Day Flore in Paris

Yes, that is a pun because I returned to Café de Flore on my fourth day in Paris.

The day had finally arrived for me to flounce around Paris with a professional photographer. I was extremely excited to capture my first experience in Paris, and the photoshoot did not disappoint!

I could not even begin to pick a favorite photo from the 130 photos that my incredible photographer, Natalie Gardot, provided me with, because so many of them are my favorites, but I’ll share a few with you.

I die every time I see this photo. It’s exactly what I wanted to capture!

I found Natalie through AirBNB experiences. There are a variety of photographers you can book while in different cities, and since I was traveling by myself, I knew I needed a professional to capture this very-important, first trip to Paris. After scouting out the various photographers on AirBNB, I decided to reach out to Natalie, who was a dream to work with.

I gave her a list of places I wanted to get photos at, including Shakespeare & Company, which is where we met up to begin the photoshoot.

I also knew I wanted photos at the Louvre.

She crushed the photos and made my dreams come true.

I clearly also wanted photos of myself at the Eiffel Tower – you may or may not know or recall the importance of this for me. Click here to read more about that.

Once we’d settled on a list of locations, Natalie gave me a suggested itinerary, timeline, and quote. It was all perfect to me, so I went ahead and booked her, putting down a deposit for half of the photoshoot in advance.

Natalie has a really good grasp of beautiful photo locations in Paris, so as we traveled between a few of the spots I’d picked, she’d stop us to snap photos on bridges and in front of cool architecture.

She was super creative and fun to work with – she told me to let her know if I saw anything that caught my eye that I wanted to snap a photo in front of.

For one of our photos, we went to Les Deux Magots, which I was extremely excited to try, given its history as Hemingway’s informal office.

We ordered two coffees, and sat for a minute before staging a photo.

They give you small chocolates with your coffee.

She snapped a few photos of me writing and sipping coffee in Hemingway’s favorite writing spot.

Not only did Natalie take a bunch of really lovely photos of me across Paris, giving me 130 to choose from in the end, but she gave me a ton of really good suggestions. In fact, I ended up completely wiping my itinerary clean for the next day, and redid it to follow her suggestions exactly, and it perfectly rounded out my trip. I was really grateful for her creative expertise, and for her advice about Paris. I joked with her that one day when I was a published author, I’d hire her to take my bio photo for the back of my book, but I was actually being serious and very much intend to return to Paris for a headshot some day. I would highly recommend checking out Natalie’s work and booking her if you are thinking about visiting Paris. You can find her Instagram profile by clicking here.

One of the things I’d mentioned to her was that I kept trying to get to Galeries Lafayette to check out their Christmas decorations, but it was way too crowded for comfort every time I went there. She told me that while it was definitely beautiful, it was a place not frequented as often by locals, and that if I wanted to check out something a little less touristy with similarly beautiful Christmas displays, I should visit Le Bon Marche.

After the photoshoot, I took her advice and went shopping!

I was so glad that she gave me the recommendation! It was much quieter here, and the decorations were beautiful.

I even found some Christmas presents for my family, so it was a double win.

I told her I wanted a little more time at the cafés in Paris, and after our delicious cup of coffee at Les Deux Magots, I was thinking perhaps I should scrap my evening plans and return to one of the cafés, and she highly encouraged me to do so.

Since I’d already been to Les Deux Magots, I decided to visit Café de Flore for dinner and coffee.

It was heavenly.

I enjoyed the slower pace of the evening. I relished my cup of coffee (although I will say that I think Les Deux Magots wins in the coffee department) and watched Parisians conversing outside and walking down the street together. I took out my notebook and spent quite a few hours writing – it felt incredible to be camped out at a Parisian café, writing to my heart’s content.

Look at that tiny cup of caffeine!

I really liked all of the details about the café – the tables were really cool.

I like the embossed text! The light fixtures were beautiful, too.

Very on-brand with the floral print.

When they set my table, they brought out a cute little paper cover.

I did not fold it up and put it in my purse before I left.

I ordered the French onion soup for dinner, because it seemed like there wouldn’t be a better place to enjoy it.

It was very good.

It was getting late, but the streets were still very busy, so I decided to walk around a bit. It felt incredibly safe, so I walked in and out of bookstores along the street.

It was my observation that most of the books in France were either antiques, with stunning covers and binding, or these minimalistic white covers. The shops with more English books seemed to have a broader variety of bindings and covers, but many of the stores with primarily French texts seemed to have a plethora of these white books.

I walked home – or at least, to my hotel, which had certainly felt like home at that point. Very early on, I had started feeling like I lived in Paris. It was easy to grow comfortable in the city.

As I made my way back, I passed the Louvre, lit up like a beautiful, glowing gem.

When I returned to my hotel, I decided to treat myself to dessert! I had still not tried the pistachio Mont-Blanc, which had gotten a little melty during my travels back to the hotel the previous day.

I am absolutely intrigued that this is one of the most popular items, along with the old fashioned hot chocolate, on Angelina’s menu. The Mont-Blanc was so insanely sweet that I could not finish it. Not even close. I could only manage a few bites. Was it good? Sure. Did it taste like 100% pure sugar? Oh, absolutely. I found it difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that this is a signature dish at Angelina. Now, the chocolate version is technically the most popular, so it could be that it is wildly different than the pistachio version, but I’m not convinced. I’d like to try the chocolate version next time, purely for scientific purposes, because I can’t imagine it is any less sugary than the pistachio flavor. I will need to bring ten friends with me, however, because I don’t see how anyone could take more than a bite of this thing. I ended up throwing almost the entire thing away, simply because the sweetness was so overpowering.

And with that, I concluded my evening! I only had one day ahead of me in Paris, and while I was started to grow sad that my departure was soon arriving, I was determined to make the most of every second.

The next day, I would have one of the best meals in Paris after seeing one of the best views in Paris.

Stay tuned for more.

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