What a dream come true! I crossed a HUGE item off my bucket list! Although, one day in Paris is not even close to being enough!

There is so much to do and see in that city, I wouldn’t even know where to start when I go back.

During my stay in London, we decided to take the train (through the Chunnel) to see Paris for one day.

We woke up super early that morning, to get on the first train out of London, so we could have the most possible time in Paris. Sleepily, we walked across the street to the train station, went through security and boarded the train to promptly fall back asleep.

I am not going to lie, my very first impression of Paris wasn’t positive! When we first got out of the train station, we were accosted by beggars asking us if we spoke english and if we could donate to whatever charity they had on their paper, claiming it was a petition at first…only to find out they wanted you to sign and write the amount you’re donating. Doubtful that it’s going to a real charity, but very clever!

Then one of the first neighborhoods we walked through after breakfast wasn’t that impressive and there was “naughty” shops all over. It is the city of Love, I supposed! ;0

But I found a cute dog to play fetch with on beautiful church steps and we had breakfast at a cute little cafe while we looked at a map to figure out where we needed to go. Once we made it to all of our stops, my impression of Paris changed quickly!

First Stop: Notre Dame Cathedral 

(Side note: I just re-watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Disney movie, and I pointed at the screen and yelled, “I’ve been there! I’ve been there!”)

Amazing architecture and sculptures!

Inside! It’s HUGE!

Second Stop: The Louvre

We didn’t go into the Louvre, but we did want to see the outside. There just wasn’t enough time to go in…and we knew we would want to see EVERYTHING and not leave! Ideally, I would want to get a COUPLE days inside the Louvre, ya know, next time I’m in Paris. 😉

Third Stop: THE EIFFEL TOWER!!!!!

WOAH! I’ve always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower! I couldn’t actually believe it when I was standing in front of it. We took the tram-car up it of course, but only to the mid-level. With a storm potentially approaching, they closed the top for a moment. By the time we got through the line and to the mid-level, it was re-opened but we decided that we didn’t have enough time to wait in another line to get all the way to the top.

First sighting!

I came around a corner and BOOM! Eiffel tower!

Underneath the tower selfie

And the views were incredible!

My current Facebook cover photo.

My Dad “walking the tight rope.” Part of the floor is see-through…a little creepy for me!

Forth Stop: The Arc de Triomphe  

Please don’t mind how SLEEPY I look in the rest of these pictures! I was getting pretty worn out! We made our way to the Arc but opted to not go to the top. It’s a pretty cool building/structure if I do say so myself! What was also super cool (yet crazy and scary) was the HUGE round-a-bout surrounding the Arc! It was as wide as about 10 car widths, no lane lines, no signs, no traffic lights… nothing and people would just drive into, around and exit! No way, no how, would I ever drive in this city! We walked through the tunnel under the super round-a-bout and come up inside the circle where the Arc stood.

On the underside of the Arc.

Walking in between each stop:

We literally walked all of that city! I don’t even want to know how many miles we covered! (Note to self: wear my GPS watch next time I am traveling. But I did try to recreate our path on google maps…it said about 10 miles!) In between each stop, we walked along the path that follows the Seine River. I loved that area! There was lots of active people running, doing boot camps, and fun things to look at along the way and things “play on” (which may or may not have been for little kids). Here’s some other things we saw walking from place to place:

Cool buildings..

Other arches…

weird graffiti, er… “Art”

Lots of locks on bridges…

Lots of pretty bridges…

Pretty gardens and parks

Buildings with walls made out of plants

And fun things to play on! (That’s my tattoo sticking out, NOT my underwear).

Fifth, un-planned stop: Moulin Rouge 

We walked down a little part of the Champes-Elysees street (a huge shopping area) as we started heading toward the train station. We didn’t last long on that street due to there being a TON of people. While searching for food and after looking at a map to figure out which direction we needed to go, my Dad said we had one more stop and it was mostly on the way. We walked a few more blocks and va-la! The Moulin Rouge!

OH wow! I look EXHAUSTED!

And that was a wrap! From the Moulin Rouge, we walked to the train station. With a little bit of time to spare, we finally found some crepes to eat (not that they aren’t EVERYWHERE, but by the time we were looking for them, we couldn’t find them ANYWHERE!), a french beer to drink and got back on the train and promptly fell asleep, again.