Ah, Paris

We arrived in Paris to find our AirBnB on the Rue Saint Honore, sandwiched between the Louboutin store on one side of us and the Girbaud store on the other. Fendi, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton were all just steps away. We were feeling pretty swanky. Afterall, we are pretty high-class, what with asking for croissants (which I pronounced croy-sant with a hard American accent) and making a scene in about every French pastry shop we visited—and we visited MANY.

We were humbled, however, when we discovered that our AirBnB didn’t have AC—it said it did. And it didn’t have two bedrooms—it said it did. But, it was clean and charming so we made do and spent the evenings/nights sitting around in our underwear in front of fans praying it would cool down—it did not.

We also took advantage of the Hop On, Hop Off Bus. A few of them are airconditioned, so that helped. It also made it easier for the locals to really tell we were annoying tourists and steer clear.

The heat did a number on us. Tight quarters and high heat (it was in the high 80s in our apartment almost the entire time) make for short tempers and little patience. We did our best to quell all that by eating our weight in pain au chocolate (chocolate croissants) and macarons. I’m not kidding, we ate so many macarons and even held a contest.

Pastry Contest

We spent the better part of one entire afternoon—talking hours here—going from shop-to-shop on a macaron taste test. (We used ChatGPT to help us create a route map to maximize our route/time. Kind of a fun experience.)

We started keeping track of the winners, but honestly, they were all winners. High mention goes to the caramel macaron and chocolate croissant at Laduree. The best mille-feuille came from Pierre Herme. I particularly liked their pea and mint macrone.

The Ice Hunt

I spent $29 dollars on a bag of ice. I walked for an hour to find it. (When I asked one Parisian at the grocery store if they carried ice, he helpfully explained that ice was an American thing and we’re in Paris, so no.) I finally tracked down a small bag, which we put in our “air cooler” thing in the apartment. For about 3 minutes, it was very helpful. But then it melted.

Key takeaway: When visiting Paris during a heat wave, rent an apartment with AC. If you arrive and it doesn’t actually have AC when it says it does, find somewhere else…even if you have to take out a second mortgage on your house. Also, Parisians love it when you ask for ice.

The Louvre

We decided to spring for a private/small group tour of the Louvre. Best money we spent! Instead of wandering aimlessly, we hit the big attractions with speed and got all sorts of interesting info along the way—we even saw the dungeon in the basement. Plus, we got to use the group entrance rather than wait out in the sun in a winding queue. We were very smug about this.

Eiffel Tower

We originally had plans to go up the tower, but after a long day, we were hot and tired, and ‘Lil G announced that we were done after walking around the thing. In fact, she spent more time looking for ice cream than at the tower. But to be fair, they have good ice cream.

Notre Dame

It’s open! They’re still doing some construction work on the outside, but holy moly. AMAZING! How on earth they’ve been able to get things fixed, paintings restored, stained glass redone, I have no idea.

Versailles

Versailles might be against me. I’ve been twice now, and both times, we messed up the timing and were limited by what we could see.

We arrived at Versailles tired and hungry, so we took immediate refuge in the cafe. We then spent too long in the cafe—they were closing the buildings earlier than we realized, and we were kindly escorted to the gardens. Oh well. We did get to see the bathrooms at Versailles. They’re lovely.

The gardens were amazing. We wandered around for a little while only to discover, after getting locked in, that they also closed the gardens early. Eventually we found a way out and didn’t have to sleep there.