Professional translation and French private lessons in the Bay Area, CA
Est. 2014
January '15: I was in Paris for Christmas 2014. Have a look at some pictures to get a taste of France during the holiday season!
Le Quai des Orfèvres et la Tour Eiffel
Place de la Concorde et la Grande Roue
L'Arc de Triomphe et les Champs-Elysées
La Bûche de Noël, a traditional dessert for Christmas, prepared by Grandma.
French Food, sooo good!
Lenôtre starter
April '15: One of my students and I share the same birthday date. Since we had a lesson on that day, I decided to cook us some crêpes to celebrate after!
How to make crêpes...
Summer '16: I spent a month in France that summer and had the chance to visit le Pont du Gard, in the South of the country, and le Château de Fontainebleau, 60km south Paris.
Christmas '16: I travelled back to Paris for the holiday season and also spent a few days in Nice, where the weather felt more like the Californian one!
At L'Eclair de Génie, an address I highly recommend if you want to eat the best éclairs on Earth!
Nice et la promenade des Anglais
August '18: I had not been in France for a year and a half when I went to Paris for a friend's wedding. I just stayed for a week, but I took the chance to go visit Painter Claude Monet's house and gardens and his famous water lilies. I also spent an afternoon in Versailles Castle's gardens to shoot my 1st YouTube video in English.
Christmas '18: Sometimes when you leave the country you were born in, you feel you've missed out on a few things. Being a tourist in France has now become a pleasure and I try each time to either go somewhere I've never been to or treat myself with culinary pleasures I often miss here.
This time around I went back to Versailles in the evening to attend a ticketed event after the castle closed to the public. In groups of approximately 150, we were entertained by actors in period costumes and practically got the Hall of Mirrors (la Galerie des Glaces) to ourselves.
Among the numerous "foodie moments" I've had, there was this traditional stop at Léon de Bruxelles, a restaurant chain that serves mussels Belgian style. I don't understand why it is so hard to find mussels here in the Bay Area when we live so close to the ocean. And when we do they are ridiculously pricey and not really fleshy.
I'm also a tea lover and I would like to recommend the amazing French brand Mariage Frères that offers delicate, exquisite and elegant tea. They have several restaurants where you can savor meals cooked with tea or just enjoy tea time.
Finally, my journey to visit friends and family took me for the first time to Lille, in the north of the country. It's a small city with a charming old town square, unfortunately it rains a lot over there.
La Galerie des Glaces à Versailles
Aren't these big mussels appetizing?? :)
Plenty to choose from at Mariage Frères
...and delicacies to eat. Your palate will thank you!
Crying sun in Lille...
No wonder why!
Bonus: seen near the Champ de Mars by the Eiffel tower, here in the clouds. This pretty cute bike literally looks like a tourist trap though!
Summer '21: Well, we all know what happened in March 2020, something called COVID, right? I had planned like many to go to France during the summer but like many I had to cancel (other things happened in 2020, seriously who liked that year??!). I was able to go in 2021 and decided to stay for 5 weeks to make up for 2020. That amount of time both allows you to enjoy friends and family, and to move around a bit without looking like a wreck after! I went to a lot of places in the South, including Nîmes and a few very cute villages that are quite famous and absolutely gorgeous. And of course, I went to have a look at Notre Dame de Paris, that had burnt in April 2019, and got plenty of those delicacies you can only find in 'le pays de la gastronomie' !
Nîmes
Tourette-sur-Loup, a gorgeous village with a few shops you just visit by foot. They have a little store specialized in products made with violet: gin, soap, incent, candy... anything violet, a favorite!
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, an impressive citadel full of charm that you also exclusively visit by foot. Amazing views on the Méditerranée, lots of shops by local artists and cute stores.
Aigues-Mortes, a big village with towers and fortification all around dating back to the 13th century. Very touristic but totally worth visiting.
Uzès, another charming village with a castle.
And we're back to Paris for a few very famous monuments and places! Here it's Le Jardin du Luxembourg. From there, you can have an amazing unexpeted view of Montmartre in the back.
Le Sacré Coeur and a view of the Eiffel tower and the famous Parisian roofs from Montmartre. On the left is Saint-Jean de Montmartre Church, famous for its Art nouveau.
​
The mythic Louvre and the gorgeous Opéra Garnier.
​
La place Vendôme, Notre-Dame under reperation, and croissants and paints au chocolat (called 'chocolate croissants' here) at a traditional bakery. Did you know that the name for "pain au chocolat" was part of a linguistic controversy?
People in the South of France call it "une chocolatine" when in the North it's called "un pain au chocolat". People really disagree on this one!!
​
PS: Did you see the price in Euros???
Summer '22: I was back to France for a few weeks. I enjoyed some trips abroad, and of course I ate a lot of good food, did some shopping, and saw beautiful new places. As usual, with France! One trip is never enough...
OMG, look at these amazing loaves of bread at the baker's! I felt like a real tourist, taking pictures of what they had in store while I had never done so when I lived there. And this waffle? This is THE REAL Belgian waffle, far from what you can find in supermarkets in the US, or even almost impossible to bake this size home with the molds sold here. Yum. MIAM in French!
I was back at the Eiffel Tower, this time to experience lunch at the restaurant Le Jules Verne, on the 2nd floor. We went for our anniversary with my husband, and it was one of the highlights of our trip! It is expensive, but the food is incredible, the service is on top, and the views of Paris are breathtaking. You get a real VIP experience going there, you cannot regret it.
And last but not least, I was recommended to go visit La Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and it is absolutely gorgeous inside, I cannot believe I had never heard of it before living in the US. Above you can also see a picture of Le Panthéon, not so far. You can enjoy the streets of Le quartier latin on a beautiful day.
Oct/Nov '24: It had been a while since I had been in France in the Fall season. It can be extremely cold sometimes, and quite rainy. But I was really lucky as it barely rained when I was there (it snowed right after I left though, only the 8th time since 1958 that it snowed in November in Paris!). This time around, I went to the Salon du Chocolat, an annual international event I had been wanting to attend for a good decade! There you have close to 100 merchants specialized in chocolate, pastries and sweet delicacies. Of course you can buy, but you can also admire chocolate sculptures, attend cooking shows and interviews, visit exhibits AND watch the most coveted moment of the salon: the fashion show with dresses made out of chocolate! I also went to famous monuments I had never visited: les Invalides (a large complex of buildings where you can notably find Napoléon's grave), and le Musée d'Orsay (popular for its magnificent clocks). I also walked through Paris's covered passages, which are shopping galleries built within 19th century buildings. And finally, I went to have tea time at Cédric Grolet's, close to the Galeries Lafayette, a gorgeous mall with all the possible luxury brands.
Le Salon du Chocolat.
Les Invalides, with Napoléon's tomb. The colors you can see on the rotunda and columns are due to light effects during the immersive experience named "Aura".
Le Musée d'Orsay.
Cédric Grolet's pastry shop and café. An extremely popular place with quite expensive but absolutely delicious pastries! Making a reservation is a necessity if you want to eat there.
Les Passages couverts de Paris (covered passages).
The unmissable Galeries Lafayette. They even have their own VAT refund service!
Between Notre-Dame and La Sainte Chapelle, you can find this lovely flower market dating back to 1808. Small but very charming!
Of course, a view of the Eiffel Tower at night! It sparkles every hour for 10min.
The parisian subway (le Métro).
If you like perfume, France is the place to get some. And here is a picture of a small portion of a Sephora in the outskirts of Paris. I wanted to show you how better it is to shop there than here: hundreds of choices (contrary to Ulta or Sephora US), all accessible with sample and for purchase, without any vendor behind a counter pressuring you to buy!!! (contrary to Macy's, Neiman Marcus and alike)
One of the emblematic 'Colonnes Morris' that usually show advertisement.