{"id":17529,"date":"2018-02-03T15:35:06","date_gmt":"2018-02-03T15:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/?p=17529"},"modified":"2018-02-03T15:47:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-03T15:47:38","slug":"paris-in-the-springtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/paris-in-the-springtime\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris in the Springtime?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Montmartre -photo taken by Daniel Kainz<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Favourite memories of time in Paris involve mornings meandering the ancient flea markets of St-Ouen<\/a> or Vanves; or hours spent wandering the Jardin du Luxembourg watching families sailing miniature boats on the lake (probably whilst wondering how long until dinner time.\u00a0 You can’t help but endlessly think of food there can you?).\u00a0 \u00a0The never ending floors of Galerie Lafeyette feature a lot, as do memories of sitting amongst effortlessly cool Parisians (sticking out like a sore thumb) outside some cafe, just watching the world go by over a glass of red.\u00a0 \u00a0I recall not much time was spent at the various hotels we stayed at, probably because they were mostly awful…<\/p>\n

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Photo taken by Sladjana Karvounis<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But, despite lots of depressing things about getting older (like mountains of responsibility, bills, and wrinkles), one definite upside is having a little more money to spend on nicer travel accommodation, and not just settling on any old broom cupboard in Montmartre just because “we were not likely to be spending much time there anyway”…<\/p>\n

Times change, as do requirements – especially when travelling with children, and browsing through these beautiful Parisian luxury retreats<\/a>\u00a0has me wanting to spend a night at each and every single place they have in their listings.\u00a0 They have an amazing concierge service, that I am sure would gladly organise such a thing for you, and apartments are just so much more family friendly aren’t they?\u00a0 Most of these places are just jaw droppingly gorgeous, admittedly with a few that have price tags to match, but if you got a good few of you together to share the bigger spaces??\u00a0 \u00a0 If money were no option I would happily splash out to pretend we were Parisian residents, which would hopefully cancel out the memories of the more hostel than hotel places we accidentally booked in the past.\u00a0 I have places with questionable bedspreads and showers in cupboards etched on my brain and something needs to be done about that!<\/p>\n

Luxury Retreats don’t just deal with Paris either, they have rentals across the globe (if for some odd reason we were to plan a second honeymoon, this company would be my first stop for sure!).\u00a0 I have just spent the past half hour drooling over their Austrian<\/a> options.\u00a0 Some of the chalets I thought existed only in my wildest lottery winning dreams are actually real!!\u00a0 When they say luxury, they aren’t just talking about a chucked in bottle of wine and the use of a fluffy dressing gown you know.\u00a0 \u00a0I want to round up a group of my closest friends and bully them in to booking a chalet right this very minute… But then their South African options are just out of this world so that might be a good option instead, and the Morrocan Riads they have listed are exquisite, and the\u00a0 Caribbean island accommodation on there… I could spend all day dreaming!\u00a0 \u00a0But, back to Paris…<\/p>\n

They might have travelled reasonably extensively for those of tender years, but we have yet to take our offspring to this beautiful capital.\u00a0 The closest they have been was last year when we had a long wait at Paris Orly airport after our Corsican trip<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0France for them so far has only consisted of trips to Alsace (the closest French border to Bavaria), with various visits to Colmar<\/a> and Strasbourg<\/a> (not to mention the brilliant Monkey Mountain<\/a>), and the odd trip much further South to visit my inlaws in Agen<\/a>.\u00a0 A few years back we also called in to beautiful old Arras<\/a> where we had an unforgettable journey deep underground (and ended exploring something we weren’t quite expecting, we need to go back to see if we can get it right next time!!), but it broke up the lonnnng drive back down to Bavaria after a trip back home to England, and sated our France fix for a while…<\/p>\n

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photo taken by Ivanna Salgado<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But sadly, through no fault of it’s own, Paris has been neglected by us for a good few years.\u00a0 \u00a0How nice it would be to have some magical rewind button to go back to the slightly less complicated days of booking a last minute trip on the (then) relatively new Eurostar…\u00a0 Gone are the days when we would chuck stuff in a bag before work on a Friday, to meet later in the day to embark on our train journey, smug in the knowledge that we had many hours of picturesque wandering, and plenty of glorious stinky cheese eating ahead (we will ignore the smelly hotel part!) as the countryside flashed past…<\/p>\n

Now of course we have three small intrepid stinky cheese lovers who would adore everything about Paris (none of them will touch any blue cheese, but will happily eat the stuff I can’t even stomach!?), from the amazing food, iconic landmarks and amazing museums (incidentally, you should definitely check out this brilliant Paris with Kids guide<\/a> from Globalmouse Travels, I will be referring back to it soon enough!) and actually thinking about it, I am pretty certain we would love introducing them to this magical city, and rediscovering a few of our old haunts too…<\/p>\n

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Photo taken by ac-almelor<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m off to look at some less hastily booked and probably more stressful travel options (with kids the getting there usually is!), but Paris in the Springtime should definitely make up for it right?\u00a0 I am leaving the Luxury Retreats<\/a> page open in the hope that Mr R spots it and impulsively books something…<\/p>\n

(*collaborative post.\u00a0 All words and content are my own, apart from the wonderful photographs taken by members of the Unsplash<\/a> community.\u00a0 I have no digital images of Paris of my own which should tell you something about how long ago we last went!!<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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