Hey guys,
On day 2 in Paris, we
woke up, ate breakfast in our hotel, and headed into a more central part of
Paris to pick up to the bus tour that we had paid for. The company that we
ended up going with was Big Bus Tours and I definitely recommend them for both
London and Paris.
In Paris, there are
two different bus routes, the blue one and the red one. We hopped on the red
route because we had planned to go to Notre Dame first and tour it. We rode
around on the bus for a little bit, listened some Parisian history, and got off
on the Notre Dame bus stop. In my opinion, the bus stops are not marked as
clearly as they were in London so eventually this did cause an issue for us.
When we got to NotreDame, we stopped to take some pictures of the outside and take some selfies
before getting in line to enter the building. This was technically our first
tourist attraction that we did in the city and learned that every single
attraction you go to, your bag will have to be searched. It is free to enter
the church but they have audio guides that you can pay for.
The church is
absolutely stunning and I didn’t take too many pictures of the inside mostly
because I felt kind of bad for taking pictures of a church. There were a lot of
gravesites and memorials inside the church and I wanted to be respectful. So I
included some of my favorite pictures that I took. The stained glass windows at
the top of the church were absolutely beautiful and probably my favorite part!
Once we finished
visiting the inside of the church, we headed down the side and got in line to
climb the steps to the top. The line was pretty long and we contemplated not
waiting because we didn’t know how long it would take before it was our turn
and we weren’t sure if we were wasting time. With that being said, I definitely
recommend waiting however long the line may be. The view from the top was
absolutely beautiful! You can see the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur off in the
distance.
After we finished climbing the steps, we hopped back on the bus tour and we headed for Musée d’Orsay. We when finally got the museum we learned that this museum was shut down because of the flooding and that it would reopen the following day. Needless to say, we never actually got to visit this museum because we ran out of time.
Since the museum was a bust, we walked down the street and found a café (La Frégate) and enjoyed some mid-day desserts and some beverages (diet cokes haha). Once we were done relaxing for a little bit, we headed back to the bus stop and decided to just stay on the bus for one full route and take a tour of the city. This is something that I highly recommend doing. We wish we could have done it in London but we rant out of time and we only bought a 1-day bus tour. Taking the bus tour allowed us to take in all the sights and really get to see the city.
For dinner, we headed
to the Champs-Elysées and ate at the McDonald’s. I have to admit there are a
couple different “firsts” going on in this picture. This was my first time ever
eating at a McDonald’s in Paris and it was also my first time ever eating a
burger from McDonald’s. It was pretty tasty but I can’t say that it is
something I will be doing again. I think I’ll stick to Five Guys for now!
After dinner, we
headed to the Arc de Triomphe, took a couple pictures in front of it from
across the street, and then located the stairs that take you underground so you
can actually get to the Arc. We waited in line, had our bags searched, and
started climbing the stairs to the top. We climbed the first set of stairs and
then took a break before climbing the second set to the top. Basically you
climb up one of the legs and then when you get to the long top portion there is
some history about the arch, a gift shop, and restrooms.
Once we climbed the
second set of stairs to the top, the view was absolutely stunning. I don’t
really think you can climb to the top of anything in Paris and experience a bad
view but who knows? We got some nice shots of the Eiffel Tower, a rainbow, and
I tried to take a shot facing towards each of the streets that connect to the
roundabout that the arch sits in the middle of, but there were just way too
many streets and so I lost track of which ones I had taken a picture of and
eventually gave up (It seemed like there were almost 20 different streets
connected to this roundabout, it was insane).
So I had to include this picture because they actually shut down a part of the roundabout so this bride and groom could take pictures with the Arc de Triomphe as their background. Crazy!
By the end of the day
we had climbed approximately 47 flights of stairs and taken about 18,000 steps
according to the health app on the iPhone.
Thanks for stopping
by!
Feel free to leave a
comment or share this with your friends!
XO, Steph
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Thank you so much for leaving a comment! I love talking with you guys and getting to know you better! If you leave a question I will most definitely try to answer it! XO, Steph