Just a day in Paris is all we needed! Well, two nights and one full day. Didn’t seem like much to do in Paris, we wanted to see The Louvre and The Eiffel Tower. We landed in Paris on Sunday evening and headed straight to our hotel. We had looked all over for hotels & Airbnb’s in Paris and eventually settled on staying at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile which wasn’t far from some of the things we wanted to see. It ended up being just over 900 Euros for two nights, which we thought was crazy expensive for what we got. The room was tiny. I mean, really small. Enough room for a bed and a tiny bathroom. Nothing more. But, we did have a pretty decent view.
We did dinner at a nice French restaurant that was within walking distance from our hotel. The food was good but left a lot to be desired. Everything was cooked really well, but it was missing flavor. And it was just… plain. I guess French food just isn’t that exciting! Tell me I’m wrong. We can agree to disagree on that. The best food we had in Paris was at a Japanese restaurant where we had sushi and ramen. Of course, we had some pastries and croissants, we had to! Slightly disappointing here too. We were striking out on the local cuisine in Paris. We had just come from Spain where everything is full of flavor, so maybe that’s part of it? Anyway, after dinner we called it an evening and headed back for some rest.
1 Day in Paris
We had 1 full day to spend in Paris and pretty much made zero plans ahead of time. Kind of nice to wake up without a plan. We started walking from our hotel and headed to a bakery that we found online and was pretty highly rated. Got a few pastries and croissants. They were ok, I was expecting them to be better! Got a Kouign Aman because that pretty much the most French pastry there is and it’s my favorite. Les Madeleines back in Salt Lake City makes a Kouign Aman that’s better!
A couple of pastries and cappuccinos and we were ready to go for the day and started heading towards the Louvre. We weren’t sure if we were even going to go inside because we didn’t book anything ahead of time and when we checked the day of it didn’t really show any availability. We spent a few hours walking the city and took in the views as we made our way.
The Louvre
When we finally got to the Louvre, there were hundreds of people in line to get inside. We decided to hope in the “no ticket same day” line and it was moving surprisingly quickly. We waited in line for maybe 10 minutes or so and we were in.
The Louvre is huge! I don’t think you could see everything inside in a day. We did a lot of walking around the Louvre, got lost and couldn’t figure out what direction we were headed, but we saw many of the highlights including the Mona Lisa. It was crazy in the room of the Mona Lisa which is the largest room in the Louvre. There was a line to get to the front to see the painting for a few moments before the ushers would drop the rope and rush you out of the way for the next round of people to have their moment.
We checked the Louvre off our list of things to see in Paris and then headed off for an afternoon snack at a closeby cafe. It was raining at that point, so after our snacks and coffee we hopped in one of those eBike powered carts that was covered and asked the gentleman to take us to Avenue Des Champs which is full of shopping, restaurants and sits next to the Arc de Triomphe. This is where we found Miss Ko, the Japanese restaurant we ate at. Loved it the retro/futuristic vibe happening here and all the food we had was delicious. It really was the best food we had in Paris! Very walked out and exhausted at this point, and it was raining, so we just headed back to our hotel which wasn’t far for a chill evening.
Eiffel Tower
Still hadn’t seen Paris’ main attraction… The Eiffel Tower! It was completely booked on our first day, but we checked online that evening and there was availability for early Tuesday morning so we reserved our expedited passes for the opening time at 8:30 am. Tuesday morning, we headed off to the Eiffel Tower, stopped on the way for a cappuccino and got there 15-20 minutes before it opened at 8:30.
There was already several hundred people there and lining up! We walked around the entire tower until we found an expedited line that we had passes for and right at 8:30 when they opened we were in pretty quickly. Once inside we had to find the right place to be to go up in the lift which only takes you to the second floor. Our expedited passes also got us access to the lift up to the very top vs taking the stairs. I’m glad we got a chance to go up the Eiffel Tower, really cool views of Paris from up there!
After the Eiffel Tower, we rushed back to our hotel to grab our bags and hop in and Uber to get to the airport for our flight. We flew out of Paris’ Orly International Airport instead of Charles de Gaulle where we came into- it was easier to get to and the flights were significantly cheaper. We’re off to Rome from here!
You can see other parts of our Euro Trip here:
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Barcelona, Spain
- Paris, France
- Rome, Italy
- Venice, Italy
