An Adventure in Paris cont.

After filling up on culture and with relief at the turn in the weather our next adventure in Paris was to Jardin de Luxembourg – a less touristy spot.

Being a country bumpkin the one thing with Paris that I really struggled with was the noise of traffic. Vehicle traffic, people traffic, just traffic. I am overly sensitive to the sound of traffic so please don't take that as a point to judge against Paris, after all it isn't a patch on the noise of London and I still adore London. But the sound was starting to wear me down and make me a little grumpy. So arriving at the Jardin de Luxembourg I very nearly jumped for joy at the quiet seclusion of the place (I genuinely skipped into the gardens, I was that happy).

We spent the morning picking up conkers, picnicking on pastries and watching a film crew that had set up residence in one corner of the park. It seem that it’s not just us Brits that are captured by turn of the century dramas.

 

 

Once we’d covered every inch of the park we decided to turn back into tourists and went in search of the most coveted patisserie in Paris: Laduree. After a quick pitstop at Pierre Herme (it would be rude not to!) we found ourselves staring through the La Duree window like children. What came next was the stuff that my pre-Paris dreams were made of. Pastries sat glistening up at me from the cabinet. I pulled out my best French (which is barely above pigeon French) and ordered a box macarons. It was the single best moment of the trip. Humoured well by the very patient assistant who handed over our delights with a "Merci and Au Revoir" to which I dutifully responded with Bonjour and left. 

Just kidding.

With macarons safely obtained I declared that I wanted to continue my Parisian Paris day with a visit to the Notre Dame to watch the tourists be touristy.

I takes very little for me to convince myself that I'm practically local.

We wandered over to the Notre Dame and spent the afternoon gawping at the architecture. The shutterbug that I am and a shutterbug with determinations on improvement I spent some time getting lost in the world around us through the lens of my camera only to turn around to see this...

Impressed he was not. (He secretly loved it really, I'm convinced of it.)