Valentine’s Day in the City of Love

For Valentine’s Day this year, David surprised me with a trip to Paris!  On Friday morning, Paul arrived with a note from David simply telling me to pack a suitcase for the weekend, and then he took Kirby home with him.  After finishing up work later that evening, I met David at the tube station near his office and we were off!  But I had no idea where we were off to…

As we started to go the opposite direction of Heathrow and past Victoria station, home to the Gatwick Airport express train, I started to suspect we were headed to St. Pancras and the Eurostar.  Even then, there are so many destinations that the Eurostar travels to, that we could have been headed to Belgium or the Netherlands or anywhere else on the continent.  But as it was Valentine’s Day, I had a sneaking suspicion we were headed to the City of Love!

David handed me my ticket in the security line, and confirmed that my guess was right!  Yay!! Off to Paris we went.

David even booked a premier carriage for us so we were treated to a small Valentine’s Day meal – a typical French cheese plate with salad and a heart-shaped chocolate cake.

We arrived at Gare du Nord later that night and the hotel was my second surprise of the weekend. David booked us at the new W Opera across the street from the Palais Garnier. It's the first W hotel to be opened in France, but I must admit, the contemporary decor of the hotel fit in strangely with the surroundings of the Opera area and the 19th century building.

This pillow man greeted us when we walked into the room.

And on the wall next to my side of the bed, well, I don't really know what's going on there...

David left the next two days up to me.  There isn’t much I haven’t seen or done in Paris having visited multiple times and lived there for a summer while I studied abroad, but there were still a couple of things I hadn’t gotten around to doing.

So on Saturday morning, we grabbed a pain au chocolat and almond croissant for breakfast, and walked from Les Halles to Ile de la Cite to see la Conciergerie.  

La Conciergerie was always under construction while I was in Paris, but this time, it was finally open! 

La Conciergerie is the oldest remaining part of the first royal palace in Paris, the Palais de la Cite.  The center of the entire city and royal palace was concentrated on this one small island.  After the city expanded and other palaces were built, la Conciergerie was used as administrative offices before becoming a prison during the French Revolution.  It was here that Marie Antoinette and others were kept before being sentenced.

I’d also never been to Shakespeare and Company, so we crossed the Seine to the Left Bank to visit the small bookshop.  We wandered around my old stomping grounds of the Latin Quarter before stopping inside to purchase a book.  David chose the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories and made sure to get the book stamped with the famous Shakespeare and Company logo.

Because we got into Paris so late on Friday, on Saturday night, we had our Valentine’s Day dinner in a quaint restaurant David had researched and booked for us.  It was the third and final surprise of the weekend.  La Veraison is a tiny ten-table restaurant off the beaten track, but offers wonderful, decadent meals to tourists and locals alike. 

I started with the signature chestnut soup with black truffle, while David had the foie gras ravioli.  As our mains, I chose the veal medallions and David went with the scallops over risotto.  And to finish off our meal, David had the cheese platter and I had the mille-feuille with pears and mascarpone.  It was absolutely delicious and the best part was that the chef greeted us as we walked in, and said goodnight to us as we left, ensuring our meal was perfect.

Paris is all about the food, so the highlight of the weekend was all of the eating we did!  We had our favourite casual lunch, croque monsieurs, on Saturday.  While wandering around the city, we also stopped for hot chocolate, which was literally melted chocolate with a saucer of milk and a side of sugar to mix in. 

I didn't use that much milk, and no sugar, as I like my hot chocolate thick and bitter

On Sunday morning, we had brunch at the W restaurant, Arola.  With a ‘couture brunch’ concept, it’s recommended as one of the top brunch restaurants in the city.  Each month, the hotel teams up with an emerging fashion designer to create a menu that showcases the designer’s collection.

This month, the designer was Bleu de Paname and the restaurant was filled with his blue clothing.  I didn’t really see the influence in David’s meal, though, as he ordered the designer set menu.  I’m probably just not artsy enough to understand… 

Either way, the food was really great.  First, we had juice and coffee accompanied by French pastries.  

Then David had a broccoli panna cotta while I had the vegetable soup.  I don’t even like broccoli, but I tried David’s and could not stop eating it!  So good!  Next, David had eggs benedict and brioche with stewed beef, and I had an Iberian charcuterie with deconstructed tomato bread and Iberian ham three different ways.  

The best part was making my own tomato bread with extra garlic and just a hint of tomato rubbed across the top of the crusty bread, before being drizzled with olive oil and sea salt.

Finally, David ended the meal with a cotton candy custard concoction.  But I was saving the sweets for later.  Because in lieu of a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, we spent Sunday afternoon taste-testing a variety of macarons! 

First we stopped at Pierre Herme on Avenue de l’Opera just down the street from our hotel.  And then of course we had to pick up some Laduree macarons on Rue Royal.  I’d never tried Pierre Herme macarons before, but they were amazing.  While Laduree is more traditional, the flavors at Pierre Herme were fun and inventive.  Who knew a carrot saffron cookie could taste so good? 

Some of our friends that were also in Paris that weekend (the Paris of Las Vegas) recommended we try L’As du Fallafel in the Marais district, so on Sunday afternoon before catching our train back to London, we wandered into the bustling Jewish neighbourhood to grab a falafel to go.  It wasn’t hard to find the falafel stand, as the line wound down the street in both directions! 

The falafel was different than the traditional wraps we’ve had in the Middle East and London.  Instead of a burrito-like wrap, this falafel came overflowing out of a small pita.  There was the usual crispy falafel with spicy red harissa, humus, and pickled red cabbage, but this sandwich also contained some surprising extras – fried eggplant and salted cucumber.  Different, yet delicious!  Thanks for the recommendation, Brad and Jen!

Besides eating and site-seeing, we spent most of Valentine’s Day weekend just soaking up the romance of Paris.  We wandered the streets at night, strolled along the Seine during the sunny afternoons, rode the ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde, and even stopped inside Notre Dame to admire the beautiful stained glass windows and amazing architecture.  

And just outside the cathedral, behind the garden in the back, is the famous Lovelock Bridge.

David and I purchased a small lock with two keys and he wrote our names and the date on the lock (along with a small K on the side for Kirby).  We connected the lock to the bridge, tossed the keys into the river, and sealed the deal with a kiss.

It was such a fun, beautiful Valentine’s Day weekend.  I’m so appreciative of David that after being together for 10 years, he still goes above and beyond to surprise me with romantic surprises like this.  He is a really amazing husband.  I love you, David!

Stratford-upon-Avon

Sorry, I’ve been terrible about blogging since the holidays!  A lot has been going on with work for both David and me, and we have been spending our weekends checking things off our London site-seeing to-do list.  I’ll blog more about those things later, but this weekend, Katie came to visit!

Katie had to be in London and Prague for two weeks for work, and decided to fly into England a couple of days early to spend the weekend with us.  Because she did her college internship in London and has visited us before, she asked if we could do something a bit different this past weekend and go outside the city to see part of the country.

So on Saturday after she flew in, we ate at the Churchill Arms in Kensington, a historic pub known for its beautiful flowers and delicious Thai food.  We had a late lunch of pad thai and curry in the butterfly conservatory section of the pub before walking around Notting Hill to Portobello Market.  Katie had never been to that area of the city before, so she enjoyed browsing through the antique stalls and picking out some goodies to bring back home to Texas with her.

On Sunday, we rented a Zipcar for the day and drove 90 minutes northwest to Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare.

David turned into his alter-ego, Nigel the chauffeur, 

to drive us around all day.

We started our tour at the home where Shakespeare was born and raised.  We learned about the history of the house, where his father ran his glove-making business, and then the expansion into an inn, and finally a museum.  There were even costumed actors reciting the famous playwright’s verses to keep us entertained. 

From there, we had lunch at Fourteas, a 1940’s tea room.  The walls are covered in posters from that time period, and the waiters and waitresses also dress the part.  The menus are printed as ration books and the to-go box we received for all of the sweets we couldn’t finish was a brown cardboard box with string.  We suspect rations were distributed the same way seventy years ago.

Katie and I had afternoon tea with sandwiches, scones, and a variety of desserts,

while David had a bowl of soup and the largest club sandwich I've ever seen in England!

From there, we walked along the river Avon to Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was baptized, married, and buried with his family.

The rain has been relentless this winter, and though it’s not as much of a problem in the city, the countryside is going through terrible flooding.  The Avon was completely swollen and overflowing into parks and fields.  We couldn’t walk along the riverbank because it was underwater, with the water nearly reaching the road.  But nonetheless, we enjoyed the views and walk through the town, admiring the old (and some new) buildings.

View of the Swan Theatre, home to the Royal Shakespeare Company, from the Avon

From Holy Trinity Church, we walked to Hall’s Croft, the home of Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, and her wealthy husband, Dr. John Hall.  The house is enormous, even by today’s standards, and the gardens are supposedly beautiful in the summer.  As it was a cold, wintery day that threatened more rain, our guide advised us to come back in a few months to admire the roses and other flowers. 

Hall’s Croft was built in 1614 and is celebrating its 400 anniversary this year.  It consists of large bedrooms upstairs, grand fireplaces on the first floor, and an original glass window.  Glass windows were a privilege only the rich could afford in the 17th century, and they often took the windows with them when moving house.

Katie and I had never been to that part of the country before, and David hadn't been since he was a kid, so it was fun to explore the small village together and see something new.