Encore Tricolore! Take Courage's Paris Address List

I studied French at school for seven years, I obtained an A* in my French GCSE and an A at A Level, I even lived in Strasbourg for an entire year (which fyi is in France, not Germany!), but my French is appalling.  "Encore Tricolore" was the name of the textbook we used at school but, instead of endowing me with beautifully articulated conversational French, the only thing I can remember are the images of spotty, shell suit-clad French "ados" and a song about a rabbit called Vilain.  Not so helpful when you're trying to navigate your way across Paris.

Luckily for you, I thought it would be nice to share my Paris recommendations so that you can plan your trip in advance and avoid repeating to strangers, "excusez-moi, parlez-vous anglais?".

Now, everyone has their favourite spots in Paris (and please feel free to share them in the comments - they'll be useful for my next trip!), but these are some of the more unusual things to see and do.  There's not much point telling you to go to the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame - those are a given!

Places to visit

• Palais Garnier, 8 rue Scribe - head there on a Wednesday morning for an 11.30am guided tour. Nearest tube: Opéra.
• Galeries d'Anatomie Comparée et de Paléontologie, 2 rue Buffon - don't do what we did and queue up at the wrong building! You want the big building near Gare d'Austerlitz. Nearest tube: Gare d'Austerlitz.
• Close by is the Grand Mosquée de Paris, 2 bis Place du Puits de l'Ermite - it's a really beautiful building and for just three euros you can wander the grounds and take lots of pretty photographs.
• Visit the Trocadéro first thing in the morning, for beautiful, uninterrupted views of the Eiffel Tower. Nearest tube: Trocadéro.
• Musée d'Orsay, 62 rue de Lille - head to the top to see the view from the big clock. If you've travelled by Eurostar, keep hold of your ticket and bring it with you - you can claim 2for1 tickets! Nearest tube: Musée d'Orsay.
• Take a walk at dusk through the Jardin des Tuileries, 113 rue de Rivoli, and rest your tired feet on those famous green chairs. Nearest tube: Tuileries.
• Browse through endless shelves of books at Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bucherie - it really is the best bookshop in the world. Nearest tube: Saint Michel Notre Dame.

Places to eat and drink

Paris is, in my opinion, an expensive place to eat out.  The last time the Texan and I went to Paris we were students and spent most of our weekend trying (unsuccessfully) to find restaurants where we could afford to eat.  We took a different approach this time.  Instead of agonising over spending 60+ euros on lunch, we decided to embrace la vie francaise and have one big meal a day.  We bought breakfast from the local bakery for a few euros and stocked up on cheeses, cured meats, olives and a bottle of red at the supermarket in the evening.  A two/three-course lunch kept us full for most of the day, and this worked out to be a pretty cost effective way of enjoying all the amazing French food without feeling too guilty about it!

• Le Grand Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne - walking distance from Opéra, this is the perfect place to go for lunch after your tour of the Palais Garnier! Nearest tube: Bourse.
• Auberge Etchegorry, 41 rue Croulebarbe - make sure to say hello to the resident kitty while you're there. Nearest tube: Place d'Italie.
• And just next door is another good restaurant - La Touraine, 39 rue Croulebarbe.
• Le Pure Café, 14 rue Jean Mace - this is the most authentic French café I've ever been to, and you can sit where Jesse and Céline sat, so you have to go! Nearest tube: Charonne.

Places to shop

• Merci, 111 boulevard Beaumarchais.  Nearest tube: Chemin Vert.
• Frederic Garrigues, 2 rue Saint Gilles.  Nearest tube: Chemin Vert.
• Yodoya, 6-8 rue Saint Gilles. Nearest tube: Chemin Vert.
• Odetta Vintage, 76 rue des Tournelles.  Nearest tube: Chemin Vert.
• EW, 21 rue Saint Paul.  Nearest tube: Saint Paul.
• Mamz'Elle Swing, 35 rue du Roi de Sicile.  Nearest tube: Saint Paul.
• Vintage Desire, 32 rue des Roisiers.  Nearest tube: Saint Paul.
• Village Saint Paul, rue St Paul.  Nearest tube: Saint Paul.
• Au Petit Bonheur La Chance, 13 rue St Paul.  Nearest tube: Saint Paul.
• Kilo Shop, 69-71 rue de la Verrerie.  Nearest tube: Hotel de Ville.
• Kiliwatch, 64 rue Tiquetonne.  Nearest tube: Etienne Marcel.
• Window shopping at Place Vendome.  Nearest tube: Opéra.

Top tips

• Download Tripadvisor to your phone - it works even on airplane mode, and it saved us so much time and arguing when looking for good places to eat!
• If, like me, you don't have roaming on your mobile, map out the places you want to visit before you go and take a print screen.
• Keep hold of your Eurostar tickets - you can often use them to get 2for1 tickets to museums and exhibitions.
• Be careful about opening hours - Paris isn't a 24/7 city like London and the shops and museums can have unusual (to a Londoner) opening hours, so make a note to yourself before going to avoid missing out. 

Please do let me know if you have anything else to add to the above - I'd be grateful for your recommendations too!

Holiday Snaps

The Texan and I have a growing collection of old photographs and photo albums (it all started many years ago with Miriam and Hans - my first blog post, no less!), and I'd say at least three-quarters of them are holiday snaps.  It seems to me that, at least for those that could afford it, holidays in the 1930s, 40s and 50s were obligatorily well documented - each photo carefully composed and cropped, and then lovingly placed at perfect right-angles in a photo album, saved for a rainy day of reminiscing.  Now those photos live underneath my coffee table, and occasionally the Texan and I will pull them out and flick through these familiar strangers' holiday snaps, making up funny narratives as we do.

It makes me sad to think that our holiday snaps of today never seem to make it into an album - who will be there in 60 years' time to make up narratives about our trip to Paris?!  I suppose in a way this little blog is the 21st century's version of a photo album, but a computer screen doesn't quite feel the same, does it?

These are just the tip of the iceberg of the photos we took in Paris (there's a second instalment to come on Sunday, I couldn't narrow them down to a single blog post so I do hope you don't get bored of these!).  What a beautiful city!  A particular highlight for me was meeting the sweetest (and itchiest, eww!) French Terrier at Le Pure Cafe - the Texan and I took the same walk as Céline and Jesse and ended up having tea at exactly the same table as they did - aww.

Brighten Up!

I'm taking a slight diversion from my Paris adventures this weekend to tell you a little bit about a competition which Cath Kidston is currently running - they want you to tell them about your favourite landmarks and features of your hometown, and why it deserves its very own Cath Kidston design. The winning nominated town will receive a bespoke, handmade piece of art featuring your favourite landmarks - pretty cool, eh?!  I think London is actually quite a tricky one for this because there are so many iconic landmarks and unique places to visit.  After much debating with the Texan, I went for a little street in Shoreditch which still feels like a Londoner's slice of London (a rare thing these days): Columbia Road.  It's possibly the only place in London where I don't mind a crowd - in fact, it wouldn't be the same without its obligatory early morning bundling!  The wafting smell of bacon sarnies, the sound of a fiddle and an out-of-tune banjo being played a way down the cobbled street, the unintelligible calls of the market traders, dodging giant bouquets of mimosas and hyacinths and pugs and dobermans - there's no where quite like it, and that's why I think it should win!

You can enter Cath Kidston's Brighten Up competition here - I'd love to hear the reasons why your town should be nominated, so let me know in the comments!

What I'm wearing  |  Dress: c/o Cath Kidston  |  Jacket, bag and loafers: Zara  |  Straw bag: Columbia Road market  |  Umbrella: c/o Cath Kidston

P.S.  Just a quick shout-out to Lucy of Pudding Lane who came to say hello to me and the Texan while having brunch at Clutch (both are new discoveries, and both are definitely worth a visit!) - really lovely to meet you!

Trocadéro

Freedom feels good!  The number of emails flashing at me on my BlackBerry is growing by the second, but I have no fear-induced desire to read them - my out of office is well and truly on, and it's staying on!  The Texan and I have been celebrating by eating far too much cheese, and roast duck, and iles flottantes (the Texan's new favourite), and creme caramel, and coffee eclairs...the eating never stops... I'll be surprised if we don't come home with type 2 diabetes!

Paris is beautiful, as always, and the light first thing yesterday morning was perfection - we couldn't have timed it better if we tried.  Photo-taking and jumping around in front of la tour Eiffel, c'est magnifique!

What I'm wearing  |  Coat and dress: Orla Kiely (I went a bit crazy in the sale...)  |  Fur collar: Vintage  |  Beret: Market stall, Paris  |  Ankle boots: M&S  |  Bag: Longchamp