Weekend in Paris

A very early morning flight out of Dublin takes us to Paris! We make our way through the Metro and are let out practically at the doorstep of our hosts Kat and Keegan. They are artists in residency in Paris for a few months and were so sweet to host us for the weekend. They have a dream apartment on the Seine across from Notre Dame and with a view of the Eiffel Tower (weather permitting, if you lean out the window… but still!!!) They have a totally Parisienne snack laid out for us, baguette, cheese and meat, we have a quick snack and waste no time getting out onto the street for some sightseeing. First we go to their favorite bakery and grab a delicious little sandwich, at which point I realize my French is downright pathetic and I will receive no sympathy from the natives!

It’s raining and so we walk around the corner to a library with a beautiful collection of Illuminated manuscripts, these are gorgeous old books with beautiful writing and drawings, my roommate Esther got me into these books a few months ago so I was excited to see so many of them in one place. The library itself was gorgeous too!

Next we decide to walk along the Seine to Notre Dame, we take the walk slow and admire the homes and architecture all around us. Kat stops to film and it is the perfect photo-op since she is gorgeous, adorably dressed and that camera, wow!

We continue along the Seine and pass under bridges and past boats and barges as we approach Notre Dame I am totally in awe! This church is the church every other aspires to be, it’s crazy huge and has so many incredible details! The most beautiful man made thing I have ever seen…

We take the stairs up from the riverside and as we walk towards the cathedral there is beautiful music coming out and we are all sort of pulled in. Entering we smell incense and hear a mass going on. We walk through, whispering and admiring and wishing we could go upstairs too…

There are 9 very large bells going down the center of the cathedral, each one covered in cloth. A woman tells Keegan these new bells are to celebrate the 850th year of the cathedral, she says they are replacing bells that were stolen during WWII, but a news article I read says they are replacing bells that are older and out of tune… anyway they will ring out, along with every other church bell in Paris, on March 23rd, 2013.

 

  

After Notre Dame we walk past shops out of a dream! Look at that little dog behind the counter at the bakery!

and some other lovely scenes from that day…

 

That evening Keegan made an amazing dinner and we went to an open studio within the building that Kat and Keegan live. It was so fun to bring our wine along with us, one flight down to a sweet Bulgarian print makers studio and to meet people from all over the world in her tiny art space.

Saturday

The next morning we wake up early for the Marché! It’s one of the things I have been looking forward to and Kat and Keegan go every weekend to collect their weeks groceries. There will be a post devoted entirely to the Saturday and Sunday Marché’s, they were just amazing and I took a million photos and, well, they deserve their own blog post, but, here’s a photo of our haul from the first market…

The weather is just crazy, raining, hailing, sunny but freezing, we decide to scratch our idea of having a picnic outdoors and set up a picnic inside the apartment, which is fine since with their view we are still technically picnicking on the Seine, la-di-da!

We brave the cold and walk, and walk, and walk, ultimate destination being the Louvre, we pass so many beautiful things on the way…

These stands set up selling books, magazines, comics and… are those action figures?

and we finally make it to the Louvre and walk down Place de Concorde. The sky was amazing that night and all around us it is misty and it rains off and on. Le Grand Roue, the large beautiful ferris wheel was more and more gorgeous as we approached it…

 

One last photo before we are home for the night, a sweet little place around the corner from Kat and Keegan’s.

Sunday

We go to the Marché again, a different, larger one this time, more on the perfect Marché’s of Paris later! Here are some of the random things we see on the way home…

There are so many cool alley ways throughout Paris, here are some shots from one near Kat and Keegan’s, street art, a bookstore and a pop-up flea market…

There are also a lot of merry-go-rounds throughout Paris, here is one around the corner from where we stayed, a brass band set up and was playing music too! Random magic!

We decide to go to the Eiffel Tower on our last day and we take a walk in the street, they close some streets to cars on Sunday, there were people on bikes, lot’s of people walking their dogs, a surprising amount of rollerbladers and “speed rollerbladers” (spandex and all). I can’t remember the name of the street we waked on (doh!) and I can’t seem to find it when I search online… anyway, it was cool and we walked through a very long tunnel!

Here’s us and our hosts the amazing Kat and Keegan.

On the walk home we passed Notre Dame and of course I had to take a few more photos, here’s one…

We left Paris early Monday morning reeling from a wonderful time sightseeing and so many amazing meals with lovely people. A train took us south to Tarbes, the whole time passing beautiful countryside dotted with chateau’s, farm houses and churches, lot’s of small villages and a few larger cities.

From Tarbes we got on a bus to Mirande and connected with our first workaway hostess, Louisa, she was waiting for us when we arrived and drove us to the farm, where I sit now, in a lovely old kitchen! More about the farm and the sweet family and all the animals soon!

xoxo, Sierra