We decided to branch out this morning and skipped Paul’s for once. After asking the concierge for a recommendation, he pointed us toward Maison Thévenin. We ordered pain au chocolat, a ham quiche, and of course cappuccinos. Everything was très bien.

After breakfast, we headed over to Pierre Herme, which is supposed to have the best macarons according to our guide from Versailles. Everything looked so good in their display case. We were still pretty full from our cafe visit, but we had to get a couple macarons to try at least. They were as good as they looked.

Feeling super full now, we walked over to Shakespeare and Company. It’s a historic bookstore that once hosted writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and T.S. Eliot. I wanted to buy a copy of Les Misérables since we had seen the painting that inspired the book earlier in the trip. On the walk over, we had a rare moment of sunshine which was really nice after all the cloudy days.

The store has a strict no-photography, no-phones rule, which was honestly torture because it was so beautiful inside. There was a cozy reading room upstairs that looked like the perfect place to curl up with a book for hours.

After the bookstore, we headed back to the hotel to wait for our 3 PM lunch reservation at Le Procope. This is one of the most famous restaurants in Paris, founded in 1686, and is supposedly the first place to introduce coffee to Paris!

I ordered the duck breast, which they’re especially known for, and Jordan went with the coq au vin, a classic French dish. I tried to be brave and ordered a dry red wine that was recommended to pair with my duck. I didn’t love it, but I’m officially starting my slow journey into dry wines so I can stop being laughed at for ordering “juice wine.”

The building itself was gorgeous, and I loved the historic decor. It was also a little late for coffee by our standards, but since Le Procope was the first place to introduce it, we had to order a cup anyway. It was really good.

After lunch, we hopped on the metro and headed toward the Opera House area. There’s a perfume shop there with a perfume museum I wanted to visit.

I later learned that you can actually take a class and make your own perfume, which I wish I had known earlier! Still, the boutique was open, so I went in search of a signature scent for the trip. 

I couldn’t decide between two perfumes, so I did the only reasonable thing and bought both. One of them was their signature, so it felt necessary.

With perfumes secured, we took the metro back to the Trocadéro. We had been there on our first day but somehow managed to miss actually seeing the Eiffel Tower, so we wanted to fix that and catch it at sunset. We arrived just in time to see the first sparkle show of the evening at 6 PM. It was crowded, but we still managed to get some great photos.

We stopped by one of the nearby carts where Jordan grabbed a Coke, and after seeing someone walk by with a Nutella crêpe, I obviously had to get one too. We sat for a bit and took in the skyline, but a light drizzle started, so we moved along.

We planned to take the metro back toward the mall area, but we spotted a few cute restaurants and ducked into one with a glass-covered outdoor seating area. We ordered cocktails, waited out the rain, did some prime people-watching, and looked for restaurants for dinner.

After a few Moscow mules, we decided to call it and head back for dinner. We hadn’t needed reservations most of the week, but Friday night was a different story and everything nearby was booked. Since I wasn’t very hungry after my crêpe anyway, going back to the ramen place we’d already been to felt like the easiest option.

I ordered one of the ramen bowls I had wanted to try the first time, and Jordan ordered something that the waiter commented on after that was a great choice. I should have done the same because his soup was so good. Way better than mine, and yes, I was jealous.

We finished our drinks and headed back to start winding down for the night. We didn’t want a late start the next morning since it was our last full day in Paris, which honestly felt a little heartbreaking.