Paris Day 1
We got to our hotel around noon. We were booked at Tourisme Avenue Hotel. We dropped our luggage at the hotel and headed off into the world in search of lunch. We just wandered around, got our bearings, and headed roughly in the direction of Cafe Constant, which I found in the Rick Steves Paris book. It was delicious, our waiter spoke English, and we all had a little caffeine, so all in all it was a pretty successful lunch!
We decided to go back to the hotel after buying sandwiches at a supermarche (which were not good) and my family promptly fell asleep. I watched Netflix in order to keep myself up until a normal bedtime. If you’re curious, European countries have totally different Netflix options than the US! It was very exciting, but only watch if you couldn’t be doing something else!
Newly renovated hotel. Lovely modern rooms and a delicious breakfast available.
66 Avenue de la Motte-Picquet
Tourisme Avenue Hotel
Paris Day 2
I slept the whole night! Not sure about my family...but I was pretty proud of myself! We had breakfast at the hotel which was… unbelievable! As an American I usually assume if a hotel has breakfast, it's very bland and boring, or just inedible all together. Tourisme Avenue had delicious pastries, sausages, fresh fruit, an intricate coffee maker, juice, and tea.
We headed off to the Orsay Museum, which ended up being my favorite Paris museum. Here we picked up our four day Paris Museum Pass. We also had a quick bite to eat here. The Orsay was beautiful, not too crowded, and, as a photographer, so much fun to just explore. My favorite Pieces? The model of the theater, François Garas’ pieces, and all of the Van Goghs.
Delicious Hotel Breakfast
The bird (on Sundays) and flower market, located near the Notre-Dame
37 Place Louis Lépine
Marché aux Fleurs
The Sainte Chapelle was next, and it was incredible. Honestly, if I had to pick between Notre-Dame and Sainte Chapelle, I'd pick the latter. We then stopped next door at the Conciergerie, an old prison where prisoners were held before their fate was decided, the most famous of which was Marie Antoinette. It was included in the Museum Pass, which is why we went, but it ended up being a very unique and quick visit.
8 Boulevard du Palais
Sainte-Chapelle
We walked back along the Seine Riverwalk. Awesome! It was so lively and friendly. There are little bars, games you can rent, obstacle courses for kids, and it’s all along a bike path full of bikers, rollerbladers, runners, etc. On our way back to our hotel we picked up some meat, cheese, bread, and wine, then we took a nap and headed over to the Eiffel Tower for its night show. We sat on a blanket and picnicked while waiting for it to begin. It was a lovely evening.
Riverwalk
Musée d'Art Moderne
de la Ville de Paris
11 Avenue du Président Wilson
Paris Day 3
Today, the Louvre. We headed out decently early to beat some of the crowd, but still about twenty minutes in line. When we finally got in? Pure madness. For whatever reason, they made everyone go up one escalator which shoots you into the same wing as everyone else, and I can assure you, it’s not the wing you want to be in. We had to figure out where we were and how to get to the gosh darn Mona Lisa, cause that’s just what you have to do… and we just wanted to get it over with. The Louvre was insane, people everywhere, and every so often someone gets too close to a piece of art and sets of an alarm… There are very few benches and the ones you do find are full of other exhausted people, there are also very few bathrooms and the ones you do find are… disgusting. Maybe I just picked the wrong one, but I had to cover my face in my scarf in order to breathe.
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We had to have lunch here because we were there for so long. Fortunately, the food was good, and it was one of those amazing times where we got in a short line and then all of a sudden there was a million people behind us. Have lunch a little early and this could happen to you! After lunch the museum just got louder and louder. As a kid I was taught that a museum should be treated as a library, the Louvre is not given that respect. If you want to stand (cause no benches) and really take in a piece, you will be bumped into, stood in front of, and your brain will be drowned out by all the talking and yelling (and alarms).
Then back to the hotel to start the tour! I was a little nervous, an impending forced interaction with strangers was something I was not too sure about, but it ended up going well! Our tour guide, Jody, was much younger than I thought, which made me feel a little more comfortable and the rest of the group was just lovely! We introduced ourselves, learned a bit about the next two weeks, and picked buddies. We had another picnic dinner and then turned in early to prepare for what I like to refer to as “proof that my family is insane cause look at what we did” day!
Which brings me to the one amazing quality of the museum, the collection. I love art history so there were pieces I’ve studied for years that I could not wait to see, these include: Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks, Gericault's The Raft of Medusa, and The Winged Victory. Would I go back? No! Would I tell someone not to go? Also no. Even though it was exhausting and the museum has a ridiculous layout, you have to go. The works of art are too rare to pass up, just know EXACTLY what you want to see and go see them directly and then leave.
The Louvre
For dinner we walked to L’as Du Fallafel! It is a fast restaurant out of a window, you get in line and an employee comes down the line and takes your order and money and gives you a ticket (know what you want to get before you get in line) it can be a pretty long line, but it’s decently fast and well worth the wait! We took our falafel to a nearby park to eat (fun fact: many Parisian parks have free WiFi).
First Meet-Up
We were so tired after leaving we needed a moment of peace and quiet. The gardens outside the Louvre were perfect for a quick rejuvenating nap! Then we stopped by the Orangerie. The Monet rooms were lovely and quiet with long benches in the middle, how a museum should be! I’m not a great fan of impressionist art but it was a nice museum to peacefully walk through.
Paris Day 4
(aka Proof That My Family is Insane Cause Look What We Did)
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We headed off to the Army Museum right away. My mom and I left the dudes and headed to Napoleon’s tomb and then straight to the Rodin Museum. Which was lovely, it is done in his old house and the garden sculptures are beautiful. We then met back up and got lunch at a patisserie, which was delicious! Sandwiches and pastries in Paris are the equation for the perfect lunch!
Then we went to the Petit Trianon! It was adorable and quiet, it ended up being my favorite thing at Versailles. The only annoying thing was that the main house was under construction. Guess I’ll have to go back! We then decided to take the bus back to the train station, we had walked over 14 miles by then and we were exhausted!
129 Rue de Grenelle
Musée de l'Armée
Then we walked to the nearest subway stop that was on the Versailles line and hopped on. It was my idea to go to Versailles in the afternoon because EVERYTHING you read tells you to go in the morning, however, since going to the Louvre in the morning was a total failure, I began to wonder if maybe most people were reading the same thing and all showing up in the morning to avoid the crowd but then becoming the crowd themselves! Anyway, I had a lot riding on this, because if I was wrong, everyone would blame me! But guess what? I was not wrong. I was totally right!
Palace of Versailles
We quickly got in and walked through the first half of the palace which is unfurnished and filled with lame videos and maps meant to weed people out, don’t get weeded out. Just. Keep. Walking. Finally we get to the furnished areas and it’s cool but we were basically in one giant moving line (still not as bad as the Louvre). I mainly just wanted to get to the Hall of Mirrors, a photographers dream! It was amazing!
Then we got outta there and headed to the gardens! This is where we first learned that our order should have been switched around. The garden fountains turn off at 16:00. We literally saw them for two minutes. It was fine, they have a few fountains that do a show every 15 or 30 minutes so we could still see those. That day we had to pay(it’s normally free) because there was a music in the gardens thing and so they were playing classical music throughout the garden, nice but not sure it was worth the 8 extra euros each.
Then we walked down the Seine on our way to Notre-Dame, looking at all the Bouquinistes (the booksellers along the bank of the seine) and wandered through a flower market. When we got into Notre-Dame it was fairly busy inside, but not ridiculous. We walked slowly around the church to the Deportation Martyrs Memorial (Paris Holocaust Memorial) which is next to Notre-Dame. It was very well done and quite moving. We got off the island picked up some crêpes and visited Shakespeare's book store, a very eclectic, English shop.
BEAUNE
Back on the train we discussed what we’d learned. This is what we will do next time. Get there at the same time (early afternoon) then take the trolley to the Petit Trianon and then walk through the gardens back to the main palace and finish with that. We went back to the hotel, packed all our stuff up, had a last late dinner, and said goodbye to the Eiffel tower!