We’re finally on to the next city! It probably seems like we were in London forever, but I honestly could have stayed even longer!
LEAVING LONDON / PARIS DAY 1
We decided to take the Eurostar to Paris rather than take a plane as we were pretty sick of flying at this point. I could not have possibly foreseen how much of a good decision this was. On the Eurostar, you stay with your luggage the whole time so you don’t have to worry about your luggage getting knocked around or anything. We bought tickets that were slightly more expensive but included a meal without having to go to a snack cart.
We also got pretty nice seats with a lot of leg room and table space, which is where I edited a lot of the Amsterdam photos! All in all, the Eurostar was where I looked at some of these beautiful photos.
When we arrived in Paris, we realized we had no idea how we were getting from the train station to our hotel. We also had very limited data and all the signs there were, obviously, in French. Nonetheless, we made it to our hotel and the area was simply beautiful. We knew we were staying in a richer area of town because we had used free nights from a credit card to stay there. For real, this was the major money saver point of the trip. We stayed at the Park Hyatt – Paris Vendôme. It’s a 10 minute (or less) walk from the Louvre and even less from Tuileries Garden where we spent a lot of time.
After checking into the most luxurious place we’ll ever spend time at, we decided to walk around the area and begin finding some food. We walked around for awhile and ended up finding a cute place in the Tuileries Gardens to eat crepes.
Following such delicious food, we walked around our “neighborhood” which was when we realized just how close we were actually located to the Louvre! We were there in no time. Although we didn’t go in on Day One of Paris, we did take a few pictures outside!
We had a lot of time between when I had bought tickets for the Eiffel Tower and our time outside of the Louvre. So we decided we’d walk to the Eiffel Tower instead of transit. What better way to see the City of Love?! It was a bit of a walk and I was feeling it by the time we finally arrived but was it ever worth it! The pictures on the walk there are wonderful and the pictures of the Tower upon arrival were as well!
Since we arrived in the area of the Eiffel Tower about 3 hours earlier than our ticket allowed us to go up, we decided to just sit and enjoy being there. We found a nice spot in the Gardens of Trocadero to people watch. We were offered wine, champagne, and beer and a million souvenirs by all of the people who try to sell them illegally in the gardens. It was just simply a great time to sit and relax and of course, prop up our iPhones and take cute pictures.
As the evening progressed, we walked to the other side of the Eiffel Tower to Champ de Mars and watched the sky begin to turn colors as the sunset. Talk about a romantic experience!
Our ticket to go to the top was bought for 10:30 pm because that was the earliest time available online which helped save us a lot of time in line. We bought only to go to the second floor, which was different from my first time there. 2013 trip to Paris, I went to the top during the day versus 2017 trip to Paris, I went to the second floor at night! I loved being able to experience the same thing in such a different way! Here are some of our pictures from the second floor and our time on the Eiffel Tower!
Watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle from the Eiffel Tower was a little odd, and I think I preferred that viewing experience from farther away.
After we completed our time at the Eiffel Tower, we waited for a bus to catch back to our hotel. This took wayyy longer than we anticipated, but when we did get back we enjoyed the comfort of our beautiful hotel after stopping at a convenience store for some snacks and OJ.
Day One in Paris was as amazing as the city itself! I can’t wait to keep sharing about Paris (and eventually even tell you about our trip to Portland, too).
Keep on comin’ back for more travel reads!
XO Elisebeth