How To Visit Paris In Just 2 Days Part 1

Last updated on 24 June 2024

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Paris is one of the cities that I had to go to before we left England It’s only an hour on the plane, so it would be incredibly silly and ridiculous if I didn’t go. Thankfully, the rest of the family thought so too, so we jumped on a plane on Monday evening and flew off.

It actually ended up being perfect timing, despite my sister and I and my dad having to take time off work, and my younger sister missing a few days of school. But it was my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary on the 17th, so it was nice for them to be in Paris for that.

We arrived on Monday evening, like I mentioned, and just popped out for a bite to eat before heading back to the hotel. On Tuesday we did all the main, big tourist things (Eiffel Tower, Louvre etc), and then on Wednesday we hung about in the area where the hotel was, Montmartre, and saw the Sacre-Ceour too. Because we did so much, I’ll tell you a little about the first day, and then I’ll post about the second day.

We got up at stupid o’clock on the Tuesday morning and caught the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe, and the morning sun was hitting it beautifully. We wandered down the famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées, which has so many famous shops and, of course, the Disney store!

There was a Christmas market all set up, and there were hundreds of stalls. Because it was early in the morning, no one was really around yet (they seem to get up late in France), so all the stalls were closed, but we went back later in the evening.

From there, we walked past Cleopatra’s Needle, where there was also a Ferris Wheel set up. Then it was the Louvre, but we didn’t go in, as we didn’t have time. You probably need like a week to go round the whole thing anyway. But it was super cool to see it.

Then we walked some more, and stumbled across the bridge with all the padlocks on it. I knew about this bridge, but it hadn’t really crossed my mind throughout the day, so it was awesome to accidentally find it like we did. If you’re not familiar, it’s a bridge across the river that is covered with padlocks that have little love notes on them, or couples’ names, or just travellers’ names. There were a couple of people on the bridge selling padlocks too, so if you forgot one, then you could just buy one. We didn’t write our names, but that would be have been cool. I think it was actually my favourite part of Paris. It was just amazing to walk along, reading all the padlocks.

Then we went to Notre Dame, and try as I might, I couldn’t find Quasimodo, nor could I hear any gargoyles singing. But it was amazing all the same. There was a man outside feeding pigeons, and they were on his arms and everything! Bird whisperer!

From there we were going to go to a Church that had amazing stained glass windows, but it was shut, so we wandered through the Latin Quarter and out the other side to the Rodin Museum. It was something Mum really wanted to do, and it was really cool to see The Thinker statue. On the way we saw awesome street art, which I snapped of course.

And then the Eiffel Tower. We came in from the other side (I think most people see it from the other side first) and walked up and under it. It was evening, and the lights just started going on when we were leaving. By the time we had crossed the river and were looking at it from the other side, the lights were on and it was really beautiful.

Then we headed back to the Christmas market, and wandered around that for a little while. Then we jumped back on Metro to our hotel, and crashed. I really wish I had put on Run Keeper or a mile-tracker app of some sort, because I swear we walked like 20 kilometres, at least! My feet and legs ached so much after that first day, and there was a whole other day to go! Look out for that post soon!