A Foodie Goes To France

Bonjour from a slightly jetlagged and filled-with-croissants Sarah! I got home last week from a whirlwind trip to Paris and the French Riviera. We ate and saw so much, so I thought I’d share our itinerary here!

The trip’s purpose was technically business, which, when your job is full-time food blogging, basically means I just ate the whole time. Five other food bloggers and I have been getting together annually to go on foodie trips. With a completely remote self-employed job, it’s nice to be able to talk to people who do what you do! Last year, we went to Barcelona, and this year…the French Riviera!

I tacked days onto both sides of the business portion of the trip to spend some time in Paris. Having been to Paris a few times before, I didn’t go to many of the usual tourist attractions, which meant we could slow down and take in Paris a bit more. Here’s everything we did and ate!

Day 1: Paris – Food Tour

The flights to France always seem to get you there early in the morning, so to avoid jetlag I typically try to stay awake all day until bedtime. One of my favorite things to do on day 1—both to help me stay away and to get a feel for the place—is a food tour!

We found a tour through Viator that turned out to be so fun! We ate fresh croissants and macarons, hand pies from Sacha Finkelsztajn, French onion soup at Les Philosophes, and ended with a cheese and wine pairing in a wine cellar.

For this stay in Paris, we got a room at The People Marais (which is technically a hostel, but they had nice rooms with private bathrooms). I did this portion of the trip with my food blogger friend Annie of Maebells, so a big selling point for us was their coworking spaces. So cute!

Day 2: Paris – Good Good Food + Tayor Swift

Having crashed pretty early on Day 1, we woke up before the rest of the city, hungry and ready to explore. We had quiches at Le Voltigeur, which they served with soup and salad (soup for breakfast, strange but it works!)

We wandered around Paris, watching them set up for the Olympics, before heading to Giraffe for lunch. Annie stalked the reservations for months to score us a table at this restaurant overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and it was well worth it!

Okay, and now for the real reason we added Paris onto the trip…to see the Era’s Tour of course. We’d initially only bought tickets for one night, but after seeing how cheap tickets were we ended up getting tickets to two nights. So we spent the night shaking off all the croissants we’d eaten that day! 

Day 3: Paris – Eiffel Tower Picnic

Slightly worse for the wear, we had breakfast at Le Ju then headed to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic. We got ourselves a bottle of wine and a big bottle of water to enjoy with a baguette and Boursin.

The only problem was…none of us speak French and that big bottle of water was, in fact, vinegar. Which we didn’t realize until I took a big thirsy swig of it, promptly movie-level spitting it out right there on the Eiffel Tower lawn. My taste buds may never recover. 

We spent that night once again dancing our feet off at the Taylor Swift concert!

Day 4: Paris – Croissant Class

What do two food bloggers do with a free day in Paris? A cooking class of course! We did the croissant baking class at Maison Fleuret baking school. In just two hours we learned how to make buttery French croissants! I posted the whole into in my Paris Instagram highlight!

We had dinner at Pink Mamma (once again, Annie came through with an epic dinner reservation)! We had a lemony burrata pizza, bellini spritz cocktails, and creme brulee. So tasty!

Day 5: Nice – Travel Day

Enough fun, time for work! Just kidding, despite being the “work” portion of this trip, it was anything but. Annie and I flew down to Nice where we met up with our food blogger friends—Ashley (The Recipe Rebel), Melissa (Modern Honey), Katherine (Love In My Oven), and Marcie (Flavor The Moments).

We stayed at this VRBO in Villefranche-Sur-Mer (just outside of Nice) and it was probably the nicest house I’ve ever stayed in, with the most magical garden overlooking the coast.

Day 6: Nice – Food Tour

We started the Nice portion of our trip with yet another food tour! The food in Nice is surprisingly different from the food in Paris. We had candied citrus and different types of cheeses, and explored around the markets.

But my favorite part of the tour was socca!

Socca is a chickpea dish that’s somewhere between a pancake, a flatbread, and a pudding. It’s ultra soft and moist, made only from chickpea flour, salt, extra virgin olive oil, and water. You know how obsessed we are with chickpeas around here…should I make a recipe for socca??)

Day 7: Eze and Monaco

We had breakfast at the house while we waited for the rainy weather to clear. We’d bought a bunch of fresh fruit and fun yogurt flavors to have at the house. (Straciatella yogurt? Don’t mind if I do!)

When the weather improved, we made our way down the coast to Eze, where we explored the gardens (Le Jardin Exotique) and eventually ended at Cafe Du Jardin for lunch. The food (pizza) was so good and the scenery from our table was unbeatable! We all eat pretty similar, so we typically just order a few starters and entrees to all share (which means not only do we get to try more foods, but it actually kept the cost down at some of these pricier restaurants!)

From Eze we took an Uber to Monaco (we considered hiking down, which is a popular route that’s supposed to have nice views, but opted not to). Monaco was a bit overwhelming because they were setting up for a Formula 1 race the following week, making an already small area feel even more compact.

We crossed the whole country by foot (in about 45 minutes no less) ending up at Giacomo for dinner! I’ll be dreaming of their truffle pasta forever.

Day 8: Saint Jean Cap Ferrat

From our house, you could see a peninsula home to the second most expensive real estate in the world (Monaco is first). So we headed that way to do the Tour Du Cap, a two-hour hike along the coast.

We began at Paloma Beach, where we ordered some snacky things to fuel our hike. It ended up being some of my favorite food of the trip! They had amazing focaccia and burrata tomato salad and a berry pavlova for dessert (yes, brunch dessert).

From there, we all crammed into whatever the French version of a tuk-tuk is to ride to the other side of the peninsula to begin our hike! It was mostly flat with gorgeous views of the coast (and after Monaco, it was nice to get away from the crowds).

Day 9: Cannes and Antibes

We took the train into Cannes early to make it there for brunch at Rosana. Their menu was pretty limited and I had the truffle eggs, which was a…bold choice.

To get the truffle flavor out of my mouth, we had dessert (yes, breakfast dessert) at Boulangerie/Pâtisserie “Le Saint Antoine” by Marquis. The fun thing about traveling with a baking blogger is they don’t hold back AT ALL when it comes to ordering ALL of the treats!

We spent the rest of the time in Cannes looking for celebrities on the red carpet (the film festival happened to be taking place) and exploring the Marché Forville food market.

From their, we took the train to Antibes where we wandered around for hours. We ended the day in Nice, grabbing a delicious risotto dinner at La Villa Massenet!

Day 10: Nice – Last Day

Our last day in Nice was left free on the schedule so we could do all the things we’d not had time for yet! We did some shopping for French perfumes and skincare, wandered around the market in Nice, and I finally tried the giant macaron ice cream sandwiches I’d been eyeballing all week.

For lunch, we cleaned out the fridge with an epic spread of charcuterie, veggies, and burrata! I made my tomato avocado salad and panzanella. This also gave us some time to just hangout at the house and really talk shop. With so much changing in the food blogging industry—between massive Google updates, AI, and social media—it’s a breath of fresh air to just talk about it all with people who get what it is I do everyday!

Our farewell dinner was at Le Plongeoir, a unique restaurant that’s basically “balanced” on top of a rock in the ocean. The food was meh, but the setting was top tier!

Day 11: Paris – Macaron Class

I flew back to Paris to meet up with a friend from my days in the Netherlands! Impressed by my croissant baking class from the week before, we went back to Maison Fleuret, this time for their macaron class! I put the whole thing in my Paris Insta highlights – it was so fun (and easier than I thought it would be)!

We finished the day with a delicious dinner at Brasserie Rosie Lou! 

Day 12: Paris – Yet Another Food Tour

The best trips start with a food tour, but they also end with them! We did a final food tour, this time with Secret Food Tours. Some standouts were the cheese and wine pairings at Vins Des Pyrenees (we had a cheese topped with cherries!), the falafel from Chez Hanna, and pastries from Aux Merveilleux De Fred.

We ended the trip with a show at the Moulin Rouge! I really had no idea what to expect, but we’d seen on TikTok that you would be given better seats if you adhered to their dress code: elegant but obscure. We ended up being seated in the very front of the theatre, and my chair was so close to the stage that I kept getting smacked by feather boas all evening! Ha! Talk about up close and personal!

So that was my trip in a nutshell! I’m excited to try making a version of that chickpea socca to share here so you can have a taste of Nice. What other recipes would you like me to create?!

Happy cooking!

-Sarah