Originally, our trip to Europe was going to be London, Seville and Granada. Somewhere along the way and partially due to high costs of airfare to get from London to Madrid, I had the crazy and fun idea to take the Eurostar to Paris, spend a day there and then fly from there to Madrid. In hindsight, I would not have done this. I’ve done Paris in a day from London 3 times before, but I was 19 and 20. I think my downfall with this trip in general was that because I’d been to all these places before and generally knew the areas and how to get around, I was so confident we could do a lot. And we did – I was an efficiency queen and we were jam-packed every day. But as a result we didn’t really give Paris a chance and for that, I feel badly because Sean deserved to experience it in a better way. 

But, as the French say, c’est la vie. We went, we saw what we could, we exhausted ourselves and if we ever go back, we will stay longer.

The one good thing I did do was let Sean pick the one thing he really wanted to see/do so we could prioritize. He chose the Louvre. Excellent choice. We arrived in Paris just before noon, dropped off our bags at the hotel, had an excellent lunch at a nearby cafe of Crogue Monsieur and a smoked salmon omelette, then headed out. 

I had purchased tickets for an exact entry time, so we got in a shorter line. This was a good and smart way to maximize time.

We spent a couple of hours here and could have easily spent days. Not only are the items within the museum incredible (the Islamic art section in the lower level was incredible) the building itself is historic and amazing.

We navigated the Metro over to Notre Dame to see the beautiful cathedral, but opted not to go inside. Instead, we wandered through a few streets before heading back to the hotel for a bit of a recharge. The weather was insane – it had rained, gotten sunny, been windy and then 2 blocks from the hotel it started hailing. Oy.

Our hotel was conveniently located between Gare du Nord and Gare de L’est train stations so we had access to many metro lines. However, I think I’d have done better to be more centrally located especially since we only had one day. Even the train stations are gorgeous!

We headed out for the evening, starting at the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees. The sky was a perfect backdrop for these pretty sights.

We walked from there to the Eiffel Tower and had dinner at a nearby restaurant. We had French champagne (Taittinger) and steak-frites, and I had escargot for the first time. 

Being at the Eiffel Tower with my husband was wonderful. We were wet, cold and our feet hurt like crazy but that glowing and then sparkling tower is powerfully romantic. We stayed there for a long time.

We headed to the airport early the next morning. This was the view from our hotel room. Pretty darn cool. Bon voyage!