When it came to our daily adventures in Paris, my friend Emily and I took into consideration that we only had four days to see the city. Thankfully, I have a cousin named Gretta that actually lived in Paris for an entire year. She had previously put together a list of must-see places for another cousin of mine that visited Europe last summer. So pretty much that list was our holy grail! With that being said, Emily and I made sure we checked off all the places we wanted to see before our departure. One of those places was Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which is a beautiful public park located in northeastern Paris, in the 19th arrondissement. It’s actually the fifth-largest park in Paris, so I definitely wanted to see it for myself. In fact, we wanted to have a cute picnic and enjoy our last day in Paris in this exact park.
Google some pictures of it and add it to your bucket list right now! It’s still in mine… let me explain.
On this same day, we had already done a couple of activities we had on our list, we felt so accomplished that we decided to go back to our Airbnb to relax. Besides, we had plenty of time. Our plan was to rest for a bit, buy some food, have our picnic, and then head to Ladurée Paris. Since we didn’t get much sleep the night before, Emily took a quick nap and I started packing and changed my outfit. I have no idea where the time went that we ended up leaving our apartment around 6:30 pm. It took around 30-40 minutes to get to the park, but we were still missing the food. We hadn’t eaten real food all day, so we didn’t want to just stop at a gas station for snacks. We decided to walk around in search of a place to buy some yummy food before our soon to be perfect picnic.
As we were walking around the edges of the park looking for a place, we came across this hip looking bistro. We walked in and sat down to take a look at the menu. By that time it was already 8 pm… we had a problem! Emily looked up at me and said,
“OMG it’s Sunday, Laudurée closes at 10!!”
At that moment we both realized that we made a mistake by staying in our place for 2 hours rather than having our picnic a bit earlier. We thought, oh well the simple solution would be to take the food to go and still have time to for both a picnic and Laudurée. Yayyy problem solved! I ordered a salad, some fries, tossed veggies, and a regular coke, while Emily ordered a strawberry smoothie and some pancakes. Yup, that is no typo, she ordered pancakes for lunch… man I love my friends! Anyways, twenty minutes went by and we didn’t even have our drinks yet, but our solution also went down the drain. We were almost an hour away from Laudurée located in Champs Elysées and we had to make a decision. Either we went to the park without any food, we stayed at this cool diner looking place and ate, or we had our picnic like we planned which meant no Laudurée at all. And I say at all because it was our last night in Paris so this day would have been our last chance to go.
I thought to myself for a while and I said to Emily:
“Honestly I’m pretty bummed out we won’t be able to have our picnic at this park, but there’s a million parks just as beautiful in California! Laudurée Paris is one of the places you’ve been talking about for days, even before our trip even started! And I want to have my Blaire Waldorf moment!”
And it was so true, even Emily agreed. If we missed our chance to have the best macaroons in the world in its original location PARIS, we would definitely regret it! At the same time, we were also starving and all we wanted was FOOD IN OUR TUMMY’S! So this is what we did. We called the waiter over, told him we were actually having our food there and found ourselves a cute spot to eat. Now let me tell you the best thing about it all. Not only have we randomly found this place while walking around the streets, but it was actually one of the trendiest yet modern places I had seen in Paris so far! They were playing really cool music, the decor gave a super hipster and adorable vibe, and lastly, the food looked great. Emily and I had the cutest outfits on and I actually brought my Vogue Paris with me, since I was planning on having a cute photo shoot at the park. Now that our picnic plan was out the window, I thought things couldn’t have gone more perfect!
You know what they say, “Is it even lunch if you didn’t have a photo shoot?” Did I say “they” I meant me, I say that! I took out my camera and started snapping pictures of Emily, and as she was working the camera I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that the most unexpected adventures are the best ones! Next thing I know my food was served and oh my, those fries looked BOMB.COM. I gave Emily my camera and I posed with not only my Vogue Paris magazine but of course with my fries as well. This place is the perfect spot to not only grab a bite with your best gal but also to have a great time and capture a couple of Insta worthy pictures. Thankfully, I was able to find this place online (since I never learned its name) and here I am sharing it with all of you.
Walking the streets of Paris with a list of places you know you want to see, is one of the best things you can do. Especially when you’re on a time limit! BUT I do have to say that there’s nothing better than simply walking around, seeing the city, and finding your own little treasures. I guess you can say this is one of mine. This place is called Sunny and it’s a restaurant bar advertised as being “Franco Californien”.
If you ever find yourself in Paris and on your way to Parc des Buttes Chaumont, sit by the lake, enjoy the view, and then make your way to Sunny. Trust me, you won’t regret it! Well, now that we’ve reached the end of my story and the unexpected yet vibey lunch we had, enjoy a couple of the images we shot! As you will be able to tell, I never got my coke. That was my only complaint, but at the same time no one there really spoke any English! I’m lucky we got any food at all with the French I spoke. At the end not only did we capture the cutest pictures, but a moment during my stay in Paris that will forever be in my heart!
As to our mission to Laudurée, you’ll have to be on the lookout for that post because it’s a whole other story! Did we make it there in time? Did we miss the metro? Have in mind we were only at Sunny’s for thirty minutes, so I guess you’ll have to wait and read about it very soon!
xoxo Pao Fog