Taylor Stone

Nov 11, 20227 min read

A Weekend in Paris

Updated: Nov 22, 2022

The city of love! Paris has many famous landmarks, churches and museums that I just had to see. Here's what I saw in my two days in Paris:

Getting There

Although a direct flight from Florence for a cheap price is surprisingly pretty uncommon, we were able to get one straight to Paris. The airport is easy to get to as well. My two friends and I took a taxi to the airport which is only about 20 minutes from our apartment in the city. Our flight left at around 5pm after our last class on Thursday and it was about a 2 hour flight. We landed around 9pm and went straight to where we were instructed to pick up our airbnb keys. Unlike Florence, Paris has uber which was nice. Getting our keys was interesting to say the least. We were dropped off in a random area without having service so we roamed until we figured out where to get our key. Thankfully we made it and went to bed at a good time so that we could wake up early to explore Paris!

Planning Our Trip

I (of course) planned our days out so we could make the most of our trip and see everything we wanted to. One of the tools I use to plan everything is "google my maps".

This website allows you to pinpoint all of the places you want to see, where your hotel is, airports, and any other useful mapping information such as suggested routes.

Since there is so much to see in Paris I was able to plan out where to go each day based on geographic location. I also created a google document with all of the plans and suggestions from others. Pictured to the right is the google my map I created for our trip. The red markers are the "must see" places, yellow markers are the "it would be nice to see" places, and the green was our airbnb. The two blue lines reading A-E are the walking routes we took each day.

Paris has a transportation pass that is available for short term visitors. We purchased a 2 day pass and are so glad we did! We knew we wanted to go to Versailles which is about an hour train ride southwest of the city. The pass allowed us to do this but it also made all transportation within the city free as well. Since our airbnb was further from the attractions we had to take a train to the city center anyways.

*I am creating a separate blog post outlining our 2 day Paris itinerary for anyone interested.

Day 1

Day one we left our place at 9am. We bought a transportation pass online which we had to pick up at a station that was a 20 minute walk from our place. Once we got our passes we took a subway towards the city for breakfast. We went to a little cafe called Le Paradis that had beautiful pink flowers and pink umbrellas. One thing we found out after ordering our coffee was that most restaurants despite being a "breakfast restaurant" don't serve actual breakfast meals until 11am. Although we were craving waffles and breakfast sandwiches, we started our day off with a coffee and ended up picking up something else next door.

Centre Pompidou

After breakfast we walked down the street to the Centre Pompidou. I learned about this building in school. It was built in 1970-1977 and then opened to the public in 1977. The more modern "high-tech" architecture is something I haven't seen a lot of in Europe. It houses a public library and museum of modern art. We did not go in, but there is supposedly a great view at the top.

Notre Dame

The Notre Dame, meaning "our lady of Paris" is a medieval catholic cathedral built in 1163–1345. The world heard about the fire at the Notre Dame a few years ago in 2019. I wasn't sure what to expect with how damaged it was going to be, but I was pleasantly surprised that the front facade endured little damage. Supposedly the cathedral took a lot of the damage. It is currently closed to visitors for renovations and their goal is to have it completed before the 2024 Olympics in Paris. There were gates all around so we couldn't get very close so we enjoyed from afar.

The Pantheon & Luxembourg Gardens

The Pantheon of Paris was built between 1758-1790 during the reign of King Louis XV of France. We just stopped by to see it before heading of to lunch at Ralph Lauren. On our way to lunch we walked through the famous Luxembourg Gardens. The garden was so pretty and you could see the eiffel tower off in the distance from the fountain. At lunch we got fried olives as an appetizer and I got a burger and fries. This tasted so good after eating mostly Italian food in Italy.

The Sainte-Chapelle Church

After lunch we went back to the airbnb and freshened up for our night at the Louvre! We first stopped at the Sainte-Chapelle Church to see the beautiful stained glass windows and french gothic architecture. Its hard to believe this was built before 1248!

The Louvre

We made it to the famous Louvre! It was much bigger than I expected. We probably could have made 6 different trips to the Louvre in order to see everything. We went later in the day, so after a long day of walking around we were on a mission to see the Mona Lisa first. It was a lot smaller than I expected. It was funny because it was this tiny painting on a huge black wall so it appeared even smaller than it probably was We did get to see other works of art, but we didn't spend as much time here as we could have since we were pretty tired. AND It took us forever just to find the exit.

Le Relais de L’Entrecôte

Le Relais de L’Entrecôte is a restaurant in Paris known for their steak and fries meal. They serve only a salad, steak (the only two cooking options were medium or well done) and fries. There is always a line out the door and down the street no matter the time. We got there about 30 minutes until it opened and although there was a line, we got in right when they opened their doors. One unique thing about this restaurant was that once you eat all of the steak on your plate, they come around and give you even more. They also serve everything right in front of you at your table. This steak was to die for and I can see why people rave about coming here. Did I mention the meal is only $28??? If you ever find yourself in Paris I highly suggest coming here!

Day 2

Palace of Versailles

Today we got up bright and early to go to the famous Palace of Versailles. Versailles is famous for being the royal residence of multiple King Louis' from 1623-1789. Napoleon I also used the palace as his summer house later in the 1800's after it was abandoned by the Royal family who had moved to Paris during the time of the French Revolution. Visiting Versailles and seeing this history throughout the rooms was my favorite part about the trip.

The city of Versailles is about an hour train ride southwest of where we were staying in the city. Many people make a full day of exploring the palace, however, with only 2 days in Paris we spent only a half a day here. We found that 9am-2pm was the perfect amount of time for us to be there and see everything we wanted to.

The Exterior:

Hall of Mirrors:

Marie - Antoinette's Chamber

Various Rooms throughout the Palace:

Within the lower gardens at Versailles we stumbled along this place for lunch called La Flottille. It was a very quaint french cafe and everyone there was very friendly. This was our last stop before heading back to the city.

Palais Garnier

We took the train straight from Versailles to the Palais Garnier back in the city. This was more of a stop and see kind of place where you're only there to say you've seen it, but I'm glad we did because we learned about it in school. It is an opera house and supposedly the inside is beautiful.

The Eiffel Tower

The infamous Eiffel Tower! One thing I was not expecting was all of the construction. I always pictured a large grass garden in the front, but no, it was all dirt and gated off. That's why my pictures appear to be taken from the side and not straight on. It is also not right in the city. It's a little closer to the more residential part of the city, but It was even bigger than I expected. Pictures can't capture just how grand it is. So glad I got to experience this!

Dinner at Cafe Fleur

After enjoying an afternoon at the tower we walked a few streets over to a French restaurant called Cafe Fleur. I had an amazing and very beautiful poke bowl with salmon. (I know it's not very french, but it was so good!!) We sat here for a while drinking wine and having some good friend time:)

We watched the eiffel tower sparkle when it got dark and this was one of the best parts of the trip. It was so surreal being there and I'm glad I spent the weekend with two friends who I've gotten close with this semester abroad. Only downside to the trip was that we all had colds the entire time. You can't tell in the pictures though right? I hope one day I can go back to Paris. It was truly unforgettable!