We set out later than planned, this was to be expected. After getting in hours late the night before, thanks to being locked out of our apartment in the 13th arrondissement, unexpectedly. We explored our new neighbourhood in the late morning light. Local, not touristy in the slightest. Perfect. The night before there was some hesitation: where would we have coffee, get a good baguette, find good produce, spend hours on a patio reading? With time, these questions were answered.

With a decent amount of time in this beautiful, albeit sometimes confusing to navigate city, we decided to start with our touristy plans to orient ourselves. First on the list: La Notre-Dame Cathedral. After making our way around the 13th arrondissement for the rest of the morning, we cut across the city to hit a few spots I’d been wanting to see before arriving at the massive, historic building that is La Notre-Dame.

My dad was impatient to try his first Parisian croissant. My mom pointed to a bakery, I said let’s wait. Much to my chagrin, my hesitance was overruled by hungry family members. The impatience won and we took our newly acquired baked goods to a park. A couple of locals on their lunch breaks ate among us. It was awful, I picked around my dry, stale pastry to get to the cheesy centre and ate the processed goop I found. Blinded by hunger, those who needed to eat did, and we narrowly avoided a casualty of hanger.

Early afternoon now, and we come across a beautiful park in the middle of a more populated area. Lovers rest their heads in each other’s laps, perfectly simple picnics sprawl amongst friends, and businessmen have stepped out of their offices, removed their gorgeous leather shoes, and gotten some grass between their toes before the rest of the workday. My sister, Phoebe, fills her now-empty fresh orange juice bottle from an ornate fountain. The dark green metal structure sits atop a stand of flowers, dragons, leaves, and decorative swirls. Above this, four women in flowing robes hold a grand domed, artichoke-looking roof over their heads. The fresh water flows from the centre in a downward stream.

I guide everyone down winding, beautifully intricate dead-end streets, somehow finding my way in the right direction. The smell of bread, sewage, and floral French perfume wafts by. Since I was here most recently (seven years ago), I’ve been given the role of tour guide. Very much a blind-leading-the-blind situation. I don’t let on though, and whenever someone asks if I know where I’m going, I confidently answer: yes. This surprisingly works, because we find our way to a well-known bakery I’d heard of before. It confirms that we’re heading the right way toward La Notre-Dame and that we can redeem ourselves with a better introduction to French pastries.

I suppose by half-past one it’s too late in the day to find a truly good croissant or a baguette worth writing home about. Maybe I’m just spoiled, I think, by Bench Bakehouse: my local bakery that sources the best butter. The idea that I’m comparing croissants in Paris to the ones I eat at home in Canada feels ludicrous. My beurre et jambon is good, not great. The baguette not fresh enough, which (in my opinion) is the most important factor when searching for the perfect one.

We continue onwards, walking past and admiring the Panthéon, where Josephine Baker, amongst other important figures, is entombed.

La Notre-Dame Cathedral is under construction. The front looks the same, the back is surrounded by impressive amounts of scaffolding. I’m absolutely shocked by the difference in crowds between 2018 and 2025. The devastating fire in 2019 gave the cathedral so much publicity that it seems not one more person could fit in the courtyard outside. We try to find the end of the line to enter, but as we snake our way through the rows of people, it feels like the line is materializing in front of us. When I was here in 2018, I strolled right in. After wandering around the sparsely filled cathedral, I went outside for brioche at the tent that had temporarily occupied the courtyard for the bread festival, where hundreds of bakers proudly showed off their bounty.

We gave up on trying to enter and crossed the busy street to Shakespeare and Company. A cliché, yes, but one of my favourite bookstores ever. Seven days into the trip and I desperately need a new novel. Even this bookstore has a lineup, although nowhere near as intimidating. Inside, the magical rooms are packed with people. The “no phones, no pictures” rule helps entomb the timeless feeling this place carries. The building itself, built in the early 17th century, doesn’t hurt either.

I pick three books. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (my romantic thought process brought on by my surroundings says this feels fitting to read in this city), Pond, a book of short stories by Claire-Louise Bennett, and a book my mom had implored me to find, a novel she read many, many moons ago: Perfume by Patrick Süskind. While I have no idea how I’ll pack these or how heavy my carry-on will be, my other half reassures me over the phone that once he’s here (and I can’t wait, for more reasons than this), he’ll help me get them home. I need to stop buying books so I can fit the pair of gorgeous trousers I’m manifesting into my bag. Maybe a pair of Mary Janes too. This is outrageous.

By late afternoon, after losing track of time in the bookstore, we head down the cobblestone street to Odette: my mom’s namesake patisserie. The woman working there says she is the 201st person with that name to walk through the doors that day alone. The perfectly flavoured cream puffs, mine a vibrant, tart raspberry, give us the energy to get home.

Of course, a walk home in Paris is not just a walk home. My mom and my gatherer instincts kick in. We have a bottle of red at home, and you know what wine needs? Cheese. We stop at a fromagerie and sample an array of cheeses as the rest of the family impatiently waits. Peppercorn tomme, sheep’s milk pecorino, aged gouda. Truly an endless number of options that make decision-making very difficult. We figure it out, agreeing that for the next ten days in Paris we’ll just have to buy a piece of a different kind of cheese every day. We stop at an organic market and get two colours of zucchini and butter with fleur de sel that we’ll cook together. Halfway home, we’re drawn in by the smells coming from one of the many prepared chicken stands, and we also buy a whole chicken. We quite literally have a feast on us.

After the sun sets, we sit together as a family at the table in our apartment on the 9th floor of the building, drinking wine and eating this perfectly curated meal. Redemption for the pastries from the morning. The spotlight from the Eiffel Tower shines into the sky in the distance. The only thing that would make this better is if Malcolm were here. I’m counting down the days. What’s the city of love without your person? We eat until we’re stuffed, following in the French tradition of hedonism that, for us, will be temporary, but that we’ll enjoy to the fullest.

La fin.