Our Parisian Adventure

It was hubby’s birthday and we escaped to lovely Paris, the very place we got engaged! We decided to travel with a Paris City Pass to make it easier to get around. The pass gives you free access to public transport in Paris as well as free entries to museums and attractions.

DAY 1

One of the greatest things about living in London is that we can just hop on the Eurostar and end up in France in 2 hours!

As soon as we arrived, we headed to our AirBnB near Sentier. Our apartment was very small but had a lot of character, like a little cave!

After dropping off our luggages, we went to collect our Paris City Pass in the Galeries Lafayette.  Although I would stongly advise buying your pass early and getting it sent to you before you go to save even more time.

We then went up the Montparnasse Tower Panoramic Observation Deck which claims to have to the best view of Paris and I don’t think the are wrong about it. The Eiffel Tower is great, but when you are on it, you can’t see the most iconic structure of Paris! I recommend going there just before sunset. Unfortunately it was a little bit rainy for us but watching the Tower sparking at 6pm made it a bit better 🙂

You also get 25% off Montparnasse tickets with your Paris City Pass which is always handy.

We ended our day with a Seine Boat trip with Vedettes Du Pont Neuf. The boat ride lasted an hour. You get a fantastic overview of the city’s major attractions but it can get cold in the upper open deck this time of year.

DAY 2

We started the next day the right way with freshly baked pastries for breakfast!

I have seen so many pictures of the big clocks at the Musée d‘Orsay and I really wanted to go. So we took the metro with our free metro pass which was really handy. We didn’t have to hunt for coins and buy a ticket from the machines every time.

The Musée d‘Orsay was also free with our Paris City Pass. We probably saved around 45mins waiting in the cold as we were able queue jump with our passes (yay!).

The Musée d‘Orsay used to be a train station which looks rather like the Grand Central Station don’t you think? Although we aren’t museum people, we really loved it here. It was great walking around and admiring the building itself.

We then took a lovely stroll across the bridge from the Musée d‘Orsay to the Lourve, passing the Tuileries Garden along the way. It was rather romantic walking through the autumn trees.

We pre-booked one of our favourite restaurant in the world, La Brasserie du Louvre. We ate here right before we got engaged and I had been dreaming of coming back for the escargot, french onion soup and the beef tartare!

I highly recommend this place, great food and the atmosphere is just…so French! We got a 40% discount by booking with thefork.com.

Hello birthday boy!

You can’t go to Paris without seeing the infamous Arc De Triomphe. The Paris City Pass allowed us to get all the way to the top observation platform for free. But be warned, there are a lot of steps…!

We booked a Paris Highlight bike tour with Baja Bikes. It’s meant to be a 3 hour tour but our one lasted a little longer. Our guide Yasmine was great and was very knowledgeable. We felt very comfortable following her and cycling around Paris. It is such a great way to experience the city!

DAY 3

We checked out of our AirBnB on the last day and headed over to the Lourve. We needed a place to store our luggages but we didn’t want to pay for it! We took the advantages of our Paris City Passes and went into the Lourve (free and no queue!) They have a luggage storage place under the pyramid that is free for people with an admission ticket. They let you store your luggages there all day.

We spent the rest of the day wondering around Paris a bit more before we got back on the the Eurostar to London. As they say, Paris is always a good idea.

What did we think of Turbo Pass?

To sum it up in one word, freedom.

I have been to Paris several times before but this time, I was able to do a lot more and experience Paris like I have never before. I loved being able to jump on the metro or a bus knowing it won’t cost me extra. It also took us to museums that we would have never paid to go in before. We had the freedom to just get up and go rather than trying to work out if going somewhere was ‘worth it’ or not.

 

*This post is sponsored by Turbo Pass but all opinions are my own*