About

Bonjour! My name is Michele and I am the founder of this Paris Travel Blog. I am so glad you found me! If you’re a food and wine lover and planning a trip to Paris and France then you’ve come to the right place! My first few times in Paris I struggled to find the really great food and wine scene in a sea of tourist traps. But that’s because I didn’t know where to look. I have a hospitality background with a focus on food and wine. (I am a certified French Wine Scholar through the Wine Scholar Guild and certified WSET Level 2).  I’m very picky about where I eat and I prefer to support small, local restaurants with seasonal menus, that are true “farm to table”  whenever possible. I’m willing to put in the time, effort and energy to find the good places. There are so many of them in Paris that tourists have no way of knowing about. They’re not all on Instagram and many of the ones that are don’t always find their way into your feed. And to be honest, a lot of the Paris restaurants on Instagram are mainly about hype. They make for pretty pictures but quite often the food is not that great. If you’re a foodie and you love wine then check out the restaurant, cafe, and wine bar write-ups on my website. I also love to walk and have walked pretty much every corner of every arrondissement in this city. I love taking photos and finding “off the beaten path” views of the Eiffel Tower or Sacré Coeur, and I like to share these with my followers on Instagram.

Having recently become an empty nester I am embarking on my second chapter in life. I currently spend half my time in Seattle and half my time in France. It is now my life’s work and passion to bring Paris to you through my eyes. And although I am a woman in my 50’s, I’d like to say that I  tend to lean towards the younger, hipper side of life. I hang out and travel with people who are in their 20’s and people who are in their 70’s. This blog is really for anyone that likes food, wine and travel. Specifically in France!  I have been threading a narrative of the city that I have fallen in love with. I am a true Francophile, I love France and I am madly in love with Paris. You can read my love letter to Paris here. 

 I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. I grew up in the rural suburbs of Seattle. We had horses, cows and chickens. However, from the age of thirteen I had to take public transport to school into the big city. I remember being really scared. Not to mention mad as hell. Whose idea was the private, Catholic all girls school anyway? The ninth grader and the city. Little did I know it would be one of the best things to ever happen to me. By the time I was fourteen I was madly in love. From the Pike Place Market to the Space Needle and Broadway up on Capital Hill, me and the city became fast friends. I knew it like I knew the back of my hand. Including most of the drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes that frequented the street where my bus stop was. The city was chock full of colorful characters, and I was fascinated by all of them. Most were pretty harmless. A couple of street kids named Patty and her boyfriend/pimp Munchkin were always down on the street by our bus stop. They weren’t much older than we were. Many years later I learned that someone had made a documentary about them. I watched it as an adult and cried my eyes out. I never knew all the details of these kids’ lives. Famous only for being neglected and resilient. I started to think that people were much more interesting in the city. And I couldn’t get enough of it. And so began this quest, this part of me, of falling in love with cities and finding even the most unassuming people completely fascinating.

I traveled a decent amount in my 20’s and even lived in Australia for a few years. I’ve been to Peru, Iceland, England, Amsterdam, Germany (multiple times), Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Greece, Italy (multiple times), France (many, many times). And there are still an abundance of places that I want to go. High on my list are Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and Thailand. Pretty sure I once said, “If I can’t travel, I might as well be dead.”

This photo was taken on a trip to Greece. My mother and I were riding mopeds on the island of Corfu, and we stopped for a minute. This lovely woman was sitting on the steps near where we had pulled over. She was smiling with her eyes and her heart and telling us something very important. In Greek. Neither my mother nor I spoke a word of Greek. Pretty sure this lady spoke no English. It didn’t matter. I was so enchanted by her. I asked her if I could get a picture with her. She said something back to me in Greek. I sat down next to her, and we smiled at each other and then she untied her scarf and looked straight at the camera. It was a magical moment that I will never forget. Its moments like these that I truly appreciate about the world and the people in it.

I worked in the corporate world for nearly twenty years selling advertising. All of the Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar seminars had paid off and I was making a good living. But as the years went by, I started to get burned out. Eventually I decided to leave the corporate world and open my own business. I was starting to become very passionate about wine and thought maybe a wine store would be a good fit. Unfortunately there were already two wine stores in our town, so that was out. Then out of the blue both wine stores closed. In the same month. Well, if that wasn’t a sign from the universe. I opened Capri Cellars a few months later. The wine store morphed into a wine bar with leather couches, community tables, a tasting bar and bistro menu. I started a monthly wine club and had close to 300 members receiving monthly wine allocations. We held events, tastings, and wine dinners. We collaborated with some of the most celebrated winemakers in our area. Including Mark McNeilly, Darby English, Chris Gorman and Greg Harrington. The business was a huge success but there was one small (or big) problem. I couldn’t travel as much as I wanted to. After eight years, in March of 2020, I decided to sell Capri Cellars. It was bittersweet but it freed me up to be able to travel. Then there was that other thing that happened in March of 2020. Covid. Travel plans aborted. Everything would have to wait until the following year. There would be no travel the following year either, as France was still closed to Americans. It was a rough two years in more ways than one.

Unclear about what to do next I made the decision to enroll in the French Wine Scholar program through the Wine Scholar Guild.  My wine store specialized in local wines (some of the highest rated wines in the world) but I had started to develop an affinity for French wine. In fact, it soon became all I ever wanted to drink. I already knew a lot about wine so I thought the course would be pretty easy, something just for fun. I was wrong. It was really hard. I heard someone mention that many people don’t pass the exam the first time. I panicked. Then I got to studying. I thought the only way through this would be to memorize the 385-page textbook. So that’s what I did. I passed first go around and became a certified French Wine Scholar. I also became highly intent on visiting all of the wine villages and vineyards that I had just studied about.

Finally, in September of 2021 France opened to Americans, and I was on the first flight out. My obsession with French wine is what kickstarted my obsession with France. And has made France my destination of choice lately. I’ve traveled through every major wine region in France including Provence, Languedoc, two weeks in Sancerre, a week in Alsace, several weeks in Bordeaux, the Loire Valley, trips to Champagne, all through the Rhône and a month in Bourgogne, a week in Arbois. Whenever I would travel to France I would always incorporate a few days in Paris. A few days started to turn into a week and then two weeks and then a month. The quaint wine villages surrounded by ramparts were dreamy and fulfilling, but Paris literally changes your life on a daily basis. You can go outside and just walk around and you’re guaranteed to see something amazing everywhere you look.

But I still didn’t have a clear vision of what my next chapter was going to look like. I traveled back and forth to France four times within a one year period. Things were slowly starting to come into focus. I love to write. And I have an inherent knack for uncovering really cool things. Click here to see some of my favorite experiences.

At the beginning of 2023 I decided to put my journal entries into a blog format and My Food Wine Travel Journal was born. This is just the beginning and regular posts will start up in April of 2023. If you would like to subscribe to my newsletter, I am currently sending it out quarterly. It’s FREE to subscribe, just click here and head to the right side margin.  My newsletter is mainly about new hotels and airbnbs that I have discovered. I never recommend hotels from a Google search or someone else’s write up. I only write about hotels and airbnbs that me or my friends and family have stayed in.