Caramels

I really liked the Henri Le Roux caramels in France. We brought some home with us and I rationed them, so it would last longer. Unfortunately, I would eventually eat through all of it, so I tried making some. My first attempt, I made a condensed milk type caramel and it was pretty soft. I wrapped it around parchment paper.  My second batch was salted butter caramels. I used a David Lebovitz caramel recipe, but had to replace some of the corn syrup with agave nectar. I was happy with both batches.

Something else we brought home was some caramel sauce. It was really good just eating it out of the jar, but I didn't want to eat the whole thing like that. 

I found this caramel butter sandwich cookie recipe. It was really good.

London - Day 35

We woke up at 4:30 to catch the first metro train to the Eurostar station. We carried two suitcases each and it was tiring lifting them up and down the stairs at the metro stations. My arms were so sore the following days. The train ride was 2 hours long.

When we got to London, we decided to eat breakfast at the station because we wanted to buy the cheaper off-peak hour metro tickets to our hotel and it would be around an hour or so till off-peak hours began.

We stayed at the Hilton Hotel at Paddington, $90 for a 4 star hotel, pretty good. We got to the hotel and took a nap. Then went to an Indian restaurant for lunch.

I was pretty tired. My feet weren't use to the constant walking even though it's been 5 weeks of walking. We went to the British museum. It was our last vacation day and we had to make the most of it even though I was dead tired.

 

Next, the British Library.

 Ate some sweets at their cafe.

A view from our hotel.

Our last meal, lasagna and chicken paella. It was an awesome trip.

Paris - Day 34

Last day in France. I wanted to make a last visit to Denise Acabo's store to get more candy, but first we had lunch at Chez Prune.

After lunch we walked past a store called Skunk Funk. I purchased a brown hobo bag for 65 euros.
I got more Henri La Roux caramel candies including caramel sauce. I also got another chocolate bar, a tin of candied pecans, and a roll of paper with riddle/jokes.

Our last dessert, Berthillon ice cream. They only except cash and we only had 10 euros, so we shared 3 scoops of gingerbread, caramel and nutmeg.

For dinner, we went to Le Bon Marche Gourmet and picked up some food for dinner. We got some monk fish liver that wasn't cheap and it was terrible. It was too bitter to consume. We packed all our things and set the alarm for 4:30 to catch the Eurostar to London.

Paris - Day 33

Just couple more days till London. Our plan was to load up on food items to bring home. We went to gourmet Lafayette. We chose this place instead of Le Bon Marche because they had lots of buy one get one free deals. We spent quite some time picking out food items. We also went to Longchamp to get a bag for a friend. Everywhere in Paris, women are carrying the Longchamp Le Pliage bag. We started a game where we would punch each other every time we saw a Longchamp bag. We were able to get the VAT refund on the items we got, saves around 15%. We carried everything back in our suitcases. We also wanted a saute pan, but figured out we couldn't get one because once we put all our stuff in our 4 small suitcases, there was no more room for anything else. This included 6 wine bottles.
Got lunch at the grocery store, sandwiches and salad.

Blood sausage.

For dinner we went to Benoit. This place has a Michelin star, but I didn't think it was that great for being a Michelin star place.

Escargot.

This was an extremely overpriced salad. I had better salads at other restaurants that were cheaper.

The rest of the dishes were good.

Paris - Day 32

We headed to Versailles in the morning. We missed the first train, so we hopped onto another train that we would have to transfer later. The train was running more than an hour late. The weather was cold and rainy. I bought a Belgian waffle from a vending machine.

When we got to the Palace, it was closed and no one knew whether it would open or not. There were bus loads of tourists and some have already left. We stuck around to see if they would open.

Outside the gates.

We had some morning breakfast at the cafe nearby.

We then walked 5 or 6 blocks to a market to kill some more time.

It was a nice market, lots of fresh foods for sale.

We bought some pig ears and octopus at the market and walked back to the cafe to eat it. It was already lunch time.

After lunch we walked around the palace gardens.

If we came on the weekend, we would be able to see the water fountains in action.

The palace did open in the early afternoon. There were lots of rooms with their own specific use.

We then walked to Petit Trianon, Grand Trianon and Marie-Antoinette's estate.
Feeding the goat. So much walking. Bike rentals were closed.

Walking back. So much walking.

Head back to Paris. Another good dinner.