May 24, 2026
Natalie daydreamed about going there when she was in the hospital. In those daydreams, we would take Elley, Natalie’s favorite stuffed elephant with us. Natalie did not think it would be fair for Ellerey, Elley’s sister, to go again as she already got to go to Paris with Ee Ee. When Ellerey had come back with her face distorted from her travels in Ee Ee’s small suitcase, Natalie was unsympathetic. She gave Ellerey a sharp look and said, “That’s what you get for going to Paris!”
Natalie was jealous! She had in mind some things we would do when we stepped foot in Paris. She would make a beret for Elley, we would buy berets for ourselves at Galeries Lafayette, go to Stohrer, Pierre Herme, and Laduree Patisseries to eat macarons (Natalie’s favorite cookie), eat baguettes at Boulangerie Poilane, take ridiculous amounts of pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, admire precious art in the Louvre for hours, shop at the Louvre gift shop for another hour, eat ice cream at Berthillon, window shop up and down the Champ de Elysees, laugh at ourselves for speaking French poorly, sit down on the green rattan chairs at Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain to eat a croissant and drink hot chocolate, go back to the Eiffel Tower to take more pictures as it sparkles and its rotating beacon of lamps sweeps across the city after dusk, and return to our hotel room so exhausted after midnight that we fall asleep with our berets still on. That was our sweet daydream as we waited for Natalie’s counts to go up. But we never got to go to Paris together because the oncologists thought the risk was too high.
After Natalie was gone, it hurt too deeply to even think about Paris. Glimmers of ideas such as releasing balloons in Paris for Natalie’s birthday would be dismissed as quickly as they came to mind. Some days when I hugged Elley, I would be reminded of Paris. I knew in my heart what Natalie would want. I could envision her scolding us for taking our time about it and making excuses year after year why we weren’t ready.
In 2025 I decided that there would be no more excuses and we would go to Paris for Sean’s college graduation trip. It would be part of our quick tour of Europe, sandwiched between London and Italy. I booked our flights and hotels before any of us could change our mind.
We arrived in Paris around 4pm on the Eurostar that left St. Pancras Train Station in London (yes, the station which famously appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). Upon arrival, we got a taxi to Hotel Lorette. We were right in the vibrant South Pigalle (SoPi) area of the 9th Arrondissement, steps away from numerous cafes, restaurants, shops, patisseries, boulangeries, Galeries Lafayette, Montmartre in the 18th Arrondissement, and the Saint-Georges Metro station.
We wasted no time exploring once our bags were checked into the adjoining family room on the third floor. Sean grabbed his handy yellow French dictionary and studied it during dinner at an Indian restaurant around the corner. Indian food was not on my list of places to try in Paris, but Grant felt like eating curry and I didn’t want to start off our first day in Paris fighting.
After dinner, we walked around looking for pastries. Sean remarked that it was strange we had not seen one accordion player on our walk in the beautiful dusk light. He thought there would be many in Paris.
We passed by a queen (a pregnant orange tabby cat) on the street. Her pot-bellied stomach was noticeable as she sauntered gradually close to us. I’ve never seen a pregnant cat and wanted to pet her. At the same time I didn’t want to alarm the queen so we watched from a distance. A motorcyclist roared past and when it sped away, the queen was gone.
Le Pain Retrouve, a boulangerie in the 18th Arrondissement, was closing in five minutes when we walked in. This boulangerie was on my must try list because I read that it has a line out the door every morning. “Bonjour! Parlez vous Anglais?” Sean asked. “Oui!” the tired but kind woman behind the counter responded.
I could tell she had been up before dawn as most bakers often are. I asked in English what her favorite baked good was at Le Pain Retrouve and she shared that it was easily the chocolate chip loaf. I smiled when I saw there was a loaf left behind the glass partition and said politely to her that I would love to have that please along with an almond croissant. As she placed our treats in brown paper bags, a male employee next to her asked us if we would like to try some apricot and pistachio bread, a gluten free bread, and a chocolate babka for free as they were closing for the day. Of course, we said yes.
Sean thanked the woman and was beaming with joy that we had scored free treats because of his French.
That night, Grant and I watched the tip of the Eiffel Tower twinkle from our hotel room. I couldn’t believe we were finally in Paris as I twisted and turned in bed thinking of all the things I wanted to do tomorrow. Neither Grant nor I slept well.
May 25th
We ate our tasty baked goods from Le Pain Retrouve for breakfast. The chocolate chip loaf was delicious as well as the babka and apricot bread. The gluten free bread tasted earthy and a tad dry for Grant’s liking. I thought it was good for gluten free, but I wanted to save my appetite for more pastries throughout the day.
On our schedule was the Louvre and a Seine River Cruise. Also, on my ambitious wish list (that my family did not think was a real itinerary for the day) was a walk to rue Montorgueil (another food street in the 2nd Arrondissement) where the stones are mosaic white, and a visit to E. Dehillerin (a world famous kitchen supply store in the 1st Arrondissement) before we hit the Louvre. After the Louvre, I wanted to walk to Ile de la Cite and Ile Saint Louis to see the gothic towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, the stunning stained glass windows of Saint Chappelle, and grab a scoop of famous Berthillon ice cream. After the cruise, we would cross the Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris and wander the medieval and winding streets of the Latin Quarter in the 5th Arrondissement, browse the most famous bookstore in Paris (Shakespeare & Co), visit Boulangerie Poilane, and have dinner in the chic Saint-Germain-des Pres 6th Arrondissement to get some excellent people watching in until the sky turned dark.
Natalie would have been game for all that. My guys were not. Sean did not get up until 10 am and as tempted as I was to just have Grant and Sean meet me and Elley in front of the Louvre so I could go to rue Montorgueil and E. Dehillerin, I decided to be patient.
Grant and I walked ten minutes up to the Pierre Herme Shop on Rue des Abbesses (another great food street) in the 18th Arrondissement. It was closed at 9:30 am. Quelle tragedie! We walked back to Hotel Lorette to check on Sean. I was glad to see he was up and gave him some of the apricot bread and chocolate chip loaf to eat before we started our thirty-minute walk to the Louvre. Sean told us he was up late last night and found a Smash tournament in the 21st Arrondissement that he would like to attend that evening on his own by foot or Metro. Apparently, Smash is huge in Paris.
I didn’t like the idea of Sean wandering so far from us on his own our first full day in Paris, but he was excited about the idea of playing Smash and practicing his French with Parisians. We couldn’t say no to him. It was around 90 degrees as we briskly followed the GPS’s directions on the lively streets before us. There was much to see: fashionistas walked past us, beautiful pastries were on display in windows of patisseries, amazing architecture on tall buildings with their black Juliet balconies (a tribute to centuries of French architects) surrounded us, and big posters of Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande advertising French brands provided a sense of familiarity.
We were glistening with sweat by the time we arrived in front of the magnificent Louvre. I insisted on pictures in front of Pei’s Pyramid, a 71 foot-high glass and metal pyramid designed by a Chinese American architect (I.M. Pei), which stood at the entrance. The pyramid flooded light into the wings of the museum below. When we walked in with the massive crowds, I was overwhelmed. I knew instantly it would be impossible to see every piece of art in a museum that takes up an entire neighborhood block.
The plan was to hit the major pieces before the crowds grew. On my list was DaVinci’s Mona Lisa, Botticelli’s Venus and the Three Graces, Raphael’s La Belle Jardiniere, Michelangelo’s the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave, Turner’s Landscape with a River and a Bay, and Venus de Milo.
It took us a while to weave around masses of humanity to get to the Mona Lisa. When we finally found her, we could not get close enough for a good picture of the masterpiece.
We had better luck with photos in front of Venus de Milo and William Turner’s Landscape.
After an hour, we decided to grab lunch before heading over to our Seine River Cruise that started at 3:30 pm. We would save the Italian artists (Michelangelo, Botticelli and Raphael) for when we got to Florence and Rome. The dream of spending all day in the Louvre could not be a reality for this trip.
We walked along the Seine River and found a decent café along the way. In the warm café, we ate salads (a tuna nicoise salad for me, a caprese salad for Grant, and a poke salad for Sean). Grant tried to convince Sean and me to take a taxi to the river cruise location, but we were stubbornly set on walking so we could explore more of Paris. That was a mistake. Grant was grumpy from having to walk so much in a heat wave and refused to begrudgingly take another “amazing picture” in front of another “amazing” monument. He said, “when everything is amazing, nothing is amazing anymore.”
But we were right in front of the Eiffel Tower! Why was he not impressed by the iron latticework of the iconic structure that showcased what a brilliant human imagination could accomplish? This is what Natalie and I had planned to do on our dream trip to Paris. I had already given up the dream of spending all day in the Louvre and now I was compromising again. I was hurt and sad.
The Seine River Cruise was not as romantic as we all thought it would be. It was miserable in the heat as we turned our heads left and right to look at the main attractions along the banks of the Seine (a UNESCO World Heritage site with many landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the Louvre). We passed under historic bridges (the Pont Alexandre II and Pont des Arts), along with the Musee d’Orsay. The tour guide speaking over the intercom confessed he was having a hard time in the heat too.
Only Elley seemed to be happy. Sean shared that is why he prefers to take pictures of plushies rather than people. Plushies never complain and they are always willing to pose for as many pictures as we want. A big bonus is they are photogenic, too.
We discussed on the crowded Metro ride back to Hotel Lorette that if Sean was going off on his own on the Metro forty minutes away from the 9th Arrondissement, then it should be fine for Elley and I to roam the city while Grant went back to the hotel for a nap. I did not come to Paris to sit in a hotel room.
I entered the address for Galeries Lafayette on my GPS and off I went with Elley on foot for thirty minutes until we saw the Passage du Havre, an “underground” glass-roofed shopping corridor near Galeries Lafayette. It was a fascinating subterranean mall/pedestrian arcade with sprawling shops and indoor basements filled with all kinds of wonderful food and goods for sale. It reminded me of the Japanese basement shops under department stores when we were in Osaka, Japan. I was ecstatic that Elley and I had found this treasure on our own.
Elley and I travelled through Passage du Havre, and up the escalators to the top floor of Printemps department store, passing by racks and rows of luxury fashion to see the stained-glass dome ceiling on the 6th floor. It was breathtaking! The brilliant hues of blue, gold and yellow in the intricate floral and geometric patterns were so captivating that I forgot all about finding berets. I understood now why the Parisians tried to protect this precious dome during World War II (most of it ended up destroyed by that war) and reconstructed it again the year I was born (1973). Elley and I were lucky to see it with no lines or crowds at 6 pm.
Next, we walked to the Maison Le Gourmet wing of Galeries Lafayette and salivated over the glass displays of madeleines and pastries at Pierre Herme and Babka Zana before moving over to view artisanal crafted chocolates at Alain Ducasse. I wanted to buy and eat everything. At the same time, I didn’t want to make myself sick because I knew I had to get myself and Elley safely back to the hotel. I was able to successfully resist everything but my weakness for ice cream.
Elley and I waited in a long line to get a Lebanese pistachio ice cream cone at Bachir and I savored every morsel of it slowly as I walked from one pastry case to another ogling its sweet attractions and greeting the salespeople with, “Bonsoir!” joyfully.
I didn’t care if it was not the proper French thing to do eating an ice cream cone while walking around a fancy food emporium with an elephant. And people didn’t look at us disapprovingly.
After Galeries Lafayette closed at 8 pm, we headed back to Hotel Lorette. Grant was in a better mood after a shower and rest. He was hungry so we walked up to rue des Martyrs to eat crepes at Breizh Café.
I got the special with gorgonzola cheese, smoked duck fillet, asparagus, peas, honey, and green salad. Grant got the crepe with cured ham and cheese. My crepe was delightfully refreshing and light.
While watching another gorgeous sunset at dusk, we shared a strawberry crepe filled with strawberry compote, whipped cream and fresh mint.
Our French waitress was amused and tickled by Elley’s presence.
The energy in Paris at night is quite special. People are dressed up and roaming about. We decided to walk up the steep roads and steps to Sacre Coeur Basilica in Montmartre, the artist district in the 18th Arrondissement.
Along the way we passed by a handful of accordion players and took pictures of them to show Sean later.
Crowds of people sat on the grassy area at the summit, in front of the impressive limestone basilica which is dedicated to the sacred heart of Jesus. The fine-grained travertine limestone used for the basilica chemically releases a white calcite mineral when it comes into contact with rainwater, which make the Sacre-Coeur exceptionally white.
A magical view of the Paris cityscape sat below us.
Peddlers were selling twinkling miniature Eiffel Tower figurines and there were more crowds surrounding Sacre Coeur.
We were sticky, sweaty, melting, and ready to head back to our hotel for cool showers after snapping some pictures of our tired selves.
May 26
Elley and I walked 40 minutes to the white cobblestone streets of rue Montorgueil early in the morning at 8am while the guys slept in. Our Musee d’Orsay tickets was for afternoon so there was time to walk from the 9th to the 2nd Arrondissement and back. Rue Montorgueil was as heavenly as I had imagined it to be.
I ate a citron macaron at Stohrer.
It was fantastic so I grabbed another citron macaron, an apple pastry, and a sweet brioche for my guys to try.
Then we stopped at Boneshaker Donuts for a light fluffy sugar vegan donut called “beach haven”, which the shop assistant said is her favorite in the morning. I wanted to get the cinnamon roll, the OG, and Baby Got Back too, but decided to buy the cookbook for my sister instead (the one known as Ee Ee to my children and have been to Paris with Ellerey). There’s only so much I can eat! My sister is vegan now and would appreciate the recipes.
Next door to Boneshaker Donuts was Cookie Love. Une autre tragedie because they were closed! Elley and I walked away from rue Montorgueil, searching for E. Dehillerin fruitlessly. The GPS seemed confused about the address I had entered and sent us in circles. Checking the time on my phone and seeing I needed 40 minutes to walk back to Hotel Lorette, I gave up on E. Dehillerin. It probably would’ve been too much of a struggle for me not to spend hundreds of dollars on copperware there so it was for the best I didn’t find E. Dehillerin on this trip.
Musee d’Orsay is an easy metro ride from the Saint-Georges station across the street from our hotel. On the way, Sean told us all about his adventure last night. He didn’t get to practice his French as much as he wanted to because the Smash players all spoke English, but he had a fun time. He didn’t eat a proper dinner as I wished he had. Instead, he polished off the chocolate chip loaf we had given him. He also got on the wrong metro line late at night. Fortunately, there were many people around and he felt safe.
The first thing we did when we exited the station was get food for Sean to eat. Grant gobbled down the pastries I had gotten at Stohrer and was not hungry. Sean ordered a curry chicken sandwich from a shop in front of the Musee d’Orsay. We learned “takeaway” really means takeaway when the owner gently reprimanded us for sitting down at one of their café tables to eat the sandwich. The takeaway menu is more reasonably priced than the café menu and it is expected that you take your food away somewhere else to eat. We apologized and walked to a shady area in front of the museum.
Sean took a bite of his sandwich and declared it the best thing he had eaten in Paris so far. Grant asked for a bite and thought it was really good too. None of us expected a sandwich from an obscure food stand to make it on our best thing we ate in Paris list. I wish I had written down the name of the stand.
Musee d’Orsay was fabulous.
We saw Monet’s Turkeys, Luncheon on the Grass, and Woman with a Parasol, Turned to the Left and Woman with a Parasol, Turned to the Right.
I couldn’t help posing in front of Henri Fantin-Latour’s masterpiece, Homage a Delacroix which featured the artist with Edouard Manet, James Whistler, and other prominent men. We also got to see Paul Cezanne’s Montagne Sainte Victoire, Van Gogh’s The Church at Auvers, and Rodin’s Thinker.
Camille Claudel’s dramatic Maturity sculpture made me think about how close we can be to someone yet still be so far away. The gap between the hands of Camille and Rodin (her lover) are mere inches apart as he is walking away from her.
Best of all, Elley found other elephants.
The museum is a work of art itself, a uniquely constructed former train station. We spent a few hours there and I spent about an hour in the museum shop afterwards buying all kinds of souvenirs for family and friends.
After that, we took the metro to stand in a long line to get into Shakespeare and Co.
We sat in the historic bookstore reading, a nice respite from the hot sun outside. Although I wanted to keep going after that to the Marais in the 3rd and 4th Arrondissements to walk on its narrow and medieval streets, and visit the Place des Vosges (the oldest planned square in Paris), and explore rue Vieille du Temple and rue des Rosiers (for the famous falafel at L’as due Falafel) both Grant and Sean were ready to take the metro back to the hotel to rest before dinner. A large group of elementary students boarded the train we were in with their teacher, which made our metro ride home interesting. They were adorable, with their bright wide eyes, rosy cheeks and smiles. I thought it brave of their teacher to take that many students on a packed metro train for a field trip.
We ate dinner that night at Le Bon Georges, which was across from our hotel. As busy as they were, the staff was friendly and accommodating when we walked in without a reservation. They cleared a table for us and brought over the chalkboard menu to personally explain to us their offerings for the night.
Sean got the Saucisse de cochan puree de pomme de terre (pork sausage with mashed potatos), Grant ordered the Agneau d L’Allier, pommes de terre (a high quality lamb produced in the Allier region of France with potatoes), and I got the volaille de luteau aux manilles, petit pois, carottes Nouvelles (chicken with peas and carrots).
The chicken was out of this world! If you really want to know what a great chicken should taste like, eat chicken in France. Julia Child was right that chicken in France actually taste chickeny, unlike the chickens in America that are flavorless. The great Julia had lamented in her 80’s, when she moved back to the States, that one of the things she missed about living in France was eating a French chicken.
For dessert, we shared a yummy quince meringue. Although I didn’t get to go to the Marais, it was still a fabulous day.
May 27
Around 9:30 am, Grant, Elley, and I walked up to rue des Martyrs to eat crepes for the second time at Breizh Café while Sean slept in. I didn’t want to regret not eating there again before we left Paris. Our trip to Giverny to see Claude Monet’s house was scheduled for late afternoon.
The crepes at Breizh Café are delicately light and crispy they melt in your mouth. They have crepes filled with sardines, artisanal ham, beef pastrami, tofu, duck, chorizo, truffles, shitake mushrooms and all kinds of delightful things you don’t see in crepe places in America.
This time we ordered only two crepes (the mushroom galette crepe and a chocolate crepe) because I wanted to make sure I had enough room to eat more after.
We chose an orange brioche and croissant brioche at Le Pain Retrouve on the same street. At Babka Zana nearby, we got a chocolate babka and berry babka (the berry was better). Then we crossed over a few steps to get macarons at Pierre Herme’s shop on rue des Abbesses. We tried his famous Ispahan marcaron made with rose, raspberry and lychee; the Mogador macaron made with milk chocolate and passionfruit, and the Montebello macaron made with raspberry and pistachio. They were pricey but totally worth the splurge. I would eat a different macaron from Pierre Herme every day if I lived in Paris.
After Sean polished off the berry babka, we waited at the bus stop across the street from Hotel Lorette. Sean wanted to take the bus instead of the metro to our meeting place for the Giverny tour. He had done the research and purchased our bus tickets online and knew how to get us there. I liked the idea of being able to see Paris in a different way and in a different form of public transportation.
There was a large church next to the meeting place with only a dozen people inside. It was the type of church Grant likes to visit; a church without throngs of people taking pictures and with plenty of stained-glass windows. We spent time inside the cool limestone monument walking around. Due to the fact that the Paris region sits on a massive bed of limestone that was mined for centuries, many churches in Paris are built with this material. I imagined that stone by stone and beam by beam, medieval artisans built this church just as they built Sacre-Coeur Basilica and Notre-Dame Cathedral, by skillfully selecting limestone and wooden beams for every inch of the structure.
Remy, our van driver, greeted us and three Dutch tourists when it was time to leave for Giverny. Two sisters (one a retired lawyer who now lived out of her suitcase in Paris and the other visiting her from the states) also joined us. The Dutch tourists were not as friendly as the two sisters so we let them choose seating first. If we were going to be stuck in a van for an hour with strangers, I figured we should make our best effort to be on friendly terms. As a result, Grant, Sean and I ended up in the very back of the van behind the three Dutch tourists, with the two sisters sitting in the front row next to Remy.
It took Remy a while to get us out of Paris due to heavy traffic. Once on the freeway heading to the countryside, I closed my eyes and relaxed while Remy talked to the sisters, and pointed out to them different interesting landmarks. It was nice and cool in the van with the air conditioner on that I almost drifted off.
Remy parked our van in front of a Glaces Maison ice cream truck. We didn’t have time for me to get a cone as we marched towards Monet’s house and gardens. There were colorful flowerbeds bursting with tulips, daffodils, irises, peonies and climbing roses everywhere.
We explored the water garden featuring the famous water lily ponds that Monet painted profusely, and saw koi fish, weeping willows, bamboo and arching green Japanese bridges wrapped in wisteria. We even saw chickens in a large chicken coop in front of Monet’s pink house that is decked out with emerald-green shutters.
This famous country sanctuary/home for Monet inspired many of the paintings we had seen in the National Gallery and the Musee d’Orsay.
Monet’s sketches of some of those paintings hung in his living room wall.
Monet’s obsession with bright colors and Japanese art showed clearly in his home.
From his sunny yellow dining room to his beautiful blue kitchen adorned with gleaming copper pans, it was such a marvelous experience to see it all.
I whispered to Grant how lovely it would be to be able to look out from my bedroom to a lush garden like Monet’s. As he stood next to the large fan by Monet’s bedroom window, he said, “Poor guy didn’t have air conditioning.”
After we got ice cream cones from the Glaces Maison ice cream truck, Remy drove us to Eglise Sainte-Radegonde (where Monet attended church and is buried).
Remy told us even though the small church is built with cool limestone, it is clearly a poor church because of the wooden vaulted ceilings. Wood was more affordable material than heavy stone.
When we got back to Paris I wanted to get a family picture in front of the Eiffel Tower. However, seeing that both my guys were wiped out from the excursion to Giverny, I said I would be okay with going back to our hotel to rest instead. I didn’t want to force a picture just for the sake of having a picture. They were both grateful.
In the soft yellow dusk light, we ate at Cerine, a Lebanese place near Hotel Lorette.
Not only was the food scrumptious, the owner kindly gave us free desserts that reminded me of the Lebanese cheesecake that my friend and neighbor Hala made for me last year on my birthday. It was light with honey syrup on top.
We finished the evening watching the Eiffel Tower twinkle from our bedroom.
The next morning Grant and I lugged laundry up two blocks to a self-service laundromat. While waiting for our laundry to wash and dry we walked to a corner bakery to get quiches and sat on a bench to people watch and eat them. The woman behind the counter shook her head when I asked, “parlez-vous Anglais?” so I had to order my mushroom quiche all in French.
At the Paris Orly airport I got to try vanilla, blueberry and citron macarons at Laduree.
I went back to get more because I was overwhelmed with sadness that we were leaving Paris.
A large sign in front of our boarding area said, “Paris will Miss You!” I will miss Paris too! It was different from the trip Natalie and I had planned years ago but I was happy that we finally fulfilled Natalie’s wish of going to Paris with Elley.
Americans have told us before our trip that Parisians are rude and mean and Paris is dirty. That had not been our experience. The Parisians had fed and treated us well.
I want to go back!