European Vacation - Paris Recap

Paris is incredible. 

As tourists, we are constantly at risk of the Disney World effect - that sense of trying to fit everything in but there's so much to do and see, that you actually burn out instead of existing in the joy. We managed to avoid the burnout despite how much we did every day. I think it's because part of the "doing" was sitting at cafes, taking naps, having a wine and cheese picnic in our room, and wandering endlessly without agenda. Each day, we'd have one scheduled thing, like a museum or food tour. The rest of the day we'd figure out as we go. We took the time to notice the height of the doors and the color of pigeon feet. We counted the rats in the park at dusk. We picked through vintage clothing stores and walked for miles every days. There was plenty of stuff we didn't get to see (like the Catacombs) but that gives us all a reason to come back and do it again.

Where we stayed

AirBnB in the 7th - it was perfectly fine and functional, in a great location steps from Rue Cler, a great little street with cafes, markets, and gelato. About a 10-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower.

La Chambre du Marais - We splurged a bit for our final night in Paris and moved to Le Marais to see another part of the city. This place was perfection. Also, they upgraded our room when we got there, so we extra liked them.

Eating in Paris

We opted not to pre-book restaurants in order to have a more free-flowing kind of vibe and that was definitely the right move. Everywhere we ate was excellent. Would it have been more excellent if we booked at the places everyone recommended? Maybe. But we'll never know and I'm fine with that. Thanks to the food tour of Montmartre, we got to sample the local chocolate, fromage and baguettes, and we stumbled upon the best croissants I've ever had at the bakery right across the street from our AirBnB. 

What stands out to me about eating in Paris is that everything is fresh and the ambiance brings out the flavors. Every piece of fruit we bought from a market was perfectly ripe. The cafes, each one looking like it's straight out of a movie set, allow for leisurely people watching and the gift of time to taste your food. 

What we did

Day 1:

We arrived in Paris by train and took the Metro to our AirBnb, where we had to follow a series of scavenger hunt steps to find the key in a lock box attached to a bike rack, put in a door code, climb 3 flights of stairs, and then wiggle the key for 10 minutes in the lock to get in. All part of the adventure.

After dinner, we wandered on over to the Eiffel Tower, which I really thought would be sort of cheesy because of how popular it is on souvenir change purses and t-shirts, but the impressiveness totally outweighed the cheese factor. We took our cues from the crowd and found a spot on the grass to wait for dusk when the tower would light up and the hourly twinkle would begin. It really is beautifully done and I'm sure a spectacular site from everywhere in Paris it can be seen.

Day 2:

We did an early tour of The Louvre called "Laughing Through the Louvre" with our guide, Cedric, who is part art historian and part comedian. I enjoyed his art history more than the comedy, mostly because I could only understand about half of what he said, but he ran us through the Louvre, taking side stairs and elevators that cut through the crowds, and explaining works of art that I never would have stopped to look at if he didn't point them out. Two hours was just enough for this intro to the Louvre kind of day.

We all agreed that our afternoon nap at the AirBnB during a heavy downpour was one of our favorite parts of the week. We maintained a rigorous pace throughout this trip, and the afternoon chill times we allowed ourselves were just as much a part of the experience as the sites and tours.

After rest hour, we walked and walked and walked along the Seine to the Latin Quarter for dinner, passing by all the fancy buildings, bridges, pillars, doors, light posts, and museums. It's incredible how many enormous buildings there are in Paris.

Day 3:

I woke up early and walked the Rue Cler before most of Paris was awake (shout out to Rick Steve's app which has free audio tours of various sites in Paris). I sat down at a cafe and drank coffee all by myself just as it started to pour down rain. Side note: it did that a lot on this trip. There were no full-day rainouts, but we got "stuck" at a cafe on more than one occasion and it was lovely to drag out our time talking, watching people and drinking coffee.

We headed over to Montmartre to meet our "Secret Food Tour" with Marcel, and this turned out to be our favorite tour of the week. Marcel grew up in this neighborhood and it seemed like he was taking us along for his daily shopping as we popped in and out of chocolate shops, fromageries, boulangeries, and whatever the word is for butcher. We sampled macarons and cheese in some places, and in others, he'd pick up ingredients for the meal we would share at the end of the tour in a "speakeasy" which was really just a wine cellar down a steep set of stairs through an unmarked door. The food, the company, and the vibe of this tour were unique and we really enjoyed it.

I have no idea what we did the rest of that day. It probably involved walking. And gelato.

The gelato shop around the corner from the AirBnB had a very cute scooper that was Cate's Parisian crush. We went back there 3 times as their wordless, eyelash-batting love affair unfolded. When in Paris...

Day 4:

This was supposed to be Stacey and Cate's departure day, but their flight was canceled and re-booked for the next day (yay!) so we got to spend a full day wandering around Le Marais, which was easily my favorite part of the city. Narrow streets, vintage fashion, interesting history, and the beautiful hotel we stayed in all contributed to a perfect ending to this trip.

This is also considered the Jewish section of Paris, where most of the Jews in Europe lived throughout history. We didn't get to any of the museums or synagogues that document the struggles of this community before and during the war, but you can see references to it everywhere, including the signs above doors that tell the story of the people who lived in those houses that were deported to concentration camps during the war.

We also walked over to Notre Dame, which is sadly surrounded by miles of scaffolding due to the devastating fire in 2019 that burned through the roof and damaged huge sections of this monumental church. They've done a nice job creating a narrative of the renovation on the walls surrounding the scaffolding, where you can read about the painstaking detail of rebuilding and repairing. Paris is no stranger to burning and destruction of property, and I'm sure this 5-year process will eventually become just a small paragraph in the long history of this city.

Day 5:

After spending the morning on a walk-about with the Waldmans, Tyler and I made the most of our final day in Paris with a trip to the Musee d'Orsay. I'm so glad we didn't skip this! We loaded up the Rick Steve's audio tour of the museum and powered through a tight 90 minutes, which is about all we had left in us at that point in the trip.

And then it was time to go!