Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Libération

What we did:
- Slept in, of course, because why not. Our vacation days are sadly dwindling. Europe doesn’t do breakfast so we found another delicious American brunch spot and plotted our day!
- After brunch we headed off on our tourist journey. We took the metro across town and started at the “Arc de Triomph”. Cool to see how large the roundabout is with the offshoots across Paris from it, but at the end of the day it is just a stone gate so we moved on fairly quickly
- Walked down the Champs-Elysees strip of stores and parks. Then made it to the massive “Jardin des Tuileres” where we wandered through the gorgeous park. Perfect fall time for the leaves changing.
- We then came up to the Louvre! Like all the other touristy things, tickets were booked out months ago so we didn’t stand a chance against the throngs of people. But let’s be honest, didn’t actually want to go in anyway so this just made us not feel guilty.
- Continued our walk through the famous fashion house district where Trent scarfed down a pile of pastries and a sandwiches. Steph was unsurprisingly still full from brunch.
- We then found Sarah’s recommended macaroon store, “Lauderée” and got an assortment of the French delicacy. Steph was unsurprisingly hungry again since desert was in the picture! We took them over to the park and tasted the variety of flavors. Way better than the dry ones in the US, but still pretty overrated
- Walked along the Seine and called Sally to catch up before their Cabo trip! We loved the views - Paris is cool - we’ve decided.
- Walked over to Notre Dame and were pleasantly surprised to see how much was still there. There is a massive construction process to rebuild it all by the 24’ olympics.
- Sufficiently cultured, we headed to grab drinks at a cool cafe in the 3rd arrondissement!
- Given France’s imperialist past with Vietnam, there is a huge presence of great Vietnamese food so we then headed up to the 11th to enjoy delicious Pho. Probably the best we’ve tried other than what we had when we were visiting Vietnam.
- Determined to inadvertently walk through the entirety of Paris in a day, we headed up to Montmartre for drinks. Walked by the Moulin Rouge and got Steph her French Crème Brûlée before calling it a night.
- Awesome day in Paris! Went through 8 of the 17 arrondissements. Guess we needed that calorie burn

Where we ate:
- Holybelly in the 10th for breakfast! Steph got pancakes, halloumi and sausage while Trent got eggs benedict, smoked salmon and potatoes. Great cafe créme as well!
- Trent had French sammy and croissants for lunch at Yannick Martin bakery
- Absolutely delicious Pho and spring rolls at Dong Houng
- Crème Brûlée At Café des Deux Moulins in Montmartre

Fun facts:
- The Mona Lisa is voted the #1 most overrated thing in Europe
- We learned that cappuccinos aren’t really a thing in France. They sell them but they are pretty bad. To get as close to a cappuccino as possible you have to order “cafe creme”.
- The Arc de Triomphe is actually for the tomb of an unknown soldier from WW1 and every single day they relight a fire there
- Notre Dame fire was likely started by a cigarette. They had a crazy elaborate process over the years to clean it up, stabilize it and rebuild for the olympics
- Café des Deux Moulins is famous for it’s key scene in AmelieLes mer