How we did Paris in a hotel with a one-year-old
Featuring favourite addresses, where we stayed and ate and tips for going avec bébé
I love a city break. And I know this might sound slightly counter-intuitive to anyone with severe wanderlust, but I especially love returning to cities I’ve visited before, more than once. I actually believe that, when you’ve already done the obligatory sight-seeing and adrenaline-fuelled guide-book grappling/rushing about, you can return to a place on a much more intimate level, and slouch around like a local without the pressure of it being ‘the first time’. That’s how you get to the really good, insidery stuff, right? A bit like a third or fourth date with someone you’re starting to like - once the polite introductions and potted histories are out the way, you can let your guard down and really have some fun. I mean, I haven’t dated anyone in over a decade, but I liked the metaphor.
Paris in particular, is brilliantly walkable, and lends itself to moseying: ducking in and out of galleries, cafes, shops, boulangeries and bars. And restaurants too, of course. It’s a city I’ve loved since the first time I visited as a sweaty, backpacking 15 year-old, tagging on a break there with a school friend after we’d left her family in Provence and travelled up by train. We felt SO grown up, staying in a hotel on our own (though sure, it was more akin to a bedsit); drinking the cheapest carafes of table wine and smoking menthol Vogues. But that’s the thing with Paris, it always makes you feel chic and fabulous, just by dint of being there - even if actually, you’re feeling rather bedraggled.
I much prefer Paris in winter, spring and autumn to the heat of high summer, and the last time we came to Paris, about five years ago, it was for a rather boozy, brilliant birthday weekend in January. We stayed at the charming, achingly cool Grand Pigalle hotel, in a beautifully designed, jewellery box sized room that had space for little else than its wonderfully comfortable bed. Which was all we needed.
Five years ago, we were child free. This time, things were going to be very different, and we weren’t sure what to expect from our return visit, with our fabulously feisty one-year-old in tow. We shouldn’t have worried. People have babies in Paris! Of course, the trip wasn’t without the odd disturbed night or stressful moment or three, but we really got into the groove of it and found that for the most part, the Parisians loved having us there avec bébé. We even rubbed shoulders with some rather hip (and handsome) Parisian parents at the children’s Carousel just behind our hotel.
And we managed to eat really well, without having to dumb down our restaurant and eating experiences all that much (though sure, late night suppers and boozy bar nightcaps are a thing of the past). Anyway, lots and lots of you were in my Instagram DMs back in February, before this Substack launched, asking me questions about our trip, where we were eating and staying and how it was going travelling with the little one, so I’ve rounded up a very special, curated list below of all my major take-aways from the trip, along with my favourite places we ate and shopped.
I’ll be working on some more of these sorts of pieces on our trips to Le Touquet, Naples and Ischia very soon. While I absolutely love writing them, these pieces are time consuming to put together, and also mean that I’m ‘on’ while we’re away (you know I can’t help myself), and so these are available exclusively to paid subscribers. Upgrade below to access the full piece along with my recipe archive. Skip to the end for the tips on travelling here avec bébé (so as to not bore the pants off the child free among you).