289.✓France–Eat a Croissant at a Cafe in Paris
In Canada the breakfast of champions is a cigarette and Timmy Hortons In Britain it’s a plate of food that could kill you but in France it is a coffee and a croissant. How can you not love something like that – it seems so beautifully French. That’s why it’s on my bucket list, because of how beautifully French it is.
In the morning there’s nothing that can beat a warm crunchy croissant with a nice latte …other than maybe a Tim Hortons double-double. At least that’s what I’m thinking when it’s what feels like –5 degrees in the centre of Paris! The sun is still low – just barely cutting across the tops of the classic European style brick tiles. It’s beautiful, wandering through the city of Paris before the sun comes up.
Me and Rachael are looking for a beacon of warmth and food before we wander around the Louvre for the morning, and after about 15 minutes of aimlessly wandering towards the general direction of the Louvre we make it to this tiny café. Two people are working like busy bees making beautiful pastries and saying good morning to the locals just heading to work. As we walk into the café I could tell that we stick out like a sore thumb, like tourists. A kind portly French woman looks us up and down and says bonjour in a deep accent. I cough to clear my throat and say bonjour back and in broken French ask if we can look around. I noticed that their croissants are beautiful and the pain au chocolat even more so.
We decide to get one butter croissant and one pain au chocolat with two coffees, so I ask politely and she passes me the pastries and coffee. I quickly paid and realised it cost an arm and a leg but that’s what Paris is like. Rachael pulls her cell phone out and starts looking through Google maps to find our way to the Louvre. As we start sipping on our coffees we realise that it’s gotten cold because it’s so chilly out but we make it to the Louvre after 10 minutes or so. There’s absolutely nobody there from the back except a couple of joggers and a crap-load of pigeons working on trying to steal our croissants. We eventually make it to a nice little park bench sitting in a courtyard so we sit down and give each other a kiss before slowly and patiently eating our croissant and drinking our coffees. It seems so French! The bitterness of the coffee and the crispy yet soft croissant is absolutely insane! But all too short in life the croissant was finished and so was the coffee, so now it’s time for us to go to Louvre.
Moral of the story are that croissants are good!
