Toujours Paris… – Dave’s Wine Cellar

Toujours, Paris…. Always Paris.

For those who have visited Paris, returning provides another opportunity to see old friends, enjoy familiar restaurants and drink at favorite wine bars. But whether it’s a return trip or a first-time visit, the famed “City of Light” always offers chances to experience new discoveries in food, wine and culture around every corner.

My wife, Kate, and I recently made it back to Paris for the first time since the pandemic and after grappling with difficult physical challenges from a terrible motor vehicle accident in 2021.

Our eternally beautiful old friend did not disappoint with visits to Luxwmbourg Gardens, Au Petit Suisse Brasserie, and Marco Pelletier’s incomparable Vantre wine restaurant for bottles from Champagne Michel Gonet and Domaine Michel Lafarge in Bourgogne.

Luxembourg Gardens 

When possible, in Paris we like to stay on the Left Bank of the Seine River that bisects the city from east to west. We prefer to stay near Luxembourg Gardens, one of Paris’ largest urban greenspaces. Fortune smiled upon us this trip, so we were once again able to stay at Hôtel de l’Abbaye, a charming and intimate 44-room hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, just blocks away from Luxembourg Gardens.

We visited on May 8, a French national holiday marking the end of World War II in Europe. On this brilliantly sunny day, Luxembourg Gardens attracted a crowd. Parents taught children to ride bicycles, tennis enthusiasts played on the clay courts, joggers toed the gravel paths, joyful children had fun on the playgrounds and tourists snapped photographs.

Other gleeful children delighted in the P’tits Voiliers — sailing miniature antique wooden boats with colorful sails. The children use long flexible sticks to guide the twirling boats in the Grand Bassin, a large octagonal pond and fountain in the middle of the public gardens.