Paris {Valentine's Day}

Since we had a whole week in Paris, we spread out our plans so that we did a little sightseeing each day and still had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the city. Our second day was really rainy and gloomy, so we didn't do a whole lot. We walked to the Notre Dame cathedral first thing in the morning, and spent the rest of the day café-hopping to stay out of the rain.

Side story...the bridge in the pictures above and below is the Pont de l'Archêvché, which is covered in padlocks, aka "love locks". Couples write their names on the padlocks, lock them to the bridge, and throw the key in the river, signifying that their love will last forever. Totally cheesy, and typically not our thing, but we figured it would be a good Valentine's Day activity. We bought a lock back at home (which Bo made me return the original one I got because it wasn't big enough...) and brought it with us. And as soon as we got to the bridge we realized we left it in the hotel room. Fail. Soooo we had to come back the next day....

 

We had a late lunch at La Chaumiere. First of many authentic French onion soups, which was amazing and perfect on a cold, rainy day. Along with some mulled wine and cheese, of course :)

And for dessert, we stopped into Glacier Berthillon for some ice cream. Nowhere near as amazing as gelato in Italy, but I was happy nonetheless.

From there we went to Chez Caldé, a cute café where they spoke limited English - we loved it! We stayed there for a while just reading and sipping on various wines.

We had dinner that evening at Le Pré Aux Clercs. I will admit this was not our first (or second or third) choice. We didn't make dinner reservations since we weren't sure where we were going to end up that evening, and most places had extraordinarily over-priced pre fixe menus for the holiday. We were hungry, so we settled - not that anything we had was bad, it just wasn't really that good either. So, limited food pictures since the wine and meats were our favorites.

After dinner we went to a jazz club (creatively named "Jazz Club"), which was awesome. Very romantic and fun - totally made up for a lackluster dinner.

To end the evening, we walked along the Seine back to our hotel - thankfully the rain had finally let up and we got to enjoy this beautiful view. Love, love, love Paris!!