It was a day of walking on another 0°C day. It so happened that our pre-planned itinerary was mainly to explore the areas around our hotel. We did intend to take the metro for a stop or 2 for some places so it did not affect us much by exploring on foot except for the last venue.
A hot coffee was the best treat after a 1.3km morning walk.
Police were everywhere
A walk in the park – Jardin du Luxembourg
Had lunch at La Table in Jardin du Luxembourg
Lunch
The usually busy Rue Royale was blocked that day
Finally we reached Boulevard Haussmann
The beautiful Christmas decorations in Galeries Lafayette Haussmann.
Craved for some hot soupy dinner after a day out in the wintry Paris streets.
So we were happy to have found this Chinese eatery on our way back to the hotel.
What our step tracker reported to us at the end of the day 🙂
This time round, cheap airfare brought us to Munich. When we had decided in having Europe as our year end trip and started to look out for fare deals by Singapore Airlines, we found one to Munich.
Mid November to December is usually the blackout period (school holiday and festive month) for any promotions, so S$1,100 / passenger was a very, very good fare.
We would usually visit maximum 2 countries in a trip and as I would want very much to visit our friend & her daughter in Paris, soon after purchasing our SG-Munich-SG tickets, we bought Munich-Paris-Munich ones as well. And I was looking forward to it!
This was our “welcome gift” from our friend about 10 mins before our plane took off from Singapore.
Landed at Munich airport at 6.30am on 2 Dec. As we were making our own flight connections, we gave ample time for immigration checks and baggage collection. It was a very smooth process so we had a lot of time for a light breakfast before checking in for the next flight. In the background, it was a small scale Christmas market set up between the 2 terminals.
As we arrived at CDG airport at 11.30am, we were able to take the express RER B train from the airport to Châtelet – Les Halles. It was a very pleasant ride as we were on an almost empty train (total 4 passengers including us in our carriage) so had no problem at all with our luggage which consisted of 2 big + 1 small.
Took only about 30 mins from CDG to our hotel at Châtelet – Les Halles.
Stayed at Novotel Les Halles for its good location (which we came to really appreciate in the later part of our stay) and their service was superb as well.
We had a smooth early check-in which gave us some time to roam about before heading to our afternoon tea which we reserved for 3pm.
So good to be back to the City of Love after 13 years
Finally I got to visit my favourite tea brand which I fell in love with since 6 years ago.
Mariage Frères Marais 30 rue du Bourg-Tibourg 75004 Paris
I had the Afternoon Tea Parisien and he had the Le Burger Parisien
I chose the Christmas Tea – Noel In Love (blue tea). Earl Grey Provence for him.
Choosing a dessert from the Patisserie Chariot
Tea shopping
Our loot!
After our afternoon tea, we had a walk around Le Marais which included some more shopping and a coffee break.
Boot Café
There was a very small Christmas market next to the hotel, at Forum Des Halles. Had our first mulled wine for the trip.
Had an early night since we only caught about 6 hours sleep in total for the past 40 hours.
Had a great holiday in Paris last week and the massive strike hit right in the middle of our 5-day stay.
But everything went on well for us even though our original Paris-Munich flight on 6 Dec was cancelled. Alternative arrangement was made for us and we reached Munich as scheduled.
Now we are on our last night of our 10-day winter holiday. Enjoyed thoroughly though it was a challenge to wake up at odd hours for some days.
