare and Co. is tricky for me. I want to recommend it, because it is iconic and just plain cool, but also it was so packed with tourists when we went that you could barely breathe, let alone move. Upstairs, which is more library than shop, was easier, but still. Anyone with social anxiety should maybe just give it a wide pass altogether. But the nerd in me was very happy to have been there, and for all the crush, I’d love to go back. But kick all the people out first.

Continuing with the nerdy theme, we eventually ended up on the steps of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, the church where Owen Wilson’s character gets picked up in the film Midnight in Paris.

We took the obligatory posed pictures. 

Well, Steph took them.

How about now?

I posed.

Sadly, no car appeared...

Dinner was a brilliant little place with caricatures all over the walls and fantastic confit duck. 

Choosing where to go for dinner was one of the best hard decisions we’ve ever had to make. ‘Hmm, should we go to this amazing place, that incredible place, or over there where everyone seems to be having a religious experience over their dinner?’ 

Steph and I struggle to make decisions at the best of times, but I feel like if you’re looking for dinner in Paris, the pressure comes right off. Doesn’t really matter where you go, you’ll probably be happy.

To round out our day was yet another highlight. Perhaps we shouldn’t have put them so close together, but to be fair there were a lot of highlights. It’s not like we had to space them out.

Le Caveau de la Huchette is an underground jazz club right in the heart of Paris. It’s pretty literally in a cave. It makes an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in LaLaLand (a film that I still have not forgiven for getting my hopes up and then dashing them terribly at so many turns) and if not for my resident film buff I probably wouldn’t have even thought to look it up. 

Although it actually looks nothing like the set used in the film...

Do me a favour. Just go. Just do it. We stayed for hours, and could’ve stayed longer. The place was packed; there’s not that much room in a cave, after all. Even so, there were people dancing, people out with what looked like a 1940’s re-enactment group, and people just enjoying the music. The live swing music that just went on and on and was unbelievably great.


One of my life goals is now to learn how to swing dance, go back, and tear up the dance floor. There was a wonderful couple who must have danced every single song, there were a few younger couples who were very enthused and ran out of breathe half-way through their second, there was the lovely Canadian couple that we shared a bench with who didn’t seem to have any idea what they were doing but were so obviously having an amazing time anyway. The only reason we left was because we were nearly falling asleep and we still had to figure out the way home.

So that was day one! I wasn’t going to split this up, but seeing the length of this post I think that may be for the best. Stay tuned for more pastry (there’s always room for more pastry…).