Bonjour, mes amies! My daughter Amy and I made it safely to Paris aboard our super clean (and large) 787 aircraft taking an overnight hop from Dallas-Fort Worth to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport. Great trip! A bit cramped but at nine seats across the airplane, it really was quite spacious…
It was raining as we came into land at CDG around 1:15pm. The outskirts of Paris are surrounded with industrial buildings. We passed by headquarters for many European companies as well as an Ikea and Samsung building as our driver headed south from the airport into Paris proper.
There was a bit of traffic but the drive was a quick 40 minutes. I was really pleased with Welcome Pickups as a driver service! This company was recommended by our hotel ~ Les Jardins de Eiffel, a beautiful 3-star hotel in the heart of the 7th Arrondisement here in Paris.
Our driver was on-time (actually early, and booked for us for 2 hours or so), showed us where to get our American dollars exchanged at CDW, and toured us around Paris which is how I shot most of these photographs. 🙂
I appreciated his giving us a quick tour around the Arc de Triomphe, a big statue in the center of town, and a view of Paris’ enormous 80,000+ seat stadium, le Stade de France (can you imagine??).
Paris is sooo beautiful! Of course, it has modern buildings mixed in with the the ancient ones, but how can you not love a city with such gorgeous architecture?? Most of my photographs are of ironwork railings and plasterwork… This is what I am looking for amongst our travels about the city.
Les Jardines de Eiffel Hotel
Our room was upgraded by the hotel staff, which was wonderful! Upon arrival, we were told that our room has a view of the Eiffel Tower and it didn’t disappoint. Le Jardines de Eiffel Hotel is a beautiful small hotel was recommended to me by our friend Jeanie from The Marmelade Gypsy and is everything she said it would be!
Charming, right off a small street ~ 8, rue Amélie ~ about a mile from the Eiffel Tower (witha great view right outside our bedroom window!). Our room had a queen size bed, a tele for watching the news, a teapot to have a nice cuppa, and an en suite bathroom with a tall tub.
It took us a while to figure out how to turn on the lights! None of them worked at first but you have to slide your room card key into this slot on the wall and then the lights and a/c radiator units work. Always fun to learn how to use things in another country!
Stohrer Chocolate, Rue Cler, Paris, France
We ended our day with dinner at a little café and a stop by a chocolate store…
We picked up some milk chocolate truffles and I found a wonderfully chocolate mousee-filled éclair to snack on back in our room.
This chocolate shop (magasin de chocolate) had beautiful marble counters and wooden display cases (why didn’t I take more photos??).
Seems as though all of the shops we poked our heads into have been there forever! Our café had solid wooden plank floors, my guess is at least 2″ thick, 10″ x 2″. They didn’t squeak or bend under my weight ~ good flooring!
The young lady who helped us talked about how Parisienne chocolates were so different than any others. We had asked about why they tasted so much better! I do have to say, the mousse inside this éclair was really fluffy but not overly sweet, which was perfect.
And that was our first day in Paris, friends!!
Jusqu’à la prochaine fois,
Barb 🙂