Finally getting to the Paris post. I have been out on medical leave and had high hopes to get through to a Whitefish, MT trip. However, I've read 5 books in 3 weeks and working on backing up 4 years (roughly 6000) photos...with the promise that I will in the future stay on top of this!
Ok here we go Paris! As I mentioned in previous post I flew Aer Lingus and did a stop over in Dublin. Flights I always look for the most direct route and that was an excellent choice! The hardest part for me about Paris was actually deciding where to stay. Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements, starting with 1 at the very center. 1 being the oldest part of the city, right where Notre Dame is located the going around that in a circular motion as the city was built out. My main objective was to be able to walk everywhere. From 1 to where the Eiffel Tower is 7. In searching I did a lot of google maps to figure out distances. My kids are use to walking a ton on vacation, but 2 miles out is about the furthest I like to be from one particular destination, because we also want it to be as efficient as possible. There is Uber and taxis, but Paris is much like NY, either taking the train or walking is faster than being stuck in a car. I ended up choosing the 6th and staying at the
Hotel Bel Ami. This is a smaller boutique hotel, and knowing European rooms I upgraded to a slightly bigger room, the deluxe room since we would be spending a week here. I also did the breakfast. I know Paris has amazing cafes, and trust me we still enjoyed them, but I like doing hotel breakfast when I travel. My breakfast of choice is always fruit and coffee. I like not having to put thought into that part of my day while on vacation. While not giving thought to it, it also allowed us time while down there to plan/map out our day. Their breakfast was great. A pretty standard European breakfast, with cheese, breads, meats and eggs, along with fruit and delicious pastries.
I do not plan days out ahead of time, because until you are actually in the city you can't really plan how much you'll be able to cover in a day or not. The day we got in was relatively early and we only had an hour time change coming from Dublin, so we grabbed a handy paper map. At this point I had not activated my international phone plan (however it was set up ahead of time), in Dublin everything was so easy to get around I didn't need it. Paris is confusing, two days later I activated it to be able to use google maps! We went on a walk down the Siene, crossed over on a bridge that happened to be the bridge of locks, traveled down the Tuileries, ended up at the Louvre, decide to go in and see the Mona Lisa and a few other exhibits (this place is HUGE and crowded, this you should maybe go in with a plan, we did not and I couldn't wait to get out), realized we were close to making a loop so headed back to the hotel. After a quick change went around the corner and ate at Cafe de Flore (as a Hemingway fan this was a must), the french onion soup and hot chocolate were great, but keep in mind there are only a few smoke free restaurants in Paris, and this one seemed to be one with a lot of smokers.
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| You'll see a lot of this type of photo, by the end of the trip she got it pretty close to perfect! |
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| The room that the Mona Lisa in was likely filled with at least 100 people. You just had to swim your way to the front to snap a photo. I have a photo of this, I will try to find and share, it was CRAZY! |
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| Back to the map |
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| In Dublin her eye got really infected, thankfully we found medicated drops at the airport heading to Paris but this is why her eye looks all wonky here, no contacts for her. |
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| Surprisingly they did have a vegetarian club on the menu, it was ok. |
In the next few posts I'll share a few of our favorite stops while staying in Paris.
