In August, the French generally take the month off for vacation so we didn't know what to expect except for a lot of shops and restaurants to be closed which was the case. Most of the businesses that were open specifically catered to tourists as there seemed to be a large amount of North American and Middle Eastern tourists visiting during this time. Paris also has a bad reputation for hot and humid weather during this time but we were fortunate to have overcast skies with temperatures in the 70s throughout.
Our first night we stayed at the Park Hyatt Paris by cleaning out our entire Hyatt points balance since we normally couldn't afford to stay there otherwise. The hotel's location was prime on Rue de la Paix and located just a block from Place Vendome which is pictured below in the photo from our balcony.
Rue de la Paix is filled with high end shops and ultimately the Opera house on the other end.
With only a couple days to spend in Paris, Shauna made it a priority to visit one of her favorite shops, Eden Park which has a logo of a pink bow, although surprisingly the roots of the brand comes from the sport of rugby.
Another stop we had to make was the Chanel store (Shauna's favorite brand) on Rue Cambon which was the site of the original location that Coco Chanel opened in 1910. We joke that the Chanel logo of two Cs stands for Cheng-Carlson but Ryan should stop that because it just encourages her to buy more Chanel products.
One requisite stop for us anytime we're in Paris is Laduree for Shauna's favorite dessert, the Isfahan which blends the flavors of rose, litchi, raspberry and most importantly is pink. The desert was created by acclaimed pasty chef Pierre Herme who has left Laduree and as his shops are closed in August, we weren't able to try his current version....which is located on the same street as the original Chanel store.
One new experience for us was to take an hour long boat journey on the Seine which was a lot of fun. The boat traveled from the Eiffel Tower to just past the Ile de la Cite so we were able to take in the most beautiful parts of Paris from the water.
To celebrate our anniversary dinner, we ate at the Cristal Room at the Baccarat Museum which is housed in a 18th century mansion. The restaurant is owned by the Taittinger family and on our honeymoon we were able to visit and enjoy Champagne at their estate. We opened this meal as we did w/all meals in France w/a Kir Royale as an aperatif.
This is a restaurant to enjoy more for the setting than the food although we found the food to be good and the service excellent.
Even the washroom was filled with crystal
After dinner we stopped by the nearby Plaza Athenee, which is one of the most beautiful hotels in Paris, for a couple drinks ($75 for two drinks, not joking). Shauna had a cocktail called a Love Mojito that is a concoction of all her favorite tastes like rose, litchi and rasberry and spiked w/a litchi liquer called Girl which is of French orgin but we've only seen it in Singapore previously. And most importantly the drink was colored light pink.
And after that we returned to our hotel, the Paris Hilton which we also booked w/points, for some Champagne in the lounge.
In the morning we caught another stroke of luck by being upgraded for the flight home.
Thanks for all the congratulations and well wishes for our first anniversary and we're looking forward to celebrating them eternally.
