An Itinerary for Paris in 2 Days | a walking tour of Paris
An Itinerary for Paris in 2 Days
So right before all of this Corona virus thing started to devastate the world and people's travel plans, my sister and I took a short trip to France + Switzerland in January!!
In case our style of traveling isn't for you and so you don't have to waste your time, here are some characteristics of how we travel:
- We like taking pictures. Cute foods, the scenery, the landmarks.
- We don't like spending too much time in one place. It's a check mark and go.
- We don't love strict time tables and are pretty flexible during our trips.
- USUALLY, we don't like spending time at a museum unless that's the last thing we have on our list to do. Museums mean huge time blocks and most times, we have other things we'd rather do and see. Paris was a little different in that aspect.
- My sister is a "that's not that far" kind of person. We usually try to walk everywhere.
- Public transit is our friend. Uber is usually strictly for airports.
- We don't usually stay in one city for more than 3 days max.
If any of those match your travel style, feel free to read on!! :)
Warning: In a walking tour scale of easy to hard, Paris is definitely an Extra Hard. BUT it's sooooooo worth it!!! I recommend you have some earbuds, wireless or not, download you a french playlist for the extra long walks, and enjoy the scenery. This is hard to do from a car or subway!!
I'll put a print out version of our itinerary on the next post, in case you don't want to read through all this!
If you want to watch the video Click Here
If you want to watch the video Click Here
Day 1:
So we were supposed to arrive at the airport in Charles De Gaulle at around 10:30 AM or so. But, as economy fares on a full flight go... our flight was pushed nearly 6 hours or so.... AND our nonstop flight got changed to a 1 stop, so we ended up arriving in Paris at around 3PM.... we were not happy. ALSO, my sister's luggage was lost!!!!!!!! ): So what we had planned for nearly a full day on arrival day, ended up being less than half a day. But we made the most of it. As most airport trips go, we built in around an hour/ hour and a half for airport to hotel travel.
Our first stop was our Hotel at around 4:30 PM. We had ours near the Arc de Triomphe and with full view. I really liked this location since it was a pretty good starting point for anywhere we wanted to walk to. Going up the Arc was on our plan for that day, but this got pushed towards the end of our trip because of the plane delay. I'd include this on your first day. :)
After settling in and dropping our stuff off, we headed out to get some emergency supplies for my sister in case the airport couldn't find her stuff. This was our first accidental stop on the shopping street near the Arc: The Champs-Élysées. We stopped by some regular stores like H&M to grab some basics for her, especially since it was cold.
Afterwards, we stopped by Laduree for some macarons! This was on the way to the Eiffel Tower. We also grabbed some water and cheese at a convenience store on the way to the Eiffel Tower.
At the Eiffel Tower, we grabbed some sparkly tower views from the Trocadero. I really wanted to do a night time Eiffel tower view and a day time. At night, on the hour, the tower does a sparkle thing for like 10 minutes. during the rest of the hour, it is lit just as pretty.
We were exhausted by this point and needed to grab some food before we headed in for the night. On our walk back to the hotel, we decided to stop by a random restaurant. It's a shame I don't have the name because our server was so so so polite and also fast!
From the Arc to Eiffel tower, it's about a 15-20 minute walk. It's pleasant enough and you get to pass by nice hotels and restaurants. It's pretty well lit for the most part and you pass by a lot of restaurants so you have enough choices!
Day 2:
No matter how much we want to be early risers, we aren't. We tried our best, and we woke up around 9 or so, but we were so exhausted!!! Nonetheless, we got out at around 9:30 or 10 AM. One of my bucket list things was to go to a bakery and eat all of the baked french goods :'). Alas, we found a Paul's HAHA. Paul's is a chain bakery store that sells bread and coffee, and in my opinion, is good enough for any quick bite for a tourist! We walked through Champs-Elysees to start our walk to the Louvre. if you googled the walk from the Arc to the Louvre, you would see that it's around a 40 minute walk or something crazy. Don't panic just yet!
The walk to the Louvre has a couple of really good stops along the way!!
Here are the stops we took:
Paul's for a snack
Grand Palais
Petit Palais
Pont Alexandre III Bridge
Jardin de Tuileries
I think you can go into both big and small palaces, but we just looked from the outside. The Pont Alexandre III Bridge is sooooo pretty, and such a nice view of the Seine River and Eiffel Tower with the beautiful lamps. It's the bridge where Anastasia goes to Paris and goes Grandmama!!!! :')
Once you hit all of those stops, you're basically set in front of the Louvre!!! We went during off season, so the line wasn't as long as it could've been, but the gardens will definitely be more beautiful during peak touring season compared to the winter haha.
We spent around 3? hours at the Louvre. We wanted to hit all of the big things at the museum, since I think if you wanted, you could stay at the Louvre for 3 weeks. On the way to the famous ones, you get to see different exhibits too! thats the good part of walking everywhere :)
Things we wanted to see:
Mona Lisa
Venus
Napoleon III room exhibits
We got lost multiple times trying to navigate our way through the huge museum, but we find these as good mistakes because you get to see more while also trying to accomplish things! One place you have to go is this big center room that holds a whole bunch of the marble statues. the room is so beautifully lit, has so much natural light coming in, greenery.. it's so pretty! It's pretty close to the main entrance and the Venus statue, so it'd be easy to pass by. We just got lost a couple times in it haha. By this time, your feet should be killing you, but you have to press on!
We were starving by this time, so we grabbed a couple of sandwiches at the Louvre cafe, albeit a bit dry, but still good!!
We headed out afterwards, to make our way to the Notre Dame! Although from last year, it was burned down ): We still walked along side the Seine to go see it! On the way there, there are all of the street vendors who sell really cute things like vintage french books or posters and trays. My sister and I bought some trays as souvenirs!!
After the Notre Dame, we walked back along the opposite side of the Seine to go to Musee d'Orsay. Our hit spots at Musee d'Orsay were:
Monet
Van Gogh
Shadow Clock
At Musee d'Orsay, we got to see one of those protests/ marches, so that was interesting!
We headed out to find a picture spot for the Eiffel Tower, but to be honest, I don't remember the street name and didn't find it as worth it as the walk. We made our way back to the base of the Eiffel Tower and sat on the benches for a little bit until we got tired of the vendors harassing us hahahaha. We crossed the street to the Trocadero and grabbed some chocolate crepes and hot tea and watched the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. We grabbed something to eat on the way back to our hotel and ended the night!
The next day, we were planning to go to Switzerland, so we headed to the nearest subway station (really close to our hotel near the Arc) to practice getting ourselves some tickets. We ended up leaving for the trains at around 6 AM.
So, that's our two-day itinerary for Paris!!
Look our for my next post that'll have a print out version for the itinerary that we had!
Thanks for reading,
Becca
Our first stop was our Hotel at around 4:30 PM. We had ours near the Arc de Triomphe and with full view. I really liked this location since it was a pretty good starting point for anywhere we wanted to walk to. Going up the Arc was on our plan for that day, but this got pushed towards the end of our trip because of the plane delay. I'd include this on your first day. :)
After settling in and dropping our stuff off, we headed out to get some emergency supplies for my sister in case the airport couldn't find her stuff. This was our first accidental stop on the shopping street near the Arc: The Champs-Élysées. We stopped by some regular stores like H&M to grab some basics for her, especially since it was cold.
Afterwards, we stopped by Laduree for some macarons! This was on the way to the Eiffel Tower. We also grabbed some water and cheese at a convenience store on the way to the Eiffel Tower.
At the Eiffel Tower, we grabbed some sparkly tower views from the Trocadero. I really wanted to do a night time Eiffel tower view and a day time. At night, on the hour, the tower does a sparkle thing for like 10 minutes. during the rest of the hour, it is lit just as pretty.
We were exhausted by this point and needed to grab some food before we headed in for the night. On our walk back to the hotel, we decided to stop by a random restaurant. It's a shame I don't have the name because our server was so so so polite and also fast!
From the Arc to Eiffel tower, it's about a 15-20 minute walk. It's pleasant enough and you get to pass by nice hotels and restaurants. It's pretty well lit for the most part and you pass by a lot of restaurants so you have enough choices!
Day 2:
No matter how much we want to be early risers, we aren't. We tried our best, and we woke up around 9 or so, but we were so exhausted!!! Nonetheless, we got out at around 9:30 or 10 AM. One of my bucket list things was to go to a bakery and eat all of the baked french goods :'). Alas, we found a Paul's HAHA. Paul's is a chain bakery store that sells bread and coffee, and in my opinion, is good enough for any quick bite for a tourist! We walked through Champs-Elysees to start our walk to the Louvre. if you googled the walk from the Arc to the Louvre, you would see that it's around a 40 minute walk or something crazy. Don't panic just yet!
The walk to the Louvre has a couple of really good stops along the way!!
Here are the stops we took:
Paul's for a snack
Grand Palais
Petit Palais
Pont Alexandre III Bridge
Jardin de Tuileries
I think you can go into both big and small palaces, but we just looked from the outside. The Pont Alexandre III Bridge is sooooo pretty, and such a nice view of the Seine River and Eiffel Tower with the beautiful lamps. It's the bridge where Anastasia goes to Paris and goes Grandmama!!!! :')
Once you hit all of those stops, you're basically set in front of the Louvre!!! We went during off season, so the line wasn't as long as it could've been, but the gardens will definitely be more beautiful during peak touring season compared to the winter haha.
We spent around 3? hours at the Louvre. We wanted to hit all of the big things at the museum, since I think if you wanted, you could stay at the Louvre for 3 weeks. On the way to the famous ones, you get to see different exhibits too! thats the good part of walking everywhere :)
Things we wanted to see:
Mona Lisa
Venus
Napoleon III room exhibits
We got lost multiple times trying to navigate our way through the huge museum, but we find these as good mistakes because you get to see more while also trying to accomplish things! One place you have to go is this big center room that holds a whole bunch of the marble statues. the room is so beautifully lit, has so much natural light coming in, greenery.. it's so pretty! It's pretty close to the main entrance and the Venus statue, so it'd be easy to pass by. We just got lost a couple times in it haha. By this time, your feet should be killing you, but you have to press on!
We were starving by this time, so we grabbed a couple of sandwiches at the Louvre cafe, albeit a bit dry, but still good!!
We headed out afterwards, to make our way to the Notre Dame! Although from last year, it was burned down ): We still walked along side the Seine to go see it! On the way there, there are all of the street vendors who sell really cute things like vintage french books or posters and trays. My sister and I bought some trays as souvenirs!!
After the Notre Dame, we walked back along the opposite side of the Seine to go to Musee d'Orsay. Our hit spots at Musee d'Orsay were:
Monet
Van Gogh
Shadow Clock
At Musee d'Orsay, we got to see one of those protests/ marches, so that was interesting!
We headed out to find a picture spot for the Eiffel Tower, but to be honest, I don't remember the street name and didn't find it as worth it as the walk. We made our way back to the base of the Eiffel Tower and sat on the benches for a little bit until we got tired of the vendors harassing us hahahaha. We crossed the street to the Trocadero and grabbed some chocolate crepes and hot tea and watched the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. We grabbed something to eat on the way back to our hotel and ended the night!
The next day, we were planning to go to Switzerland, so we headed to the nearest subway station (really close to our hotel near the Arc) to practice getting ourselves some tickets. We ended up leaving for the trains at around 6 AM.
So, that's our two-day itinerary for Paris!!
Look our for my next post that'll have a print out version for the itinerary that we had!
Thanks for reading,
Becca
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