Paris! - Part 1/2

Finally...

When we first moved to Sweden, we promised the Cinnamon Sticks that we would go to Paris. Our first year here, we tentatively planned to go between the girls’ birthdays as a joint gift. Alas, it was during COVID, and yours truly (Mr. CB) was shell-shocked at the idea of cross-border travel after moving to Sweden. So here we were, three years later and no richer in Paris trips… until Mrs. Cinnamon Bun decided to make a last-minute call and book us a trip for the long Easter weekend! Boom! Paris bound. It was a fun-filled, action-packed weekend. Buckle up.

The Cinnamon Sticks patiently waiting to board our flight. Oui!

We arrived tired and excited. Given the last-minute splurge, Mrs. CB booked us into a hostel called The Peoples Marais, steps from la Seine. But rather than reliving our misspent youth, we found a delightful, if compact, family room for four:

The kids enjoyed the top bunks, and I enjoyed not climbing a ladder

We reasoned that we wouldn’t spend time in the room; it was Paris! And we were right. Soon, we were at the Eiffel Tower. We decided not to stand in line to climb it; instead, we enjoyed the grounds and view:

We were so thirsty, so we stopped at our first café.

This gave us the energy to make it our next destination - the Chocolate Streets. It turns out that all the high school French stuck with Mrs. Cinnamon Buns. She was excellent at navigating and even communicating with our French friends. First, we ran into some of the most gorgeous and delicious berries:

Which is sweeter, berries or chocolate?

On the way, we passed one of Mrs. Cinnamon Buns’ favorite streets:

Mrs. CB is living her imitation of Amelie

Before long, the Cinnamon Sticks were overwhelmed with chocolate!

After shopping for chocolate all morning, we went on a food tour. Now, I booked the tour through Trip Advisor. I foolishly thought that the easy thing to do was to use its location link in the app to get to our tour start point. But alas, the link was faulty and guided us to a random neighborhood near Montmartre. Eventually, we sorted it out but ended up with a 20-minute walk through the Haitian neighborhood in Paris. Travel adventures!

It was all worth it because the food tour was one of the highlights of the trip! It was conducted by Secret Food Tours Paris (ask for Marie). We spent the afternoon walking around Montmartre, learning about the area's history and sampling lovely French delights.

We tasted chouquettes, macrons, cheese, ham, and (more) chocolate! Along the way, our guide, Marie, bought baguettes, cheese, and pâté. She escorted us to a private dining room, where she treated us to a lovely assortment of wine and food. It was delightful.

I got to carry the cheese for our dinner! Lots of volunteers offered to help.

It was a lovely meal during which we learned all the reasons why French food is superior to other foods in the world.

Our French hosts were lovely. The tired old idea of Parisians being rude and snobby is no more. We found everyone we encountered on our trip to be warm and friendly. We were exhausted and needed to rest for our next day’s adventure to Disneyland Paris!

To be continued…