Bastille Day

Here are a few photos from Bastille Day last week. After jumping on a couple of Velibs, we cycled down to the 5th to lunch at one of my favourite burger joints, Loulou. We wandered the streets of Saint Germaine, as it's not an area I often get down to, being south of the river an' all. As it was with my London days, I'm a north of the river girl, or Right Bank as it's called in Paris. We walked all the way to Coutume Café, where we stopped for one of Rachel's irresistible cheesecakes and iced lattes. 

Having a packed a blanket, just in case - we then headed over to Champ de Mars to check out the crowd situation in front of the Eiffel Tower. At 5pm it was already heaving, but we managed to find a small spot so decided to camp out and wait for the fireworks. While fighting others off we managed to hold the fort for 5 other friends who joined us armed with rosé, baguettes, cheese and cold meats, so we could enjoy the evening with full bellies. The crowd got gradually bigger (if that was possible) as we waited in anticipation for the firework display. As the sun set against a backdrop of the iron lady and to a soundtrack of classical music ranging from Gershwin to Tchaikovsky, the clock finally struck eleven and the light display began, lighting up the sky for an intoxicating 40 minutes, in what was the best firework show I've ever seen in my life. You can see a snippet of the show on my Instagram here.  If you haven't seen them, I urge you to coincide a trip to Paris on Bastille Day, it truly is a feast for the eyes and ears!