24 Hours in Paris

Fancy a break but don’t have a lot of time to spare? I recently spent a day in Paris and managed to see all the sights in one day.

You can easily fly from Manchester either the evening before and spend the night in a hotel or catch an early morning flight to Charles De Gaulle and then train into the city centre. Alternatively, get the train to London and hop on the Eurostar which takes you straight into the city centre.

Once we arrived in the centre of Paris, we had a ticket for the Hop on Hop off bus which went around the whole city stopping off at the main sights.

Our first stop was The Arc De Triomphe and The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier. You can pay to get the top of the Arc De Triomphe and see the views all the way down the Champs Elysees.

We jumped back on the bus and listened to the compare through our free headphones telling us all about the buildings and the history of Paris, before getting off at our next stop which was Place de la Concorde. This is one of the best places for a view of the Eiffel Tower and lots of group photos and selfies were taken here. You also have the wonderful fountains between here and the Eiffel Tower.

From here it is just a few minutes’ walk down to the Eiffel Tower, via a few souvenir stalls if you wish to pick up a few reminders of your trip. If you wish to go up the Eiffel Tower then you have the choice of lift or stairs, depending on how fit you are feeling. It is a few euros less to climb the stairs – phew!! As we only had one day, we decided not to go up to the top and just took a few more photos from the ground before getting back on the bus at the Eiffel Tower stop and heading off to our next port of call – The Louvre.

After watching The Da Vinci Code, we had to get a photo of the glass pyramid outside the Louvre. Not really arty people, we decided not to go in, though it would have been nice to have seen the Mona Lisa! After our early start we were ready for a bite to eat. We found a nearby pavement café and grabbed a café and baguette whilst watching the sights of Paris go by. Not too expensive to say we were in the centre of Paris.

After lunch we changed on to the ‘blue route’ and headed up to the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. It was a very warm day and was hot work walking up all those steps to the Sacre Coeur but was well worth it when we got there for the views over Paris. The people selling bottles of water for a euro were making a fortune that day!

After taking in the view, we wandered around to the Place Du Tertre to see the artists at work and soak up the atmosphere. It is a great place to have your portrait done here.

After grabbing an ice-cream, time to head back to the bus and our next stop The Notre Dame. Unfortunately, you can’t go in at the minute, and from the back all you can see is scaffolding because of the fire, but from the front it is still an impressive building.

Now, getting towards the end of the day, just time to pop in a couple of shops then head back to where we were getting our transport home. We managed to find the nearest bar and enjoy a nice cold beer to cool down before we were picked up to head off home!

All in all, a great day and highly recommended!

By Lisa Mousley, Chic Boutique Travel

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