Adventure looks beautiful on you.

There’s a photo of me from the summer of 1985 — sun-warmed, unhurried, sitting in the garden of my host family’s beautiful country home a couple of hours outside Paris in Beaumont-du-Gâtinais, with absolutely nowhere to be. I didn’t know it at the time, but that afternoon planted something in me that’s still growing decades later. The French have turned Sunday into an art form, and once you’ve had a taste of it, an ordinary Sunday just doesn’t feel like enough anymore.

The good news? You don’t need to be in France to have one. You just need to borrow the mindset — and I’ve found you can build a full French Sunday right here in Metro Detroit.

The Morning: A Slow Awakening

No alarms. Let your body decide when the day starts.

Then, the boulangerie run — my favorite kind of errand. My go-to is Chez Pierre et Genevieve https://pgfrenchbakery.com/in Bloomfield Hills, where the croissants come out impossibly flaky and the almond ones taste like they were airlifted straight from a Parisian pâtisserie. Grab a few, still warm if you’re lucky, and take your time getting home. By chance you may encounter, Gaultier- head of security and the cutest little French Bulldog you will ever meet.

Once you’re back, this is where self-care gets to be a little unconventional. Some Sundays it’s a slow journaling session with coffee gone lukewarm at my elbow. Other Sundays it’s ten quiet minutes of meditation. And some Sundays — my personal favorite — it’s a one-woman dance party in the kitchen to whatever 80s music is loudest in my heart that day (yes, still my favorite, and I regret nothing). There’s no wrong way to spend this hour. The only rule is that it belongs entirely to you.

Midday: Le Déjeuner Dominical

Forget brunch — brunch is for people in a hurry. A French Sunday calls for something slower.

My route starts at Westborn Market in Berkley, gathering everything I need for a proper jambon et Gruyère — good ham, a real Gruyère, a baguette I’ll pretend I’m not going to eat half of in the car. From there, I like to swing by the Birmingham Farmers Market, open every Sunday morning downtown, and pick up whatever looks too good to pass up — fresh baked goods, a bundle of flowers, something I didn’t know I needed until I saw it.

Then it’s over to Booth Park, right across from the market, to spread it all out — with Margot, my little dog, trotting along beside me like she knows exactly where we’re headed. A picnic isn’t complete without her, and half the fun is watching her make friends with every other dog in the park while I strike up conversation with their humans. There’s something so easy about the connections you make over a picnic blanket and a wagging tail. Lunch stretches out, the sun does its thing, and nobody’s in a rush to be anywhere else.

The Afternoon: Flâner and Rest

This is the hour for flâner — strolling without a destination, just noticing things. And then, without guilt, the nap. Long, unapologetic, exactly as indulgent as it sounds. On a French Sunday, rest isn’t something you earn. It’s simply on the schedule.

The Evening: Total Disconnect

This is the part I protect most fiercely. Phone away, notifications off, every errand mentally filed under “cannot be done today, and that’s fine.” In France, Sunday closures make this decision for you — so I make it for myself instead.

To close things out, I love nothing more than settling onto my patio as the evening light goes soft and gold, the summer air still warm, with a friend or my family close by. This is where the real magic of the day happens — not in any activity, but in actually talking. Laughing about nothing in particular. Trading stories we’ve told a hundred times before and somehow still want to hear again. Dreaming up the next trip we want to take together, even if it’s just a “someday” idea with no dates attached. It’s a small thing, sitting outside with people you love and nowhere to be, but it’s the kind of connection that’s so easy to lose in a normal week — and so worth protecting. That’s what really resets me for the week ahead, more than any errand crossed off a list ever could.

That 1985 photo — me on the lawn of my host family’s country home, not a single plan in sight — still sits on my shelf. I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now: a French Sunday was never really about France. It’s about remembering, once a week, that you’re allowed to slow all the way down.

Adventure looks beautiful on you — even, and maybe especially, when you’re doing nothing at all.

#AdventureLooksBeautifulOnYou   #FrenchSunday   #TheFeminineTraveler   #SlowLiving   #Dimanche   #MetroDetroit