Weekend in Paris
When a friend asks if you want to join them for a weekend in Paris, you say YES! My amazing friend Emily was going with her adult daughter to take a bread-making course at Le Cordon Blue cooking school near the Eiffel Tower and wanted to know if Emme and I would like to join them. There was no hesitation, except that Emme wasn’t old enough to do the cooking school course. Such a bummer, but I still wanted to go and share lodging and some memories together.
Emme turned 16 just a week before so this was going to be a fun mother-daughter weekend to celebrate. She wasn’t so sure that Paris was a dream destination for her — we had gone before and seen many of the sites — but I told her that there was art she just had to see and that we would make it fun together for sure. We laughed that at every turn we could see the Eiffel Tower since we stayed right near it (and Emme is less than impressed with it), and navigated our way through the extra crowds there as Paris was hosting the World Cup for Rugby. It was fun to see scores of people in bright green jerseys for Ireland, or in true kilts supporting Scotland’s team that had games over the weekend we were there.
The main destination for Emme and I was the Musée D’Orsay with the masterpieces of impressionist artists and a special Van Gogh exhibit of his works from the last three months of his life. I was so moved by this exhibit and how many works he produced in such a short amount of time. It was beautiful. Emme loved it too. We also loved seeing the works of Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro and others.
We also visited Hôtel Des Invalides, Montmartre area, Trocadéro for the best Eiffel Tower views (Emme was not impressed) and went to the top of L’Arc de Triomphe at night for the best view of the city. We had planned to visit Monte’s gardens in Giverny but Emme was really sick our first night so we will go back to catch that another time. I loved finding a great small bakery for lunch with Emme, eating a picnic and browsing the old book sellers stalls on the Seine, trying all the macarons, and sitting in Le Jardin de Tuileries by the Louve watching people and feeding a funny duck.
It was really fun catching up with our friends at night to hear all about their bread-making course, and sample the amazing breads they made. It’s amazing to me that we are just a short 3-hour train ride from Paris! It’s not my favorite place to visit, but I love it all the same and I am trying to convince Emme that there’s more to love there each time we go.
