[Europe] Au Revoire Paris, Hola Barcelona!!

1 week in Paris was a wonderful trip for us. We love the weather, foods, the building, and especially the shopping time in Paris. However, we needed to go to another city which is more exotic with its historical building, especially on summer. It's Barcelona!!!!

From Paris, you can take either flight or train to Barcelona. However, train to Barcelona will take around 24 hours with a lot of transfer (around 6 transfers). It's really wasting time and only make us feel tired on our trip. So we decided to take a flight from Paris which is only take 2 hours. This time, we used EasyJet for our flight. It only costs around €60 pp, which is affordable for this flight. Actually there's a cheaper flight from Paris to Barcelona, it's RyanAir. However, RyanAir not depart from Charles de Gaulle airport. They depart from Paris-Orly airport which is further, and I thought it's not a good choice.

Just arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport by RER B

To go to the Charles de Gaulle airport, we took RER B from Gare du Nord station. Only within 30 minutes, we arrived at the Paris International Airport. While we're waiting for the check in time, we walked around and we found Laduree, the famous macarons in Paris. It's located at Terminal 2F (before check in gate).

Actually we wanted to try their cakes. They look so tempting. However we didn't have enough time so we just bought a box of macarons. I like Laduree's macarons so much, especially the "Rose Petal" flavor. First time i ate this macarons at Hong Kong. Until now, Laduree still become my favorite.

Pretty keychain by Laduree

After passed the check in gate, still there's a cafe such as EXKI, and tax-free shop. You can get more information about restaurant and shopping place at Charles de Gaulle airport in here .

Take pictures while we're waiting for the flight

Finally, it's the time for us to fly. Au Revoir Paris, gonna miss you.....

Bye Paris

After 2 hours flight, finally we arrived at Barcelona. Hola!! Barcelona's airport is not as big as Paris. To go to the city, we took the Aerobus from the airport. Aerobus is Barcelona Airport Express Bus. It costs $5,9 for single trip, and $10,2 for return trip. The return ticket is only valid for 15 days. So if you stay in Barcelona more than 15 days, you can't use the return ticket. You can find out more about Aerobus in here .

Barcelona from above

Inside the aerobus. They have USB charger as well.

It only took around 30 minutes to reach the last stops, Placa Catalunya. Placa Catalunya is the city centre of Barcelona. I recommend you to stay in this area, because you can get anything in here. Food, shopping place, you can reach everything only by walk. What a strategic place!! During my vacation in Barcelona, i stayed at Hotel Ginebra . This hotel located at Placa Catalunya, and the rates is also quite affordable. It's around €100 / night for double room.

Well, i spent this day only for moving from Paris to Barcelona. My journey in Barcelona gonna start tomorrow......

Eggs&Co, Rue Bernard Palissy - Paris

What's your favorite food for brunch? Omelette? Eggs benedict on toast? With smoked salmon or ham as the topping maybe? Sounds delicious..... Looking for these kind of brunch in Paris? Well, Eggs&Co is a right place to go. Located near Boulevard Saint-Germain, the famous area for local peoples, Eggs&Co offers the brunch food with "eggs" as the main ingredients.

Just a short story. I knew about this place from Instagram . I always use this application for looking something new, especially about food. Before i go to some place, i always search anything about that place on Instagram. The more i searched about that place, more pictures i found there. One of them is Eggs&Co. I saw all peoples there ate the poached eggs, omelette, and i talked to my self, "This is a must place to go!"

Menu on the wall

The place is really small but cozy. They have 2 floors, the first floor for the kitchen and the second floor for dine in. We waited for about 20 minutes because they still cleaned up the table. After that, we just go upstairs. They gave us the menu, tap water, and baguette. We ordered the omelette and the poached eggs with variant topping.

After the food served, we took pictures of them (must thing to do), and we started to enjoy the food. Nobody's talking at that time. Until the foods finished, both of us only say one word "Tasty!" I don't know is it because we hungry, or it's because egg is our favorite food, but we really really like all the foods they served. The omelette is really soft. The eggs benedict cooked perfectly. When i cut it, the egg yolks melted out beautifully.

Beside the "eggs" menu, they also known for they coffee. When i stepped inside, i could smell the coffee and it's really good. To be honest, i don't really like coffee. But the smells of the coffee makes me feel curious, so we ordered a cup of cappuccino.

Having brunch here, doesn't spent a lot of money. It costs under €20 for each menu. Not really cheap, but it's a standard price for having a nice brunch in Paris. Anyway reservation are not necesarry to eat here.




Eggs&Co
Address : 11 Rue Bernard Palissy, 75006 Paris, France
Phone : +33 (1) 45 44 02 52
Webiste : http://www.eggsandco.fr/
Opening hours : Monday - Sunday : 10AM - 6 PM

[Europe] Boulevard Saint-Germain and Notre Dame Cathedral

After had a relaxing morning at Luxembourg Gardens, we continued walking to the famous street, Boulevard Saint-Germain. We walked through Rue Bonaparte, and we didn't feels like in Paris. All i know Paris is a big city, with the crowd everywhere. That's what i saw at Champs-Élysées, around Galeries Lafayette, and Trocadéro. But in here, it's really different. I didn't see any cars passing by. I only saw some Parisian strolling with their dog, or just cycling at that street. 

In the middle of the way to Boulevard Saint-Germain, we found Église Saint Sulpice. That's a church which become popular because of Da Vinci Code's movie. If you've watched that movie, you must be know this church. To be honest, i didn't see anything special about this church at the movie. However, when i saw with my own eyes, i feel amazed to see that. It has a big building with a fountain in front of it. It looks wonderful.

Actually we wanted to go inside. But it was a lunch time and we both felt hungry. So we just passed it and had a lunch at Eggs & Co, a local restaurant near Boulevard Saint-Germain. (I will write about it at another post)

After had a great lunch, we continued to walk along Boulevard Saint-Germain. This street known as a shopping place for local brand in Paris. We also found a store which sells the second hand of branded stuff. Strolling at this street was really fun for us. Unless the hot weather and the traffic which happened at this street. 

Ben & Jerry at Boulevard Saint-Germain

The next stop was the Notre Dame Cathedral. Its located not too far with Boulevard Saint-Germain. We decided to just walk through Boulevard Saint-Michele. At the end of the street, we saw Fontaine Saint-Michel, a monumental fountain in Paris. 

This area was really crowded, full of tourists. We didn't take a long time in here. The hot weather didn't make us feel comfortable to do a photo stop. So we just kept walking to Notre Dame Cathedral. Before we reached there, we saw the popular bookstore in Paris, Shakespeare & Company. This bookstore serves both as a regular bookstore, a second-hand bookstore, and as a reading library, specializing in English-language literature.

Meet some new friends from Australia

Finally we reached our last destination at that day, the amazing Notre Dame Cathedral. This church became a place that must be visited when you were in Paris. The structure of the building is really beautiful. It's much more beautiful than in the picture.

We felt curious with the interior, so we decided to go inside. There's no entrance fee to go inside, however we should queuing for about 30 minutes. We almost gave up because of the hot weather. But, considering we didn't have another place to go, and it's just around 5 pm, so we just stayed at the line. 

The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, and it is among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture.-Wikipedia-

Before we ended that day, we walked along the Seine River which located next to the Notre Dame Cathedral. We looked at Notre Dame Cathedral from the other side. At the end of this street, we found the Love Lock bridge. You should be familiar with this bridge, aren't you?