This is the third post in my 2013 trip series to Paris and Budapest. For the remainder of the series, please see below.
Paris – Hotel Esprit Saint Germain
Paris – The Marais, Le Bon Marche, Le Comptoir du Relais
Paris – St. Germain, Hermes, L’Avant Comptoir
Budapest – Four Seasons Gresham Palace
Budapest – Andrassy Avenue, Onyx
Budapest – Taste Hungary
Budapest- Christmas Markets, Bock Bistro
Today, I want to share with you some of our favorite spots and sights around the St. Germain area (as well as a quick detour over to the right bank for some rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré!) in a day to evening format. This is my last post on this 2013 Paris trip, and I hope you enjoy!
Each morning after breakfast, we would leave our lovely hotel for a walk around the neighborhood. There were so many great stores, wonderful cafes and restaurants, and beautiful buildings to see.
Right around the corner from our hotel (literally a five minute walk) was (in my opinion) the king of macarons, Pierre Herme. We dropped by several times during our brief stay. A new positive development that I noticed? The shop usually had free samples out!
My #1 favorite flavor that I always have to get from Pierre Herme is the “Mogador” macaron – this is a year round classic, dark chocolate and passionfruit. Along with Mogador, I usually will choose a selection from the season. The most popular current season flavor seemed to be “Chocolate and Foie Gras” – almost everybody in line ordered a few while we were there. I got one too, just for fun, but for me it didn’t match up to some of my other favorite flavors.
Also very close to our hotel was a selection of great shops – Maje, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Taschen (to browse fun books), and more. My personal favorite was actually a shop called Liwan, maybe a one minute walk from our hotel.
Liwan had a great selection of items from all over the world, hand selected by the very charming owner. Since we had just been in Bali and South Africa earlier in the year, it was fun to recognize some of the local items from those destinations, in this store in Paris!
After some time poking around the neighborhood, we would then have some lunch. I mentioned earlier that I love crepes, and another great crepe place we visited that was in our local neighborhood was Little Breizh.
I would really recommend this restaurant if you are in the St. Germain area – especially for lunch! I think for something like 10 euro each, we each got to chose for ourselves one savory crepe, one sweet crepe, and a cup of either cider of apple juice. A yummy, filling meal and the cider was especially good.
Little Breizh is quite cozy inside, so I’d recommend coming earlier for lunch (before 12), and the same applies for dinner. Continue Reading
