Dumplings on rue de Belleville
We grab handmade dumplings from one of the Chinese spots on rue de Belleville and eat them somewhere we can sit.
Up to Parc de Belleville
We climb the steps up to the park for the best view of Paris nobody talks about. Rooftops, the tower, the whole thing.
Aux Folies
We end up at Aux Folies for a cheap drink on the terrace, where Belleville actually hangs out on a weekday afternoon.
Bouquinistes
We pick out one old book for each other from the green boxes along the Seine. Whatever catches your eye, no overthinking.
Atelier Clot
We try our hand at lithography or etching at a working print studio that's been running since 1896. We leave with something we made.
La Closerie
We settle into a corner with a glass of something and read the first page of each other's book out loud.
Galerie de Paléontologie
We wander the old skeleton hall at the Jardin des Plantes. Wooden floors, glass cases, hundreds of bones lined up like a parade.
Through the gardens
We cut through the Jardin des Plantes on the way out, taking the long alley with the plane trees if the weather holds.
Mint tea at the Mosquée
We post up in the tiled courtyard at the Grande Mosquée for sweet mint tea and a plate of pastries under the fig trees.
Hand-written, real venues. Each one links to the writeup and opens in the builder.
Paris gives you a lot to work with on a date, and most of it gets missed. These plans are concept-first: two stops that earn their place, not a checklist of things to see.
Pick one, open it in the builder to see the route on a map, tweak the stops if you want. No signup. No scheduler. Just the idea.
Shakespeare and Company
We pick out a book for each other. Something short, something we'd never buy ourselves, and we swap before leaving.
Le Petit Pontoise
A glass of wine at a quiet bistro nearby. We read the first page of whatever book the other one picked, out loud.
Galerie de Paléontologie
We wander the old skeleton hall at the Jardin des Plantes. Wooden floors, glass cases, hundreds of bones lined up like a parade.
Through the gardens
We cut through the Jardin des Plantes on the way out, taking the long alley with the plane trees if the weather holds.
Mint tea at the Mosquée
We post up in the tiled courtyard at the Grande Mosquée for sweet mint tea and a plate of pastries under the fig trees.
Into the Catacombs
We descend twenty meters under the city and walk a kilometer of bone-lined tunnels. Cold, quiet, a little unhinged.
Couscous on rue Daguerre
We resurface and eat something warm and generous on the pedestrian stretch of Daguerre, mostly to remind ourselves we're alive.
Top of Montparnasse
We ride up 56 floors for a drink with the whole city laid out below. The one Paris view that includes the Tour Eiffel.
Into the catacombs
We descend into the bone-lined tunnels under Denfert-Rochereau. Twenty meters down, six million Parisians, one very strange first hour together.
Oysters at the counter
We come back up hungry and order a dozen oysters with muscadet at a zinc counter in the 14th. Cold, briny, alive on purpose.
The speakeasy upstairs
We finish the night with cocktails in a dim room behind an unmarked door. Whisper the password, take the small staircase up.
Marché d'Aligre
We pick up whatever looks best at the market stalls, no plan, just enough for lunch for two. Cheese, bread, something seasonal.
Le Baron Rouge
We squeeze into the wine bar next door for a glass straight from the barrel while we figure out what we just bought.
Coulée verte
We carry our haul up to the elevated park above the avenue and turn it into a long, slow lunch on a bench.
Rungis at 5am
We get up absurdly early to eat onion soup with the butchers and porters at the world's biggest wholesale market.
A crate of oysters
We buy something ridiculous together before the city wakes up. A whole crate of oysters, a wheel of cheese, a bouquet the size of a child.
Back to bed, almost
We bring the haul to a café in the 13th and have a second breakfast like we've already lived a whole day. Because we have.
