Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Spring Boutique (Paris, France)

It was such a gorgeous day in Paris that we decided to park the car and walk. We wanted to visit the Spring Boutique in the 1st arrondissement before having lunch.


Walking past the Seine River.


Crossing one of the most prettiest squares in Paris; Place Dauphine. It lies literally right in the center of Paris on the I’le de la Cite, in the 1st arrondissement. It is called a square, but is really triangular in shape.


The lovely restaurants & cafés in the Place Dauphine.


Spring Boutique is the off spring from the Restaurant Spring.

Restaurant Spring...from Le Figaro to the Michelin - many many people and critics adore this little restaurant that used to be tucked away in the ninth arrondissement (it just re-opened in the 1st arrondissement a couple months ago and the Spring Boutique is a few meters away). From the press, apparently it is one of the most surprising dining experiences you'll find in Paris. For a start, the chef is not French but American. Anyway, we have not had the time to try the restaurant yet (but we will do very soon); but we decided to see what Spring Boutique was like first.


The boutique had a wide selection of the best & finest foods in France.


You name it; Spring Boutique had it, from spices, sauces, jams, honey, candy, sausages, herbs, etc, etc, etc.


A wide selection of Natural & Organic wines from every region of France. The boutique was nice; but what was unique was the amount of Americans who kept coming & going into the shop to browse or talk to the sales person. Spring of course has a huge following of Americans living in Paris which is not surprising since the chef of Restaurant Spring is an American.


After looking around Spring Boutique; we were getting hungry so we started walking towards the restaurant that we had chosen for that day.

We crossed the Pont des Arts foot bridge with the beautiful Institut de France building in the background.


This was a unique sight. At first we did not know why hundreds & hundreds of different locks were on the fence. As we got closer for a better inspection; some of the locks had writing or etchings on them, with quotes as....'forever love', 'our love locked forever' or ' George & Stephanie forever', etc. Then it hit us on the head...we understood; the locks were 'Love Locks'. Leaving a love lock on the fence and throwing the key into the Seine River (if you had that kind of lock) was a symbol of eternal love. So sweet but at the same time so sickening that we wanted to throw up.


Another view of the Seine River. Paris is just the most gorgeous city on earth!

52 Rue de l'Arbre Sec
75001 Paris
Tel. : 01.58.62.44.30

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Is it the same bridge as what I know as Pont des Arts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_des_Arts

This must be a new trend (Korean effect?) because when I was there in 2008, there was no such lock.

Beautiful walk, by the way.

Hungry in Bangkok said...

Hi, thanks so much for reminding me which foot bridge I was on. You are definately right that this is the Pont des Arts. The footbridge I earlier described is three bridges down the Seine.

I just read on www.telegraph.co.uk that the city hall will be taking down all the love padlocks on all the bridges in Paris.