As I shared in
My Disneyland Paris Bucket List post Scott treated me to a few days at Disneyland in January for my Christmas but before the magic began we had 24 hours to explore Paris.
I wasn't sure I'd have enough to share (and I wouldn't say I have any recommendations) but I will wanted to document our trip because I feel like we made the most of our time in the city.
We flew early in the morning from Edinburgh and landed at Charles de Gaulle at around 9am where we jumped on the RER to the centre of Paris. The ticket machines in the airport were available in English - buying a train ticket was really easy and cost €22.90 for the two of us.
I'd done a little research before the trip and knew that the same tickets were valid on the RER and the metro for the one journey as long as we didn't leave the station so we used google maps to transfer lines a couple of times to get us to the hotel to drop our bags.
From the hotel we knew we wanted to walk a route that meant we saw as much as possible - I've shared that route below in google map form. As the Arc de Triomphe was closest we headed there first grabbing sandwiches from a bakery on the way for an early lunch.
Sadly there wasn't time to go inside or up any of the landmarks we visited but we were able to have a good wander around outside before heading off to the next place. The Arc de Triomphe is an impressive structure and the stonework so intricate you could spend hours looking at it.
One of my favourite things to do in a new city is just walk so when we spotted the Eiffel Tower in the distance we headed off the way just enjoying the Parisian streets. There was a point we had to turn to google maps because it kept coming in and out of view and we were sure how to get to it.
I'm not going to lie - I was a little underwhelmed by the most iconic landmark of Paris. Maybe it was because we couldn't see the top of the Eiffel Tower or approaching from the side of a busy road but it wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be.
From the Eiffel Tower we decided to walk along the river, which is very nice even on a freezing January day, in the direction of Notre-Dame. I think this was the best way to see as much as possible and if something looked interesting we used google to find out more about what we were looking at.
At Pont Alexandre III and Grand Palais the gold shone out especially bright on such a grey foggy day so we stopped to take some pictures. Again, it's a shame we couldn't stay longer and learn more about the history of the buildings but I think the Grand Palais was closed.
This is the point in the day that my photo taking really fell away... we'd been walking for a few hours and struggling to agree where to go for a coffee to warm up. However, we did see Place de la Concorde and walk through Tuileries Garden to the Louvre.
Of all the places we saw I think the Louvre was the most impressive and when we were outside I was disappointed we didn't have more time because it would have been amazing to go inside. The scale of the place really doesn't come across in photos.
We finished our walk at Notre-Dame with a walk around the outskirts of the cathedral - I wasn't sure how much we would see with all the work they are doing after the fire and the truth is not a lot. We certainly didn't get close enough to appreciate how impressive the building in.
By this point in the day I was frozen to the bone and my legs starting to cramp so we once again used Google Maps to get the metro back to the hotel. I had a lovely bath to warm up before we headed out again for dinner. We stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe for a cocktail before finding a Vietnamese restaurant that looked like it had a good atmosphere for some food.
We walked back through the city at night back to the hotel and ticked one more landmark off the list. The Palais Garnier is an Italian-style opera house with more shinning gold statues. Very impressive!
This was a very touristy trip but sometimes when you visit a city for the first time that what you've got to do. I'd love to go back and find some hidden gems next time but after 32,000 steps I was ready to crawl into bed.
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