For Christmas RJ gifted me a trip to France! We ended up planning it so that it was the week of my birthday so we could spend my birthday in Paris! We also explored the Loire Valley and stayed in stunning Châteaus throughout this wine region!
Paris
Where we stayed:
Hilton Paris Opera – Nice overall, beautiful hotel lobby, not the best walking location to be able to walk to things like the Louvre and Eiffel Tower, but it was an easy metro ride to get to anywhere we wanted to be.
Hotel Bel Ami – Loved, amazing location in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, great walking location to good restaurants, shopping, things to see.
What we did:
We walked all over the city, explored the Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Montmatre, had a picnic under the Eiffel Tower, walked through the Jardin des Tulleries, around the Louvre, along the Seine.
Where we ate:
Francette – super cute restaurant on a boat in the seine (the boat doesn’t move), it has a stunning view of the Eiffel Tower and we got to see it turn on and start to sparkle!
Pink Mamma – delicious for lunch, very filling, get there early to get in line even if you have a reservation, the best seats are the highest in the restaurant and they seat each level first come first serve.
Le Jules Verne – Michelin Star restaurant! INCREDIBLE experience eating in the Eiffel Tower! We loved the 5 course tasting menu, the food was to die for and the view was equally amazing. We went here on my birthday and it was by far the best birthday dinner I’ve ever had!
Find a local bakery to get croissants and espresso in the mornings!
Sit under the Eiffel Tower and have a picnic!
Loire Valley
Where we stayed:
Château du Grand-Lucé – AMAZING, best place we’ve ever stayed! The grounds, the rooms, the service, the food – all was five star! If you get the chance to go here… DO IT! Also, a stunning wedding venue!
Hôtel Restaurant Domaine de la Tortinière – Cute château, we stayed in the “pavilion” and the room was nice but nothing amazing. The restaurant was delicious though!
Chateau d’Artigny – Would have been really great had it been warmer outside so we could have gone to the pool and spend more time outside on the grounds. Restaurant was very, very good! Room was relatively small but the overall the chateau was beautiful!
What we did:
Château de Villandry – Gorgeous gardens that you can spend a long time walking around, also a very cute town where we stopped for lunch after touring the chateau and gardens.
Les Maisons Rouges – Very authentic wine tasting, the building looks nothing like americanized wineries, the winemaker was very french and was the one who gave us the tasting and explained all about the wines to us. We loved the wine and bought two bottles!
Château de Chambord – HUGE castle with massive grounds to explore. If we had more time we could have spent several hours exploring everything, they have food and drinks and lots of activities to do. This was one of the most touristy things we did in the Loire Valley. Get there early to beat a lot of the crowds!
Where we ate:
We ate breakfast and dinner every night at the restaurants in the chateau which were all incredible! We had amazing authentic french food and the most incredible french wines! Lunches we ate in smaller towns while we were exploring the chateaus and little french towns!
For Christmas RJ got me a trip to Paris and to France we decided to line it up with my birthday so that we we could spend my birthday in Paris first hotel that we stayed at was the Hilton Paris Opera we got some champagne and it had
This gorgeous Lobby we spent the first day in Paris just exploring we saw the shamp we saw the arc to Triumph and we had dinner at franet which was on a boat on the sun and we got to see the Eiffel Tower Sparkle and it was the most
Magical first day in Paris Paris day two day two in Paris obviously started off with finding some croissants so we had those for breakfast and then we actually met up with my friend Jamie who is currently living in Paris and she had the day off of work so we decided to
Have a little picnic underneath the Eiffel Tower which is one of my favorite things to do in Paris we got a full spread wine cheese meat strawberries champagne all the things and it ended up being so perfect until it started pouring down rain which honestly was an
Event in and of itself scared off all the tourists so we ended up having the Eiffel Tower all to ourselves once the rain stopped I forced RJ to film some amazing Tik toks of me shout out to my Ig husband he is the best and we just
Spent the rest of the day exploring just walking around staying dry as much as possible it was a bank holiday so things were closed for the most part but the city was still absolutely magical we ended up having some espresso martinis at our next hotel which we stayed at was
The hotel Bellamy which was beautiful and we ended the night with a little dinner that I forgot to film the next day was my birthday and R.J made amazing reservations for the whole day so we started off at pink mama had some amazing Pizza and Pasta this was up by m
And the sakur so we explored that area saw where Mulan Rouge was L I had this adorable pink outfit that I absolutely loved cute little set from newly but the rest of the day we explored all of Paris walked around saw Muse D spent time walking around the
Jan and the Lou um this also I feel like there were not that many tourists around the Loof it was crazy so we got to take some really cute photos together we didn’t actually go inside any the museums we just wanted to explore and kind of walk around but then that night
RJ made us a reservation Atul which is a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower and it is a Michelin star restaurant and let me tell you this experience did not disappoint it was absolutely the best birthday dinner I’ve ever had hands down we did the five course tasting menu y’all this cheese
Was the best cheese we’ve ever had in our whole lives like it was so good we had wine champagne all the amazing food and left the restaurant absolutely stuffed but so so happy it was truly the most magical birthday I could have ever imagined and just the perfect ending to
Our trip in Paris and then we were off to the lir valley to explore Wine Country we are on our way to the lir valley like guess we’re technically in the lair Valley already we’re on our way to our chatau and y’all we’ve been driving and there are these insane fields of yellow flowers we don’t for sure know what they’re called but they are like neon
Yellow and they are so stunning and so beautiful and we just cannot wait to get there we should be there in about 45 minutes hopefully we had quite the Adventure getting out of Paris in our rental car today but we didn’t we did rent a manual car RJ is a champion and
Drove through Paris with a manual car and it was insane but we made it and yeah did Paris was amazing literally had the best time ever we had dinner at I Tower last night which was amazing like 10 out of 10 would recommend more like
20 out of 10 would recommend like it’s a must do the food was amazing the atmosphere was amazing thing just everything was chef’s kiss so anyway this guy crushing the birthday Christmas trip that we’re on right now so yeah anything you’d like to say about get an
Automatic get an automatic rental car if you do choose to rent a car in France Europe wherever Paris traffic sucks Paris traffic sucks and it was you know just like I said an adventure but we made it here we are we’re doing great we’re doing great so yay the reason we
Chose the lir valley is because my favorite wine sanser is from there and we wanted to stay at some different chat do some wine tastings and just see a different part of France so when finding places to stay RJ managed to find this incredible place called Chateau Du Gran
L and when I tell you guys that this was the most amazing Place we’ve ever stayed I am not lying like it really felt like a castle we felt like a king and queen this is the entrance I mean you cannot tell me that it doesn’t get prettier
Than that they greeted us with champagne from the region which was absolutely delicious and they had us have lunch in this little sitting room drawing room I forget I think there was a name for it like the star room or something like that but it was incredible we had
Several different drinks I had an AAL Spritz RJ had I think a Negroni and it was just just amazing we felt like we were being treated like royalty here we also learned that we were one of two guests staying here that night so the Chateau has 19 rooms and so it was
Completely empty basically we were only ones here so we had lunch in the drawing room and I had this amazing salad our day had some delicious pasta and then we got to exploring our room which they actually gave us a room upgrade which was so so nice they let us choose which
Room we wanted either the original one that we booked or this other room that had a beautiful view of the garden so obviously we chose the garden vi room it was also much bigger just a little bit nicer and then they greeted us with a little welcome basket which was so so
Sweet had some wine in there and some other little goodies that we got to take home and then we decided to explore the grounds the grandite is to die for like to die for this is is unbelievable unbelievable like just what where are we we’re in heaven we’ve landed in
Heaven wait babe come here this I’m aware it’s adorable look at my handsome husband he’s so cute we’re definitely taking the bike down so we’re about to go I think on a bike ride we need to go find where to fetch the bikes they also said we could
Go horseback riding and have a cooking class which wait they said horseback riding yeah she said horseback riding we were supposed to go on a hot air balloon ride but apparently cuz too windy out so they said no they offered us a helicopter ride probably not gonna
Happen I think we’ll save the helicopter for like Hawaii or someplace but horseback ride does sound kind of fun we think that they have a wedding here tomorrow which is why we’re only able to stay one night SL it’s also quite expensive you $1,000 a oh there are the
Bikes do you think we need to tell someone or think we just take them uh I don’t know You we’re on these electric bikes ebikes yeah ebikes riding through the grounds of Chateau L 80 acres RJ wanted to ride against this wall but it seemed sketchy so I vetoed you know what we’re exploring we are exploring cute in your bwin Helmet dinner just ourself the shat going to say it’s dreamy it’s very dreamy had a wonderful day mhm Perfect 10 out of 10 would recommend yeah the most delicious wine we’ve had actually know it might be the best wine of all time so good so good so good and delicious
Cheeses and the most beautiful view and A din room to house I don’t know what you’re saying yeah I don’t know what that means but I like it Bon means yeah know I got it big I don’t know what that means it’s like my love my cutie M some one this Wine D
Elicious that’s my word dankalicious and but I can’t say Gas out here drinking our amazing wine at the chatau truly this is amazing sh is incredible look at these gorgeous grounds I mean you can’t see that detailed babe you can’t no but you can understand the concept M Winery ter deu it means land of the chosen
One and I know that because we looked it up we did look it up this wine is bomb.com yeah it’s super good we looked it up on their website it’s delicious you cannot ship it to the US you have to buy it in France which is quite unfort
So we might buy in France and we might might sh it home ship some home they also gave us a lovely duck of cards in our room when they did the turn down service which is like just so cute apparently they used to play cards a lot
In the olden days when this Chateau was like built this is the Bon De delus and anyway they said have fun playing cards with Leo so that’s what we’re going to do day two at Chateau gr L and this is the ball room where they host like the reception part of weddings
Like dancing the band I’m sure but look at these chandeliers like those are epic and these fabulous like drapes on the side I mean this is so epic I bet these are so beautiful when they get turned on we very sad to leave today so sad so sad
We have a wedding starting tomorrow which we’d like to just stay for it and just be the replacements for someone whoever is decided to not show although if you don’t show up for a wedding at this place you’re so stupid cuz it’s beautiful and everyone has been so nice
We had an amazing breakfast in the cute pink room we’ve had a we’ve had our meals in all different rooms around the chatau which has been so fun and now we’re just exploring the grounds before we have to head out to our next chatau which also looks beautiful so super
Excited to see that one and I think we’re going to go try a winery here be fun we are driving through the gorgeous French Countryside on our way to a winery called Leon h sh wow that sound pretty good that sound pretty good we had the most amazing time at
Chat of G I would recommend like 12 out of 10 times literally if I could go 100 out of 10 times like it was amazing they were so so kind like everyone there was incredible we got to see several different of the rooms that they have each room is different they all have
Different themes and they’re all stunning like simply stunning so we’re excited to be on our way to our next Chateau kind of wish we could have stayed at Grand L for quite some time but um we’re off to see some more of the valley so yay if you get the
Chance to go to gr L say please go please please go like I think we’ll be recommending that to people only the right people though people people that will appreciate it for the rest of our lives cuz it’s that amazing this is so cute through here I mean frenchiest little French
Town yeah this isn’t like French Countryside town I don’t know what is I love It We made it to our next Chateau having a little snack we are here at domain probably completely butchering the pronunciation pronunciation of that but we are drinking this wine and y’all went to this Vineyard today it was straight up looked like could be a condemned Shack like it was so run down
And like definitely like show up and you probably thought to yourself like oh I’m going to get murdered here like it was insane it called Le and it was an experience the most French man julan take took us upstairs to taste some wine told was all about
Like the earth and the ground that these wines were grown in and we loved the wine so much so we bought two bottles so we are drinking this white and it’s uh D le which I think is the Rocks we need to like like in the Rocks the not rocks one
No this is the the like L the the smaller rocks no this is the big rocks yeah but it goes through the small rocks to get to the big rocks we’ll come back to you on [Laughter] that who knows but this wine we’re interpreting it the way we want
Delicious um yeah it’s really good I don’t like white wine and it’s delicious yeah so that’s saying a lot apparently Le is a very popular or like um well-known Winery in the region which you wouldn’t know that from the outside no and if you Google the photos that is
Essentially what it looks like um in real life the yeah IG verse reality is it’s reality it’s it is what it is my French sucks yes so Lindsay is also pretty good at French so she was able to translate for me I tried as best I could
So if you’re ever in La lir Valley go check out Le for a very unique but super super super super authentic wine tasting cheers Salo Salo is that French mhm cool we are exploring Castle sh pleas so fun wish should we go Say These stairs are in freaking sane I think it’s easier going down yeah they’re like so tilted and slanted and so Steep so beautiful we are now exploring the gardens Le and some M of everything this is cool you can see the cute little town you see so much out here we are out here on a straight up hike back in these Gardens this is called the badier yeah unsure what that
Is other than it being a vodka but apparently it also means gorgeous Woods I don’t know but this is stunning we’re walking off all the wine we drink last right all the wine is delicious you actually feel fine today it’s so pretty and green and Lush smells so fresh RJ can’t stop touching
Things National Treasure if I rotate the orb enough a secret door will open wouldn’t that be oh see I told you Ridiculous so this is beautiful and this is where we’re staying for the next two nights nights we’re super Excited we are on our way to Sho shamb board we are going to be there in about 30 seconds I can see the points of the Castle this Castle looks like it’s going to be insane we actually decided that we are going to fly home tonight instead of
Tomorrow we just didn’t have really anything on the agenda tomorrow and the Chateau that we were staying at um was super nice but didn’t really have like a ton around it so we just decided to hit sham board on our way back to Charles deal and yeah I’m excited to get to see
This fabulous Chateau it’s it’s been literally the most amazing week ever such an incredible birthday trip thanks babe you’re welcome but yeah we’re doing one last sightsee and then calling it a day update it’s Massive this is insane [Applause] cool just a casual Castle behind me what I would hang out up here all the time if I was a princess those are some pretty Gardens just a small little something something hey babe is this our summer Castle our summer chatau yeah just bought it just here for the
Summer isn’t that nice we’re just doing a little bit of work on it no biggie