Champs-Élysées & Ladurée

Photo Credit: Cristian Alexandrescu Photography

Our second day in Paris was all about showcasing our project in the competition. Therefore, we spent all the day in the museum and arrived in our hotel room around 8 PM. What to do in such a short amount of time? Visit the Champs-Élysées Boulevard, famous for the shopping spots, cool places to eat and the flawless Christmas decorations. It was truly fortunate we got to visit it during the night and most of all, in December!! The view is breathtaking, although we took many photos of the street (from one end to another) , when I think of our walk a quote of Alan Furst comes to my mind:

"The best Paris I know now is in my head."

The shops were so perfect, there was magic in the air, but the streets are overcrowded, therefore taking a photo is almost impossible. Also quite an unattainble thing for us: the shops. Although there are many high street shops, you can only find their most expensive lines, I only had the heart to spend my money at Gap shopping for four members of my family, because it's their favourite shop. Now, I had to spoil myself as well so I went to Ladurée, because macarons are some of my favourite sweets and I've heard they're the best in the world in Paris. I waited in line for like 30 minutes, and I feel like it's the right place to thank Cristi one more time for agreeing to wait with me instead of walking around the boulevard. I bought 4 flavours: chocolate, raspberry, praline and coffee. What can I say about my Ladurée experience ?

1. The macarons are absolutely divine. I've heard that the Pierre Hermé ones are better, but how many times can you torture a guy while in Paris and in a crazy rush to wait for you?

2. I've eaten other macarons during my stay in Paris and also in Romania and I just can't compare them to Ladurée. Laduree has this special mix between smooth and crisp, just the right amount of filling, flawless shape.

3. Every single person who bought macarons took a picture in front of the shop , which I thought was so sweet so I asked Cristi to snap a photo of me with my Iphone.

4. Praline is absolutely my favourite flavour, I would go back to Paris just to stock on praline macarons!

5. I couldn't help myself and bought a golden/floral printed Ladurée notebook, which goes so great with my phone!

L'Arc de Triomphe- it may not seem so grand in this photo, but trust me, it's a truly immense and breathtaking monument!

My Laduree moment!

I found this incredible fountain on Instagram one day before we left for Paris and we were both like "We have to find it, it looks amazing!"

We visited Paris just when Kristina Bazan of Kayture was staying at Fouquet's, a famous hotel on Champs Élysées

The other end of this magical boulevard

With Cristi, my amazing friend and colleague who took all these beautiful pictures. It was nearly impossible to get pictures together because you don't really know who to trust in such a big city, especially when it comes to his fancy camera.

Paris & a new year ahead

Photo Source: Cristian Alexandrescu Photography

2014 is so close!!! I hope you'll have a marvellous time and that you already have you resolutions list prepared. I'll be spending the New Year's Eve with some lovely people and a special dress code: denim! I know, wearing jeans is so weird on this occasion, but if we are to be honest, I think it's pretty awesome I start a new year wearing what I usually choose on a regular basis. All I want for 2014 is to be just as fabulous as 2013 has been: I finally chose the college that's right for me(hopefully I will get in there in July), I took my driver's license, I turned 18, I received the most incredible gifts , I had the opportunity to visit Paris!

Back to Paris, this is my second post about it, where I promised to tell you the story about what I visited on my first day there. After we saw Pont Alexandre III and Place des Invalides, we took the RER and arrived at the Orsay Museum. I'm totally in love with impressionism, so you can imagine this museum was simply heaven for my eyes! You might know from my old posts I read a lot of books about Vincent Van Gogh's life and art and seeing so many paintings in the same room almost brought tears to my eyes. Never have I felt so connected to a form of art, his technique is flawless and I always get so emotional when I think that the only one who supported him while he lived was his younger brother, Theo. Then there was the pointillism dedicated room, obviously filled with painting from the emblematic master Georges Seurat. Other cool thing is that now I can tell the difference between a Monet and a Manet and I can understand the hype around Cezanne's apples. The architecture of the museum is incredible, as it used to be the first train station in Paris (are you familiar with the movie Hugo?).Overall, the Orsay Museum was one of my favourite sights, and should I ever return to Paris, I will spend a whole day there because we were in a severe lack of time when we visited it.

After the museum, we took the RER once again and went to Île-de-France, where there are so many sights it overhelms you! One thing about the RER: You save a lot of time, which is amazing, but the system is confusing, unlike the METRO. Knowing French really came in handy because we had to ask a couple times to make sure we were at the right line. First we went to Notre Dame de Paris, it's definitely worth seeing at night because the lights are magical. It's a truly imposing building, with an incredible architecture. We walked by Palais de Justice but unfortunately weren't able to see Saint-Chapelle as it was late at night.  We also walked on the impressive Pont Neuf and saw the Conciergerie. It was one of my biggest wishes, as I first discovered Conciergerie on Miss Pandora's blog and thought : "what a pretty castle". Then, I did some research and I was shocked to see the building had actually been a prison for centuries!

We left "the island" and walked on the right side of Seine until we reached Pont des Arts, the famous bridge where you leave a lock. Of course, I forgot mine in the hotel room because we left in a rush. You have to see it with your eyes, we weren't expecting actually that many locks, the amount is just insane! Then it was Louvre time! We first saw the Carousel and Jardins des Tuileries. Before we left for Paris, there were many people who told us the gardens would be disappointing: completely false! It was like autumn, the trees still had their leaves and the grass was greener than ever, so December really is a great time to visit Paris, because you also get to see all the Christmas decorations.

The Louvre Museum was an interesting experience, totally different from Orsay as it mostly has classic paintings. Maybe you'll think I'm weird, but I wasn't impressed with Mona Lisa most. The painting is so small and the tourists crowded to see her just make you anxious and eager to see other things. My favourite section was the wall with a few paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci like 'Lady with an ermine' or 'St John the Baptist'. He is a genius, I just feel that 'Mona Lisa' isn't his masterpiece. We were stuck in the museum for a lot of time due to unexpected rain and we got to visit the most of it, and also got to explore the intricate details of the ceilings, mirrors, furniture etc. 

When we were finally able to leave the museum, we went to Rue Saint-Honoré, a big dream of mine, where I got to admire all the famous brand stores (oh God, the Miu Miu store shines just like a diamond!) and then we visited Place Vendome. This particular place will stay in my heart forever, because it has another level of beauty, combined with luxury, high fashion and really classy Christmas decorations. I just wish that someday I'll be able to actually walk in a Dior or Chanel store, they all looked so magical! We also got to admire Palais Garnier,  which is their National Opera and the Galeries Lafayette (best window of the store goes to Roger Vivier). Looking back, I'm pretty proud we managed to visit all these incredible sights in just 8 hours and I can't wait to travel abroad again!

We'll always have Paris

Photo Credit: Cristian Alexandrescu Photography

I hope you all had a jolly Christmas and that you enjoyed spending some quality time with your friends and family, I sure did! The holidays also gave me the opportunity to go through all the photos from Paris. Let me just say that having a photographer with you is really awesome and that I hope he doesn't mind I edited the photos, we always have different points of view on the lighting. 

Seeing me in a dress at +5 degrees , you might think we went crazy and I kept on taking my coat off at every corner! I wish, but long gone are the days when I would freeze at -15 Celsius degrees for the sake of the blog. This was the first shoot , so naturally there was this Paris hype in our souls and that's why we took so many photos. You should have seen us 6 hours later: "Just take one picture of me here, so mom can see I visited this as well" haha.

Now, the amount of things we visited in the first days is INSANE. Some people even wouldn't believe us when we told our story, but we managed so well because I've been planning this trip to Paris for two years and I already knew the location of the main sights and the main streets by heart (God bless Google maps!). I think there are around 100 (good) photos with me from the first day, so I chose to share 25 on this first post, when I was all full of energy and we visited the Esplanade des Invalides surroundings, including the famous Pont Alexandre III. For me, the bridge was breathtaking because I could feel the fashion vibe while walking on it ( all the Vogue Paris editorials shot here plus the editorials of my favourite fashion bloggers like Gary Pepper Girl) and also because it was also the first time we saw the Eiffel Tower while we were in Paris. In the next post I will give you the complete list of sights which we visited during that day and I will share my impressions.

Paris is the city where you just feel like taking pictures everywhere!