My sister was working in Versailles and some of the surrounding gardens for the last 6 weeks. Our parents decided that since we were both in Europe, we needed to meet up for a weekend of sister time in Paris.

My sister has been living the life of luxury in beautiful chateaus, while I have been sharing my life with complete strangers in hostels. Needless to say, we spoiled ourselves and booked the BLC Design Hotel in a cute part of Paris. We were surrounded by cafes and restaurants and incredibly close to a metro stop to make everything a bit easier for us.

We spent our first day having a great lunch and going on a huge shopping spree. And by that I mean, Sophie went on a huge shopping spree and I watched. I found the shirt pictured below and was tempted to buy it, but just couldn’t do it.

For dinner we opted out of traditional French food and had some amazing sushi. Instead of the usual sake we opted in for a bit of rose.

We had a very leisurely morning the next day and had a lovely brunch with our coffee before jumping on the metro to explore La Petite Ceinture. This is a really cool strip of railway that gives you a different perspective and walk through Paris. Finding the entrance was not as easy as we thought and we ended up walking about 2.5  miles before we found the entrance. For those that would like to enter, just take the metro and get off at Balard.

One of the things we really wanted to do was get manicures and pedicures. We hunted for a mani/pedi place and could not find one that allowed walk-ins, so we got creative and gave ourselves hotel room mani/pedis with some champagne and room service.

Being a tourist and doing all the touristy stuff was not exactly our thing, but we thought we would have lunch on the water by the Eiffel Tower. We were rewarded with an awesome Sunday market and a delicious lunch and a token Eiffel Tower picture.

Our day continued with a leisurely stroll to Luxembourg Gardens to explore and relax on the grass. It was a great last sister activity.

Finally, we had a lovely dinner at a great little bistro with some delicious rose and a little champagne to toast our final night.

Little breaks from backpacking and seeing friends and family are a very important part to keeping some sanity while traveling.