Something prettier...

I decided to show you something prettier before leaving France... Something more beautiful than a house full of mess & boxes ;)

And what's prettier than the City of Lights...

 Paris, je t'aime!

 Bisous,

Tour de Montmartre

The last tour of the (school) year... Montmartre... on a cloudy morning...

The Sacre Coeur still is impressive

 

Unfortunately we couldn't visit the Sacre Coeur inside

as it still is a place for worship and not for noisy tourists...

But very close to the Sacre Coeur is the 'Eglise St. Pierre', a sweet little church:

From Montmartre you have a beautiful view over the city, but as I said already: bit grey this morning...

Still you could see many famous buildings like the Centre Georges Pompidou:

  Walking around Montmartre you can find nice buildings:

 No way that this can be missed:

 Cozy square:

 And look at these gorgeous houses, full of green:

Flowers everywhere in Montmartre too:

 Cute indications of street names:

 Dalida was there too:

 Nice coloured door:

 Hope you liked the tour & I wish you a nice, sunny & warm week!

Bisous,

Atelier des Chefs & more...

Last Wednesday we gathered 8 ladies together for a nice day in Paris.

We started with coffee, macarons & a beautiful view on the rooftop terrace of 'un des grands magasins':

Le Printemps in the 9th arrondissement.

 

And once your in Printemps, you definitely should go to their restrooms: Point WC!

It's not the cheapest restroom in Paris but it's a clean & fancy one!

For 2 euros you can make use of the Japanese toilet, you can adapt the temperature of the toilet seat as well as the water temperature.

I'm sure there are more gadgets on this toilet, but I couldn't figure that out quickly enough...

Go and try it yourself!

The Japanese toilet together with a very modern & colourful design,

make it almost a pleasure to go to the loo...

After this experience we headed to the Atelier des Chefs, where we had lunch...

But first we had to work!

In about an hour time, we prepared our own lunch, guided by a Chef.

Funny enough, the Chef that lead our 'workshop/lunch' last Wednesday was a guy that

participated in Top Chef 2011, a succesfull TV program that I followed as much as I could.

Hereunder an impression of the day:

And yes, I made pictures, but worked too... Here's the proof of it!!

Thanks Ann, Anette, Anette, Claudie, Corry, Eline & Maud for this lovely day...

It's definitely one that I will cherish!

Bisous,

And the winner is...

We've had some busy weeks with an almost 2 weeks holiday (in The Netherlands and in Greece) followed by lots of house guests. But now it's, more or less, getting back to normal, at least for the coming 3 weeks :)

I love having people around, like to prepare their breakfasts, plan cozy diners or show them around our 'home abroad'. As you can imagine, it's pretty difficult to keep up with the daily routine... So that's why I haven't been here on a regular basis... but will try to make it up in the coming weeks!

First of all I have a winner to announce: it's Elly of Elly's kleine Idylle. Congratulations Elly! I can recommend you to visit her blog, it is, as the name says, a 'small idyll', beautiful pictures & serenity. Have a look!!
Elly, if you can email me your address at abacaxiandhortela@gmail.com, I will send your presents as soon as possible!!

A bunch of pictures to follow, just from the last 2 weeks:

Some entertainment at home

An afternoon at the races... Hippodrôme de Saint Cloud

We celebrated a birthday...

Just a tablesetting

Notre Dame... from the back side

Notre Dame... from the side

The boys on one of the bridges, watching all the 'bateaux mouches' full of tourists passing by

One of the 'bouquinistes' along the Seine

Arc de triomphe on a Saturday morning

8 May

View over the Champs Elysées and Place de la Concorde

Montmartre & the Sacre Coeur, view from the Arc de Triomphe

On the other side: La Défense

Great weather... :)

Wishing you all a great week!

Bisous,