The annual calendar is punctuated, as I realize more and more now via the blog, by holidays, events, and traditions that tirelessly return on the same dates every year. Some of these dates are eagerly awaited by some, while others dread the arrival of these hated celebrations like the plague. This is somewhat the case for Valentine’s Day… Here is a small selection of treats to make the most of February 14th, whether you are in a relationship or not, because I believe we all really need love in these gloomy times.
A little history: Valentine’s Day dates back to the end of the Middle Ages. At the court of the King of England, February 14th was then a celebration for singles, yes! Men would draw lots for the name of a damsel who would become their “Valentine,” and for one week she would receive sweet notes. It was nice, wasn’t it?
Table of Contents
Some chocolate delights
You know how much of a foodie I am, so as I do every year, I wanted to offer you some delicacies for this gastronomic part of the article. On the program: chocolate, of course, but also tea, Champagne, and a small giveaway to come as a bonus!
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Leonidas
Leonidas chocolate hearts
For Valentine’s Day, Leonidas highlights its little hearts through a range of flavors and colors. Furthermore, the Belgian chocolatier, which has existed since 1913, presents new packaging in shades of pink and red to showcase this lovely collection.
- Small hearts from the permanent range: raspberry heart; vanilla heart; dark chocolate heart; dulce de leche heart
- Small hearts in limited edition: white praline heart; cherry and elderberry heart; “Bleu de toi” heart
Valentine’s Day collection by Leonidas with little chocolate hearts filled with ganache (vanilla milk; raspberry rose; Hibiscus Flower & Poppy; Dulche de Leche; Cherry and Elderberry)
Leonidas Heart Box price (12 hearts): €15.95
Leonidas Metal Heart Box price: €10.90
Round box filled: €23.50
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The Lenôtre “Cœur léger” chocolate
For Valentine’s Day, caterer Lenôtre offers a special lovers’ dessert, the “cœur léger” (light heart). On the program, a moist Valencia almond biscuit base, topped with a thin layer of praline and hazelnut paste – a small pleasure, I’m telling you… Sorry about the photos, but the cake was bumped around a bit during transport and unfortunately arrived at my place with a few small accidents.
Still in the Lenôtre Valentine’s Day collection, you also have the gift box with 6 chocolate hearts: 3 dark chocolate candies made with raspberry ganache, coated in chocolate from 3-origin beans (Sao Tomé, Ghana, and Tanzania), and 3 milk chocolate candies made with West African cocoa beans, with a milky taste, filled with French hazelnut praline.
Valentine’s Day “Cœur léger” chocolate dessert by Lenôtre
Price: €20
Gift box with 6 chocolate hearts by Lenôtre
Price: €13
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La Maison du Chocolat
“Bouquet of sensations” Collection 2024
In 2024 for Valentine’s Day, La Maison du Chocolat offers a “Bouquet of sensations” collection, imagined by Nicolas Cloiseau, Creative Chef of La Maison du Chocolat and Best Craftsman of France Chocolatier. On the program: a bouquet heart praline almond-hazelnut bite with roasted Japanese Koshihikari brown rice bits, coated in milk chocolate. The flower decoration is made of dark and ivory chocolate. Additionally, the packaging of the Maison du Chocolat Valentine’s Day gift boxes is eco-designed, 100% recyclable, and manufactured in Belgium.
“Bouquet heart” bite gift box by La Maison du Chocolat
Price: €20 for a 60g piece
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“Au Coeur de Paris” Gift Box 2023
In 2023 for Valentine’s Day, La Maison du Chocolat offers an “Au Coeur de Paris” (In the Heart of Paris) collection, imagined by Nicolas Cloiseau, Creative Chef of La Maison du Chocolat and Best Craftsman of France Chocolatier. This milk hazelnut gianduja chocolate bite contains a Piedmont hazelnut paste with roasted and caramelized hazelnut bits. The Parisian panorama line is made with strawberry chocolate. Additionally, the packaging of the Maison du Chocolat Valentine’s Day gift boxes is eco-designed, 100% recyclable, and manufactured in Belgium.
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Valentine’s Day Gift Box 2021
This “Blue Hour in Paris” gift box, imagined by Nicolas Cloiseau, Creative Chef of La Maison du Chocolat and Best Craftsman of France Chocolatier, refers to the time between day and night when the sky fills almost entirely with a blue darker than the daytime sky. Four bites in one: milk chocolate and caramelized pecan / milk chocolate with caramelized and roasted hazelnuts / hazelnut praline in milk chocolate with caramelized biscuit bits / crunchy heart with strawberry jam
The “Paris at the blue hour” gift box by La Maison du Chocolat
Heart Imprint Bite: €20 for a 67g piece
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Réauté Chocolat
For Valentine’s Day, Réauté Chocolat offers its delicacies around the heart theme. The brand offers chocolates and cookies crafted in their workshop in Château-Gontier, Mayenne, without palm oil and using 100% pure cocoa butter couverture chocolate.
The Réauté Chocolat Love, love, love collection in 2023 and 2024
The Valentine’s Day 2023 collection:
- “Love” crunchy heart, bringing together 3 chocolates (milk, dark, and white) on a pretty milk chocolate heart base, sprinkled with raspberry and pecan bits.
- An assortment of filled hearts with 3 recipes: dark chocolate sea salt praline, milk chocolate almond and hazelnut praline, and flowing caramel heart.
- Heart bite filled with melting orange praline.
The Valentine’s Day 2024 collection:
- A heart to share, a creation composed of 2 recipes: one half milk chocolate with pecan and roasted almond slivers topping, and one half dark chocolate with pink pralines and roasted almond slivers topping.
- An assortment of filled hearts with 3 recipes: dark chocolate sea salt praline, milk chocolate almond and hazelnut praline, and flowing caramel heart.
- A gourmet heart chocolate bar, a recipe with peanuts and crispy cereal in milk chocolate
Valentine’s Day collection by Réauté Chocolat
Assortment of filled hearts / price: €6.95
Gourmet heart chocolate bar / price: €8.95
Heart to share / price: €14.95
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The Réauté Chocolat 2021 intensely chocolate gift box
As I wanted to spoil you for this occasion, I will very soon be offering a giveaway on my Instagram account for this Valentine’s Day, with this same gift box to be won for one of you! To participate, just leave a comment below the Réauté Chocolat Valentine’s Day post when it goes online.
Intensely chocolate gift box by Réauté Chocolat
Gift box composed of two intense lollipops, two dark chocolate flaky bars, 90g of passion dark flowing heart, 100g of milk raspberry crunchy, and 100g of intense filled hearts assortment
Price: €25.50 for 386g
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Puyricard
The Puyricard brand, an artisan chocolatier in Provence, has existed since 1967, and for its chocolates, it uses artisanal, fresh products, with no preservatives or freezing.
The 2025 collection
The 2025 collection consists of several gift boxes with chocolates or calissons and also a gourmet heart strip, which offers a selection of small chocolate hearts (raspberry ganache gourmet heart, smooth praline gourmet heart, caramel gourmet heart).
Valentine’s Day collection 2025 by Puyricard
Valentine’s Day gift box prices: between €13 and €45.50 / red heart balloon €3 / gourmet heart strip €13
Available in one of the 22 boutiques (including 3 in Paris)
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The 2023 collection
The Puyricard brand, an artisan chocolatier in Provence, has existed since 1967, and for its chocolates, it uses artisanal, fresh products, with no preservatives or freezing. This 2023 collection consists of several gift boxes with chocolate and/or calissons (assorted fine chocolates and plain calissons / possibility to select your assortment according to your tastes: all dark chocolate, all milk chocolate, dark and milk assorted, chocolate and calissons): marshmallow heart (two hand-poured vanilla marshmallow hearts coated in a thin layer of milk or dark chocolate); assorted chocolates (200g of fine chocolates and cupids, chocolate hearts with coconut mousse covered with a thin layer of chocolate); engraved “Amour” heart in milk or dark chocolate, which can be filled with chocolate hearts.
The little extra: to amaze your Valentine, you can choose as an option to hang your gift box from a red heart-shaped balloon (surprise guaranteed when opening the package!).
Valentine’s Day collection 2023 by Puyricard
Heart gift box prices: between €27.50 and €42
Available starting today in one of the 22 boutiques (including 3 in Paris)
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La Maison Caffet
This master artisan chocolatier and pastry chef specializes in praline, and as it is, quite innocently, indicated on the packaging of his products, he makes “without a doubt the best pralines in the world.” As a great fan of pralines, I can tell you that they are indeed among the best I have ever had the chance to taste. The Maison Caffet was created in the historic heart of Troyes in 1979 by the parents of Pascal Caffet, master artisan praline maker, Best Craftsman of France Pastry Chef in 1989 and World Champion of Dessert Crafts in 1995. Today, the house has expanded significantly and advocates for “homemade” and the use of quality raw materials (100% pure origin chocolates) to obtain artisanal products.
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Chocolaterie Weiss
This chocolaterie from Saint-Etienne, which has existed since the end of the 19th century, possesses three artisanal areas of expertise: chocolate making, praline making, and confectionery. For Valentine’s Day, the house offers new chocolate bars illustrated by Laura Lhuillier: 67% dark chocolate bar with raspberry bits; 35% milk chocolate bar with roasted corn bits; 36% Tevenn white chocolate bar, with notes of biscuit and Guérande sea salt.
Valentine’s Day drinks
Le Beau Thé
Valentine’s Day gift boxes
For Valentine’s Day, Le Beau Thé offers several special gift boxes for this 2025 lovers’ holiday. The products of this brand are made in France, organic, and hand-sewn in the brand’s workshops, which has a zero-plastic goal. The brand’s extra touch is also offering the possibility to personalize its sachets with any message you wish.
- The “Désire-moi” (Desire me) gift box, which contains 20 personalized sachets (€29.90)
- The “Séduis-moi” (Seduce me) gift box, which contains 15 personalized sachets with 10 personalized infusion creations illustrated by the brand’s artists on the theme of love + 5 gourmet recipes (€24.90)
- The “Aime-moi” (Love me) gift box, which contains 5 tea sachets personalized on the theme of love (€9.90)
Le Beau Thé
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Compagnie Coloniale
Mon Cherry tea and limited Valentine’s Day editions by Compagnie Coloniale
To change a bit from the traditional flowers and chocolates, Compagnie Coloniale (the oldest French tea brand, founded in 1848) offers two limited editions of new Mon Cherry and Rooibos à la Folie metal tins personalized for the occasion. The Mon Cherry tea, with lovely petals to mark the occasion, is a blend of selected black teas with dark chocolate and cherry, adorned with flowers. In the Rooibos à la Folie, goji berries are associated with the virtues of rooibos in an astonishing drink.
Mon Cherry tea by Compagnie Coloniale
Mon Cherry limited edition 100g tin: €12
Rooibos à la Folie limited edition 100g tin: €11.20
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Pukka Herbs
Love tea by Pukka Herbs
Love herbal tea by Pukka Herbs (rose, chamomile, lavender)
Available in Naturalia and Bio C Bon stores
Price: €3.99
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Champagne
The Brut Rosé Champagne from Maison Grémillet
This subtle and fruity champagne from Maison Grémillet, a family brand located in the Côte des Bars (which I have already told you about on the blog), distills the whole palette of sun-drenched red and black fruits like strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blackcurrant, morello cherry, and redcurrant.
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Blanc de Blancs with Delamotte
The Champagne Delamotte brand offers the ideal gift box for a romantic tête-à-tête: a bottle of Blanc de Blancs, the house specialty, accompanied by two glasses branded with the Delamotte logo. 100% Chardonnay, from the three grand crus Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Avize, and Oger and aged for more than 48 months on the lees, the Delamotte Blanc de Blancs is an ample wine, surprising in its delicacy and mineral roundness.
Champagne Delamotte Tête à tête gift box
One bottle of Delamotte Blanc de Blancs and its two tulip glasses: €60
Available on the website champagne-delamotte.com and in Nicolas boutiques
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Valentine’s Day by Maison Busnel
To celebrate the lovers’ holiday in a gourmet way, Maison Busnel offers its gin distilled exclusively from AOC cider apples, 100% Norman, accompanied by a delicious pastry made with a Busnel gin insert! This new spirit also translates perfectly into cocktail format with the “Busnel Mule”.
Valentine’s Day cakes and desserts
Muriel Aublet-Cuvelier
The “Oh! my heart swollen with wonders” cake by Muriel Aublet-Cuvelier at Le Grand Colbert
This year, the chef is partnering with the Parisian restaurant Le Grand Colbert and is offering, in particular for Valentine’s Day, an Oriental-flavored mousse heart to share. Inside, you find a creamy, luscious filling, grapefruit jelly, orange blossom honey, ginger, Sicilian pistachio biscuit, and a vanilla shortbread.
“Oh! my heart swollen with wonders”
By reservation, then to be picked up via click and collect from Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM
At Le Grand Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne 75002 Paris
Cake price: €14
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Les Belles Envies
Valentine’s Day 2024
- Amour Infini (Infinite Love), a cake for 2 people with a Breton shortbread with dark chocolate coating, an almond biscuit, a vanilla insert, a chocolate mousse, and a red glaze (€12.90 / available in store from February 13 to 15, 2024)
- A peanut caramel and chocolate heart with shortcrust pastry and a caramel with roasted peanut bits (€5.90 / available in store starting February 6, 2024).
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The super choco tart 2023
This Parisian pastry shop offers cakes, chocolates, and cookies with low sugar content. It uses ancient, fiber-rich flours with a low glycemic index, such as lupin flour, coconut flour, as well as T80 semi-whole wheat flour. Their creations have a glycemic index of less than 30, which represents a decrease of approximately 60% compared to that of ordinary pastry. They also have an igc® certification: Controlled Glycemic Index. For Valentine’s Day, they offer a super choco tart with a cocoa shortcrust pastry, dark chocolate brownie, cocoa nib praline, dark chocolate ganache, and white chocolate heart decoration.
Les Belles Envies
Super choco Valentine’s Day tart price: €17
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La Fabrique Cookies
Valentine’s Day X La Fabrique Cookies
La Fabrique Cookies offers for Valentine’s Day a special Cookies Lovers gift box (and I am one!) in a pretty metal box (which I will keep and reuse, by the way) filled with 8 heart-shaped cookies and a small La Fabrique Cookies recipe book. Inside the gift box, you find 4 different cookie flavors: milk and dark chocolate, salted butter caramel, and pink praline from Lyon.
Valentine’s Day gift box by La Fabrique Cookies
Valentine’s Day gift box price: €30
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Poilâne
For their Valentine’s Day collection, Poilâne (an iconic Parisian bakery created in 1932) offers exclusive creations that revisit its classics by adding a drop of love elixir.
The 2022 Valentine’s Day collection
- Small heart shortbread, crispy shortbread with a fresh butter taste (€13.90 for a 300g bag).
- Love apple tart, in addition to its usual apples and crispy puff pastry, the apple tart wears its finery of crispy pink pralines from Maison Sève (€4.25 individual / €17.50 for 4 people).
Valentine’s Day Poilâne
Exclusive creations from the 2024 Valentine’s Day collection available in Poilâne boutiques and on the brand’s website
8 rue du Cherche-Midi, 75006 Paris, Monday-Saturday
49 boulevard de Grenelle, 75015 Paris, Tuesday-Sunday
38 rue Debelleyme, 75003 Paris, Tuesday-Sunday
83 rue de Crimée, 75019 Paris, Tuesday-Sunday
Valentine’s Day restaurant menus
Love & Jazz Evening at Melville
Le Melville is a jazzy address that I really like and that I have already told you about on the blog in my selection of jazz addresses in Paris. On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, Chef Malcom Ecolasse has concocted for the occasion a passion menu, with flavors from the four corners of the world, and on the concert side, there is a live performance by Galawesh, a singer accompanied by Alexandre Lombard-Buffet on piano, Axel Allright on drums, and Arthur Cayuelas on bass.
Le Melville
28 rue Jean Mermoz 75008 Paris
Valentine’s Day menu for February 14, 2024: €110 per person with a glass of Champagne
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Love & Caviar, Valentine’s Day by Bruno Doucet
On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, Chef Bruno Doucet presents his “Love & Caviar” operation in his establishments for the week of February 13 to 17, 2023. At La Régalade restaurant, at the Comptoir du Relais, and at the Hôtel Le Relais Saint Germain, caviar will be in the spotlight with Maison de champagne Arlaux. The chef chose French Sturia Oscietra caviar to enhance his starters and main courses. Breeder, producer, selector, and refiner of French caviar, Sturia is present from egg to egg. The sturgeons are born and raised in Aquitaine, in their own aquaculture farms in France. Their caviar is then prepared by hand, according to traditional know-how, in their production workshop also located in France, Aquitaine.
On the program:
- a 50-gram tin of Sturia Caviar accompanied by a glass of Champagne to be enjoyed directly in the room at Hôtel Le Relais Saint-Germain
- in the restaurants, different “surprise” dishes featuring caviar, such as marinated scallops from Brittany with lemon, spring onions, and caviar (€39) or line-caught sea bass with Nantes white butter sauce and caviar (€47)
- for dessert at La Régalade, I advise you to taste the famous milk-cooked rice with dairy caramel, a treat to share with your better half
Love & Caviar, Valentine’s Day by Bruno Doucet
From Monday, February 13 to Friday, February 17, 2023
La Régalade, 106 rue Saint-Honoré 75001 Paris
Menu at €49 with starter + main + dessert of your choice
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Valentine’s Day at Restaurant Vendémiaire
In a gentle and romantic atmosphere, in the heart of the 7th arrondissement, lovers can savor an exceptional menu signed by Chef Santiago Guerrero at the restaurant Vendémiaire, which I told you about in my selection of Parisian brasseries. On the program: refined dishes such as langoustine ravioli, roasted guinea fowl with baby carrots, or the “Aphrodite’s Delight,” the signature dessert of this special evening.
Restaurant Vendémiaire
54 boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg, 75007 Paris
“Valentine’s Day” menu at €70 per person, by reservation only
Friday, February 14, 2025, from 7:00 PM
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Valentine’s Day menu at Astara
Astara is a Parisian address and an online fine grocery store, which offers a full range of seafood products and caviar directly from its partner farms. I was able to test their Valentine’s Day menu in 2022, and it will be offered again in their Parisian restaurant on Rue des Petits Champs on February 14 for the lovers’ holiday. In 2022, it was the opportunity to taste, among other things, one of their specialties, the potato caviar, a roasted potato filled with 25g of Titane caviar, a surprising pairing that works surprisingly well!
“You are my Caviar” menu 2022: Norwegian smoked salmon heart amuse-bouche with a wasabi tobiko egg virgin sauce; Norwegian smoked salmon tart, beetroot, and passion fruit on a crispy blinis; potato-caviar with a roasted potato filled with 25g of Titane caviar accompanied by AOP Isigny cream; pink praline and marshmallow tartlet.
“Valentine’s Day” menu 2023: caviar duo; langoustine carpaccio, combava, caviar, and bottarga; cod loin, scallops, green cabbage, and shellfish bisque; dark chocolate and caviar creamy dessert.
“Iodized Love!” menu 2024: Valentine’s Day menu specially developed by the new chef Gaël Marques with the caviar duo, langoustine carpaccio, cod duo, and chocolate caviar creamy dessert.
For those who cannot make it to Paris, Astara also offers a “Valentine’s Day You are my Caviar” kit for delivery or click and collect, with a Baeri & Titane “You are my caviar” gift box (price €39.90).
Astara Paris
7 Rue des Petits Champs, 75001 Paris
“Valentine’s Day” menu for €85 per person for dinner on February 14, 2024
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Valentine’s Day at PB Poulet Braisé
The PB Poulet Braisé brand celebrates love and conviviality by launching its “Pinky Burger,” available from February 12 to 29, 2024, in honor of Valentine’s Day. On the program: two gourmet recipes: the “Crousti Burger” (pink bun, crispy chicken tenders, caramelized onions, potato patty, cheddar & emmental, tomatoes, lettuce, original green PB sauce) and the “BBQ Burger” (pink bun, shredded braised chicken with BBQ sauce, potato patty, caramelized onions, cheddar & emmental, lettuce).
Valentine’s Day at PB Poulet Braisé
From February 12 to 29, 2024
Price: €9 (without side) or Duo Menu (2 pinky burgers + 2 sides of your choice + 1 carafe of your choice €30)
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Valentine’s Day menu at Chelsea
This Italian restaurant, located on Rue Rambuteau, is the latest restaurant in a chain that already owns several addresses in Paris, such as Liberto near Châtelet Les Halles. It is a classic Italian address that offers pasta and also pinsa (also called pinsa romana, it is a kind of pizza, but with an Italian focaccia dough originating from the Latium region).
The Chelsea Valentine’s Day Menu (€45 per person):
- Violet champagne flute as an aperitif or non-alcoholic Bellini
- 3 starters of your choice: burrata di Puglia 100g, Norwegian smoked salmon flowers and lemon cream, smoked tarama
- 3 main courses of your choice: goat cheese and honey drizzle pinsa, roasted chicken fillets with forest-style sauce, gnocchi with mascarpone and tomato sauce
- 3 desserts of your choice: red fruit pavlova, chocolate fondant, assortment of macarons
Chelsea
64 Rue Rambuteau, 75003 Paris
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Bocconi restaurant of the Hôtel Amigo, Brussels
On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, the Bocconi restaurant of the Hôtel Amigo (which we tested during our stay in Brussels last year) offers a refined culinary experience in an intimate atmosphere. On the program, a Candle Light Dinner in four courses that will highlight exceptional products (€95 per person). A second option will allow you to extend the experience with a cocktail at the Bar Magritte, followed by the Valentine’s Day dinner at the Bocconi restaurant, offered at the rate of €135 per person.
- Amuse-bouche, bread, and focaccia
- Tuna Crudo, stracciatella, avocado, and puntarelle
- Cacio & pepe ravioli, Mazara del Vallo red prawn tartare
- Turbot, potato cream, broccolini and black truffle or lamb chops, morels and radicchio
- Spiced chocolate soup, rose ice cream
Bocconi restaurant
Rue de l’Amigo 1, 1000 Brussels
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Whether you are for or against, single or in a couple, in love or happy all by yourself (and yes, that exists too), waiting for a meeting or at the stammering start of a relationship, in the warmth of an exchange that lasts, I wish you all a very beautiful Valentine’s Day.
Photo credits: Nicolas Diolez and Melle Bon Plan Photos not free of rights, authorization from the photographer mandatory before any use
