And so my travel entries from Europe ends here. I can’t say I’m 100% sad that my next travel post might not be as dreamy as Paris anymore, since it took me so long to find time to post-process everything. 16 GB times 5 days in London and 5 days in Paris equals hours/days/weeks/months of going through hundreds of pictures, working my lazy butt off and working on these photos every chance I get, and deliberating which ones to show on my blog. All the sleepless nights, and finally, it’s over. For now, at least. I still have two trips worth of photos from Singapore, as well as a pending trip to Melbourne this September. Please do watch out for those posts soon! I am always the happiest every time I finish a travel photo diary. Now, if I could do this forever…

If only I could eat macarons everyday just like I did in Paris…

If I could only give a macaron to each of my readers in gratitude…

Miss Dior perfume display. Some of my favorite perfume campaigns are from Miss Dior. All the pink roses and ribbons!

Fell in love with this dress the moment I saw it. Something a grown-up Madeline or a modern Miss Clavel would wear.

French department store, Galeries Lafayette. I wasn’t able to go shopping in Paris at all (Shame on me for going all tourist-photographer mode!), but I was able to pass by for a while when my dad decided to buy a new pair of walking sandals. 

Such a temple for shopaholics. The glass dome and the interiors are quite lovely too, so don’t forget to take a picture (or don’t be like me) even if you’re not going to shop! *photography advice*

If you’ve noticed, I always post pictures of couples in my travel entries. This picture is a little different though. 

A group of young American girls hopped on the tour bus I was in and sat behind my seat. Suddenly, they started talking about a couple fighting near the bus stop, so I took a picture out of curiosity. I zoomed the photo in, and this is what I got. Drama much!

The girls behind me kept on shouting “Don’t break up with her!” in the hopes of trying to uplift the couple’s mood from… well, the top of the double decker bus we were on.

The Louvre on a busy weekend. 

My brothers Chase and Juju in front of the Louvre. 

Me looking like a giddy little girl! Dreams do come true. I’ve always wanted to visit the Louvre, especially since I took art history classes back in university. It was finally a time for me to see all these artbook staples in real life!

Details of I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid. A lot of people think that such a futuristic structure in the middle of classic French architecture looks out of place, but I kind of love how, from afar, you can totally see the marriage between the new and the old.

I don’t believe in being too stuck up about pretty old things, as long as the new ones look just as good, or even better.

Inside the Louvre. SO MANY PEOPLE! But not surprising since I’m pretty sure this place is on everyone’s bucket lists.

Winged Victory of Samothrace, or simply, Nike. This is one of the most celebrated sculptures EVER. The moment you find out that it was created way back in 190 BC, it becomes all the more worthy of celebration.

The Mona Lisa! It was surprisingly small - that is all I can say. I have a closer photo of it, but my mom told me that if I only take a photo of the painting, it could look like something that I just got off the Internet. 

So I decided to include the frame, and the glass pane protecting it as proof that I actually went to the Louvre and saw the real Mona Lisa. LOL, too extreme.

In this hall where this ceiling is, I bumped into my cousin’s girlfriend. Of all places to bump into someone you know!

And again, I heeded my mom’s advice and decided to include people in my photo. It’s a little amazing how everyone is just free to take pictures inside the Louvre. Some tourists were even using flash. SMH!

I had a totally different experience in Musee d’Orsay! There were so many guards trying to catch people taking pictures. I had to use my ninja skills again for the sake of this blog.

La Grande Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.

Jacques-Louis David’s The Coronation of Napoleon.

Some of the characters in the painting.

From the same artist, The Intervention of the Sabine Women. Leader of the Sabines, Hersilia, is that iconic woman in the white dress.

Venus de Milo!

The famous armless statue. The epitome of Classical beauty. 

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss.

Michaelangelo’s unfinished marble structure, Dying Slave.

Vermeer’s The Astronomer.

Van Eyck!

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ Turkish Bath.

The Louvre from a higher place. Fans of The Da Vinci Code would love this!

The weather was pretty good and our tour bus stopped at the most convenient places, so I was finally able to take a lot of photos of random people walking by. 

I love this couple’s fashion!

Notre Dame Cathedral, home of hunchback bell-ringer Quasimodo! :) 

Matching stoles.

Love her outfit so much! Totally something I would also wear, especially the pants.

A man selling souvenirs by the street.

Mazarin Basilica.

Oops, I got caught! But it’s still a good picture nonetheless. I love everyone’s fashion in Paris. No doubt it is the fashion capital of the world.

These girl friends had matching shoes. How adorable!

Musee d’Orsay restaurant.

Sacre Coeur through clock at Musee D’Orsay! 

Picture taking is prohibited in most areas of Musée d’Orsay… 

…unless you are a ninja like me! It’s absolutely gorgeous inside the Musée d’Orsay d’Orsay - these pictures don’t do it any justice. 

This museum was formerly Gare d’Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. Nowadays, we know it for its collection of impressionist and post-impressionist works of art. Here are some of the paintings I was able to see with my very own eyes:  Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone Arles and The Church at Auvers, Édouard Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia, and Gustave Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio.

Fangirled a little inside every time I saw an iconic painting! 

One of my lucky pictures of the inside of the museum.

One of the sections housed Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde or The Origin of The World… also known as that very bold close-up painting of a woman’s genitals. In the same area, a group of little kids were having an art session for school. Interesting choice of location, teacher!

National Assembly, where the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France is.

Paris, it’s so annoying that you are so breathtakingly beautiful! Such a dream! I wish I could visit you every year.

Traffic building up.

A close-up of the Luxor Obelisk in Place de la Concorde.

Blue and brown + glasses = always a smart combination.

Madeleine!

Flowers on tall trees that were being blown by the strong winds. It’s so fun being able to take pictures from a double decker bus. Gives you a totally different perspective of a certain place.

Al fresco at Avenue des Champs-Élysées! Perfect day to have afternoon tea and macarons.

The famous giant Louis Vuitton store along Champs-Élysées.

Cartier building.

Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile.

On a different day, the French flag in the middle was removed, but one of the sculptures suddenly got a red scarf. I wonder who gets to decide what to do with all these pieces of cloth.

Mother and daughters taking a walk.

La Tour Eiffel from Trocadero.

Ahh, to be able to ride a bike in Paris…

Close-up of the Eiffel Tower. Did you know that this monument is the most-visited paid monument in the world? 

Le Carousel!

If earlier I had a photo of a mother with her daughters, here’s a photo of a father and his sons!

Me looking rather disheveled because of the wind… but it’s the freaking Eiffel Tower in the background! *happy dance*

My brothers Calel, Juju and Chase. OT, but do we look like one another?

So many people going to and from the Eiffel Tower. 

The Beautiful Life.

L’Hôtel national des Invalides. 

The chapel at Invalides.

Napoleon’s Tomb.

Spot the old lady in red! This is one of my favorite pictures ever. I got lucky!

Moulin Rouge.

Sacré Cœur, in English, means Sacred Heart. 

On our way to La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, which is a church on top of a hill. Again, brown and blue + glasses + book = <3 (I’m such a stalker!)

The view of the city from the top of Montmartre, where many artists such as Salvador Dalí, Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh used to have their own studios.

People were free to perform in the area. 

Coincidentally, the Relic of St. Therese was in this church the day we visited this place. They were having a really long mass (in French though) with hundreds and hundreds of people, so my family and I decided to drop by and pray as well.

The way to Montmartre.

Art Nouveau detail on the Metro sign, and a man with nice shiny shoes.

Ideal clear blue sky.

Had mass at this church as well!

People outside the church looking like they were so ready to have their photo taken.

Two women crossing the street, wearing bright red color accents.

Dinner time at La Contrescarpe. It was my parents’ 28th wedding anniversary, and my mom’s student from Ateneo, Frédéric, reserved a table for us at this restaurant.

I swear I felt like I gained a hundred pounds in Paris. But how can you not eat your heart out when authentic French cuisine is readily available everywhere?

My parents said our food expenses in Paris were double our London food expenses. That says something, yes?

Dramatic lighting calls for an equally dramatic photograph. Sorry if it’s contrived. I couldn’t help it!

The restaurant’s special menu.

Al fresco. It was too cold in the evening though, so we decided to dine inside. I need to grow another layer of skin - I am so bad with lower temperatures. :(

The Dandy Warhols were performing at some place near our hotel.

On our last free day in Paris, we went to Champs-Élysées in the hopes of doing some serious shopping. However, we totally forgot it was Labor Day, and almost all the stores turned out to be closed. So what did my family do for a whole day? What else but eat! Luckily, the original Ladurée was open and was serving customers as usual. If you haven’t heard of this place before, they are only the inventor of the double-decker macaron, and they sell about 15,000 every single day. Definitely one of the highlights of my whole Paris trip was being able to taste Ladurée macarons. 

A fitting ending to a long travel post, yes? I hope you guys liked this entry as much as I enjoyed working on it! <3

(I’m actually updating from Singapore right now, leeching wifi from CBTL Ion Orchard!)