Vegan traveling in Paris.

My absence from blogging over the past two weeks was because we were on holiday.  My husband and I have traveled extensively throughout Europe in the past, pre-kids, but my teenagers and my father had never been.  We had planned this trip for years and booked it about 7 months ago.  We traveled to 4 countries, each of which I will do a separate blog post about to provide as much information as I can along with many, many photos.  Forgive me now.

First, Sunday morning I got up and ran 19 miles then came home and headed to the airport.  We left from Philadelphia at 6 pm on Sunday evening and arrived in CDG Paris on Monday morning at 6 am.  I had only managed about 1 hour and a half of sleep on the plane but knew we had to plug through our first day. Get enough sleep that first night and beat the jet lag.  Plan worked nicely.

We rented an AirBnB  to accommodate our family of 5 and to experience life more like a Parisian.  It worked out nicely choosing an apartment that had two bedrooms and a living room that had a pullout couch.  Our plan was to stay 3 nights allowing plenty of time to explore and show everyone around to the highlights of Paris.

This was my view from our kitchen.

Exploring the city we used the Paris Pass.  I highly recommend it.  It allows tickets into museums, hop on and off buses, unlimited access to the tube (subway system), boat tours along with other benefits.

The Louvre.  Home to the most incredible art pieces, sculptures and the infamous Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci.  The building itself if a piece of artwork.

Still magnificent as I remember.

Panoramic shot outside of the the Louvre. 

Then we popped over to Notre Dame, which is one of my favorites and then the locks of love bridge.  They have removed all of the locks from the bridge due to safety/weight but allow people to place locks on the sides of the bridge and other smaller bridges throughout the city.

And the beautiful rose window inside.

Our Paris Pass also included a Seine River tour which we took in the evening to see the Eiffel tower and Notre Dame lit up.

Locks of love bridge.  And yes we did place a lock and throw the key in the Seine River per tradition.

And of course, the pièce de résistance…. The Eiffel Tower.  Still as magnificent as I remembered.

Walking to the Arc de Triumph and the Champs-Élysées.

I highly recommend taking the stairs to the top of the Arc to gain a whole new perspective of the city.

Champs-Élysées is the shopping mecca of Paris.  One of our favorite shops was Ladurée for macaroons.

Okay let’s discuss food.  Parisian food for a carnivore is delightful.  But as a vegan that’s also gluten free – it was quite challenging.  We found one or two places that were willing to accommodate our diets.  I wanted to share two wonderful meal examples.  Other than that… they do offer vegetarian food that is loaded with dairy products.  I do believe that they are making headway but I personally found it difficult to navigate.  And considering I came home 5 lbs lighter… evidence was on the scale.

Now my family consists of straight up carnivores, to df/gf, to vegan and to vegan/gf.  Finding restaurants was a compromise and admittedly, I did eat my share of Vega bars and almonds that I packed for the trip.

I also committed to running in each city that we traveled to.  Our one run that we did in Paris took us along the Seine River in just eyeshot of the Eiffel Tower.  It was lovely.

Eating at a cafe on our first day and some other random shots.

In conclusion of Paris, I loved it so much more this trip – 19 years later. I loved seeing it through my girls’ eyes.  My oldest was able to experience a glass of wine at dinner as she was old enough.  The city was very busy and we certainly kept up with all of our walking.  We averaged about 20k steps per day there.  We also enjoyed the boat tour and the bus with most travel done on the tube which helped our jet lagged tourists.

Au revoir Paris.  Until next time.  Sealed with a kiss on the Pont de Neuf.

— Knead to Cook