Paris has always seemed like my kind of city. Full of fresh bread, delicious cheeses, great wine, and of course, french macarons. Our time in Paris was kicked off by Caramel crepes and tea at the crêperie Gigi. The Airbnb we were staying in was close to the Marais so we popped over there to pick up some food supplies for back at our place after breakfast. From there we made baguette, tapenade, prosciutto, and brie sandwiches and headed out for some sight seeing. We walked over to the Sainte Chapelle first.
The Sainte Chapelle was a royal chapel in the time of Louis IX. It was built as a place to house his newly acquired relics of the passion, and the stained glass work reflects this. This place holds special significance to me as it has been the subject of much of my art history studies. After exploring the Sainte Chapelle we wandered over to the nearby Notre Dame for Sunday evening mass.
Notre Dame was stunning and being able to experience mass there was beautiful, especially with the tragic fire that occurred just over a week after we had been there. After mass we walked back to our Airbnb stopping for a gelato flower with a macaron in it as an evening snack.
Day two was our heavy sightseeing day, with a climb up the Eiffel tower planned for first thing in the morning. Built for the 1889 World’s Fair, the Eiffel tower didn’t start out as the cultural icon of Paris it has come to be today. We had chosen to do the ticket where you climb up to the second level and then take an elevator to the top. Now for someone with a crippling fear of heights those 674 steps were not exactly a piece of cake. But we made it to the top and were treated to breathtaking views of the city. After the equally nerve wracking climb down, we were walking along the Seine to the Louvre.
As a lover of art, the Louvre was immediately on my list of musts while I was in Paris. The Louvre is the largest museum of art in the world and is famous for housing the Mona Lisa, which we managed to get to the front for a quick peek at. We also explored the wing of Napoleon III’s apartments and greco-roman antiquities. I could have explored the museum for days, if not weeks, but unfortunately we only had the one day.
After seeing as much as we physically could, we continued on our walking Tour of Paris. First to the grounds of the Louvre and then straight ahead to the Arc de Triomphe. Built at one end of the Champs Élysées, it is seen as another recognizable icon of Paris.
That evening we decided to go catch sunset back at the Eiffel tower. After stopping for the necessary provisions of baguettes, jam, wine, and boxes of macarons, we found ourselves at the foot of the Eiffel tower. We hung out there until the sun had set and a couple of the light shows had gone on. We would have stayed for hours but it got too cold to be outside anymore. This was definitely one of my favourite moments of our Spring Break trip.
The next day only had one thing on – a visit to Versailles! We took the train there and then got in the massive line that moved much quicker than we had expected. Wandering the castle and then the gorgeous grounds, it was easy to see how such opulence played a role in the French Revolution.
On our last day in Paris we had overnight bus tickets to Nice so we spent the morning at Père Lachaise cemetery exploring the mausoleums and monuments. Next we made a quick stop at the Bastille before settling into a McDonalds to charge up our devices before the first of many red eye buses. Overall, Paris was definitely a highlight of Spring Break and although I could have spent more time there it felt like the right amount in terms of how long we had to travel as a whole.
