Paris (Part 3) - Sacre Coeur & Moulin Rouge

Paris happened a month ago, but I am still going through my photos and, slowly but surely, getting them edited for the blog. This is part 3 of 4, so I'm nearly all done! Be sure to check out part 1 and part 2 :)

On day 5 of our holiday, we headed North to the area of Montmartre. We passed some pretty strange shop windows on our way to the Sacre Coeur...

The streets leading to the church get steeper and steeper, until you are finally met with the steps that take you to the top. There is a monorail which takes you up in no time at all, but we're not ones to take the easy way out, so up we climbed!

The stairs don't look like that much hard work, until you get halfway up! It's all worth it in the end when you are met by this glorious sacred building. We did take a wander inside the Sacre Coeur, but unfortunately no photos are allowed, so you'll just have to visit it for yourselves. The view from here was pretty spectacular too. It's a shame the Eiffel Tower is mostly hidden by trees.

More on my outfit a bit further down :)

All those steps had made us hungry, so it was back down we went, passing by the Moulin Rouge, surrounded by an array of tourist stores (and sex shops), whilst we looked for somewhere to lunch.

I really do love the Moulin Rouge, I only wish we had the time (and money) to go inside for a show. I'm definitely going to save up for my next trip. The foyer is decorated with lively photos from the evening shows, and paintings by one of my favourites, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. He captured the vibrant lifestyle so perfectly.

For lunch, my Nan and Aunty Jean both went for ham and cheese toasties, topped with a fried egg. This dish is quite popular in France, we spotted it on most menus. In French it is called Croque-Madame. There is also a version without the fried egg on top called Croque-Monsieur. Absolutely delicious! Of course I had to go for yet another créme brúlée. I've lost count which number this one was.

Across the road there was a restaurant decked out like the 1920's  which very nearly shared my name. My name is French, so it's probably not that surprising...

Dress - Joy // Cardigan - SwapAholicsUK Clothing Swap // Shoes - Matalan // Bag - New Look // Necklace - Tiffany & Co.

A few months ago, I attended a special shopping evening at Joy in conjunction with Stylist magazine. You may remember I picked up this beautiful Louche Elisha Dress. I bought it to wear to my best friends wedding in Cyprus, but I thought I'd give it a trial run in Paris first. As the weather was still a bit chilly, I paired it with some dark navy wool tights and a white cardigan that I got from a clothing swap. I do love this cardigan, but it does leave fluff on everything! My outfit was completed with these white brogues from Matalan.

Make sure you give me a follow on Bloglovin so you can see how I style this dress for the wedding in Cyprus in 3 weeks time!

We took a nice long walk back towards our apartment, passing by the Cirque d'Hiver, arriving in our neighbourhood just in time for dinner. After a little wander around the corner, we stumbled across a small but stylish restaurant, La Vache Acrobate. The decor was very hip, with drawings and sculptures by new artists hanging on the walls, and hundreds of corks lying in the window beds. This place had a lovely relaxed atmosphere, which suited us perfectly after a long day of walking, and all those stairs!

We ended our evening back at the apartment, carrying on with our puzzle over another bottle of wine.

#LandGGamesNight Outfit of the Day (OOTD)

Last week, I managed to blag myself, quite last minute, an invite to Joe's Bloggers event in partnership with Legal & General. It was a night of my 3 favourite P's - prosecco, pizza and poard games...? Rumour had it, our board game of the night would be Monopoly. After work I quickly ran home to pick up my top hat, before I headed towards Kings Cross. The night's event took place inside the Joe's Bloggers own offices, and my, these might just be the coolest offices ever!

After almost walking in to the wrong place, I spotted Charlie (who I had met at a Christmas Bloggers gathering late last year) and some other bloggers, so quickly followed them to the correct location. Upon our arrival we were each handed a glass of prosecco by the lovely Gemma, who is sadly leaving the Joe's Bloggers team *sad face*. After some mingling, and more prosecco, we were introduced to James who told us the lowdown for the evening.

There were 6 tables each with a Monopoly board all set up for us. I'd already bumped into Leanne, whom I had met at the last Joe's Bloggers event I attended, and we had decided to take the table with the retro version of this popular board game. We were joined by 4 fellow bloggers - Sorcha (of Bright Field Notes), Milly (of Mini Adventures), Emma (from Emma Inks), and Olivia (from Beauty from the Fjord) who I had also met previously last year. With our table now full, it was time to let the games begin!

The aim was to be the wealthiest blogger by the end of play at 9pm. This included all money, properties, houses and hotels. We all started off just having a general chit-chat whilst taking our turns rolling the dice and moving around the board. Halfway through, the pizza arrived. Bring on the blogger stampede!

We bloggers do love our pizza, even more so after a couple of bottles of prosecco... Once we had filled our tummies with delicious cheesey goodies, it was back to Monopoly. This was when the game really started to hot-up, with members starting to plant houses and hotels on their properties, and there was even some bargaining happening as we entered the last 30 minutes of play.

 9pm came around much too quickly, and it was time to start calculating our totals. It was clear we had a mighty winner on our table, but would she be the winner of the room...?

She would!! Having all counted up our worth, it was revealed that Leanne had come out top and was awarded first pick of the prizes - Hooray!

There was just enough time at the end for some quick outfit shots - thanks to Olivia for taking these :)

Jumper - UniQlo // Vest - Tesco // Chinos - SwapaholicsUK Clothing Swap (originally from Topman) // Shoes - Present from the parents (originally from New Look) // Scrabble necklace - Asda

My stripey jumper (yes, another one!) is from UniQlo. You may remember seeing the dress version a few weeks ago too. This jumper is a little bit shorter than I usually like, so I layered it over a jade vest top, with lace edging which I got from Tesco a couple of years ago. My navy chinos are actually from Topman but I picked them up from a clothing swap. Turns out they belonged to my old housemate! My Mum bought me the anchor print shoes for my birthday a few years back. I thought I'd stick with the board game theme and wear my Scrabble necklace which I got from Asda. Let's not forget the top hat! I was given this whilst on a night out, all because I apparently looked like Lily Allen...

I had such a fun evening and want to thank Joe's Bloggers for letting me gatecrash last minute, and to Legal & General for sponsoring the event. A massive thanks also to all the girls who I shared a table with. Next time, Operation!!

Paris (Part 1) - Notre Dame

Bonjour, and welcome to part 1 of my recent trip to Paris!

It all started with Luke coming over the night before to help me pack over a bottle of wine. No idea what I would've done without that boy! I am the worst at packing, and I end up getting stressed over what to take. The wine certainly helped with this too.

We arrived late afternoon, and after quite the fiasco with someone pickpocketing my Aunty's purse from her bag in the Metro station (we got it back!), we arrived to our new home for the week. I'd managed to book this wonderful apartment through Airbnb. It was all the mix-matched antique furniture and vibrant red decor that had really caught my eye. The first thing we did was pop open the bubbly!

Having had a rather stressful journey, we decided to enjoy a relaxing night in for our first night. Off we headed to the supermarket round the corner to buy supplies - cheese, bread, foie gras, hummus, and of course, wine. The night was still young after filling our bellies, so we went for a wander around the neighbourhood. Bastille was just a short walk down the road, we could even see the beautiful statue from our balcony. If anyone happens to know the gentleman in the picture below, contact me! His name is David and he saw me with my camera and asked if I'd mind taking his photo by the monument and emailing it to him. But me being the klutz I am, managed to lose his address - sorry David!

I woke up on our first morning in Paris and was welcomed to some delicious croissants that my Aunty Jean had kindly popped down to the bakery to buy us for breakfast. YUM! Washed and dressed, we wandered down and along the river Seine until we got to the Notre Dame. Wowee what a glorious looking building it is! It's free to go inside and the queue wasn't too long either. There was a longer queue around the side, but that's for the tour up all the steps to the top, and we weren't really feeling all too fit for that!

Tired legs and aching feet, my Nan suggested we get on a tour bus which takes us all over the City. We scoured some deals and found Foxity which do a 2 hour tour for 17Euro each. The bus literally took us round to every tourist attraction in Paris, and we listened to some really interesting facts through the headphones. If you're only in Paris for a day or 2, it really is a great way to see everything. It was however, quite difficult to get some good photos on a moving bus - apologies!

After our 2 hour rest, we were raring to start walking back towards our apartment, stopping for dinner at Le Bistrot des Vosges where I had THE best créme brûlée of the trip (and I had A LOT of this French dessert on this trip!).

Of course I managed to get some outfit shots during the day too!

I knew we'd been doing lots of walking, so my New Balance trainers from ASOS were a must! I also went for my comfy tartan slacks from H&M and my best charity shop find, cashmere Charlotte jumper by Gerard Darel. I layered this over a tropical print shirt from OASAP to add a pop of colour. As Spring hadn't quite hit Paris, my Joy coat (available in green in the sale) came everywhere with me!

Be sure to follow me over on Bloglovin to see Paris part 2 when it goes live!

Au revoir for now :)