I can’t believe it has been over two months already since Graham and I took our first overseas adventure together! We had been dreaming of this trip for y e a r s. We couldn’t afford it before we moved to Austin, then we got married, went on a honeymoon, bought our first house, and it just got put on the back burner year after year. Until finally, this last February, Graham sent me a screenshot of our tickets to Paris. When I saw it, I burst into tears. We were finally making our dream a reality! We booked the start of our 14 day trip for the end of September, and here is how we did it…

First, I want to give you the BEST tip for traveling. Drum roll please……Google Flights. If you’ve never used Google Flights for booking your trips, you need to make the switch solely because of their Flight Tracker feature. When prices increase or decrease from when you initially searched, you get a notification. No lie, we got our two round trip tickets for $900. For the BOTH of us! I had always figured we would spend close to $2,000 on our flights, and we were shocked at how cheap we got them for! We also selected multiple cities in Europe to fly into for the tracker to compare. While Paris was not initially on the top of our list, it ended up being the deal we couldn’t pass up. We booked it, decided that we would start and end our trip in Paris, and figure out the rest in between. And I am SO happy we decided to start our Europe adventure in this beautiful city.

 

Where we stayed:

Hotel M Saint Germain for two nights

 

How I decided on our hotel:

Obviously I had never been to Paris and had NO idea what area of the city to stay in. I did tons of research and originally I wanted the ”Instagram-worthy-Eiffel-Tour-view-from-my-balcony-window” room, but we decided on the Pantheon District. It is a super upbeat, lively, and culturally rich neighborhood with tons of little cafe’s and bars lined on every street. Tons of little shops, farmers markets, crepe stands, and you can’t forget the bread bakeries so you can grab yourself a baguette for a morning or afternoon snack. Our Hotel was also a 7 minute walk from Notre Dame which was a big plus for us. It was a little bit of a walk to the Eiffel Tower from our hotel, but we fully engrossed ourselves in this experience and the long walks throughout the city were fine for us. We actually really enjoyed it. Would I recommend this hotel and neighborhood? Yes! The hotel is super vibrant, eclectic, and quirky and we love rooms that don’t feel like a Holiday Inn. Ultimately, you can get around the city pretty easily by walking, electric scooter, or by Uber and I never felt like we were missing out on anything or in the wrong neighborhood. Ultimately, do plenty of research on the different neighborhoods of the city and narrow that down before you pick your hotel.

 

Day 1

We knew our first day was going to be hard because we landed at 7:30 am Paris time which was around midnight back home. We had two flights and had been traveling all day prior. Also, the airport is actually quite a bit further away from downtown Paris, so it took over an hour to get to the city once we got a cab. Thankfully we got an early check in at our hotel, and while we thought we would fight through the urge to sleep, we ended up passing out for a couple of hours. Or five…Whoops! After we got some sleep, we threw on some clothes and hit the streets. First stop was obvious, the Eiffel Tower. It was about a 2.5 mile walk, but this gave us the opportunity to really see the city and soak it all in. All of the towering white buildings with iron balconies, the green vines gently draping the walls, booming cathedrals with Parisian couples making out on the steps, the smell of fresh crepes being made on every corner. It was exactly how I thought it would be..but even better. I was in complete awe of its beauty and instantly felt the magic.

 

We cut through Jardin des Plantes, the main botanical garden, which was a beautiful sight to see in the fall. I think my favorite part of the garden was the perfectly lined rows of trees, the ground filled with orange and red leaves, and the groups of people playing their afternoon chess matches underneath them.

 

We finally made it to Champ de Mars, the park at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Words cannot describe seeing it in person. It took my breath away! We got our tourist pictures, stopped at a crepe stand, grabbed a bench in the park and just enjoyed the views. People were having picnics with their wine and bread, vendors selling roses and beer, thousands of pictures were being taken, it was incredible.

The sun was starting to make its way back down, so we decided to make our way back to the Pantheon district. On our way back, the smell of fresh bread filled the air. Everyone was lining up at all the bakeries for their afternoon baguette, totally a thing here. And something I will gladly support 😉 So, of course, we joined too! Seriously though… the BEST bread I’ve ever had!! Good crunchy crust on the outside, warm and doughy on the inside. H e a v e n.

 

We were still pretty exhausted from our travels and didn’t have any dinner reservations, so we decided to keep it simple and just winged it. We walked a couple blocks down from our hotel and found a cute little cafe called Le Metro Cafe Saint Germain. Red table linens covered each table, and they served you a cute little bowl of popcorn as a table snack. We both ordered the French Onion Soup which was not a mistake. Holy cow. I mean, where better than the heart of Paris to have French onion soup? To. Die. For.

 

We ended dinner with a shot of espresso and then we headed back to the hotel. Graham instantly fell asleep, and I tip toed over to our balcony window, opened it, and sat at the ledge. I stared out the window watching all the people stroll by, listened to the sounds of cars honking and drunk friends laughing. All the buildings lining the street were lit up and you could hear soft music playing. I was just in awe. I thought to myself, I can’t believe I am here, we are actually here! I sat there for a good twenty minutes just enjoying my own company, staring out at the streets, all with a big smile on my face. I was ready for a busy, but exciting day in the morning.

 

Day 2

We woke up and had our first European breakfast, which we were both very excited about. If you don’t know us personally, we LOVE breakfast (ok but who doesn’t). I was intrigued as to what a European breakfast would look like. And I was pleasantly surprised! Croissants (obviously), a wide array of different pastries, berry yogurt, every kind of cheese you could think of, eggs, bacon, and the kicker… deli meat. Yup. Europeans eat deli meat for breakfast. I thought it was weird at first, but it is so good! Fresh salami, prosciutto, ham, you name it. A+ for breakfast Paris. After we ate we decided the first stop on our 2nd (and last 😦 ) day in Paris is Notre Dame *instantly thinks of Hunchback and Esmeralda and how I hope I get to see them*. Anyways, we took a very pretty but short walk to the cathedral and we get to this bridge. As soon as you start to cross it, boom. There she is.

 

I mean come on… is this real?! The original cathedral was built in the 4th or 5th century but torn down and rebuilt starting in 1160’s. The gothic style architecture was breathtaking, with gargoyles lining each side and intricate detail on every inch of the building.

 

The inside was even more beautiful. Stained glass windows were perfectly placed around the whole cathedral. I was obsessed with the iron chandeliers and the huge archways lining the walkways.

 

It is truly something you have to see in person to fully understand the beauty. Besides the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame is at the top of my list for MUST see landmarks and monuments in Paris. Don’t skip over it.

After Notre Dame we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe, an iconic monument in Paris. The Arc is surrounded by a huge shopping area with tons of restaurants as well. We stopped at a little café and grabbed some drinks and some frites (because this girl NEVER turns down french fries) and then did some window shopping. After some exploring we grabbed some Bird’s (electronic scooters) and went on a mission to find a French Macarons shop. We stumbled upon this cute little shop where a man helped me make my own box to go. He was polite and asked “where are you from?”. We said “Texas” and his eyes lit up and he responds, “Ooooo! From Austin?!” Graham and I stopped, looked at each other and said “Yes!!” We were shocked that he knew of Austin! We started talking to him about how warm it is back home, and that people don’t actually walk around with horses and cowboy hats (well maybe in west Texas they do) but it was actually really cool to have a personal conversation with a local. And look how cute these macarons are! They tasted even better 🙂

 

We made our way back to our hotel and got ready for our dinner reservations. This is probably one of my favorite things we did during our time in Paris, and I recommend anyone visiting to book this. We booked a dinner cruise on the Seine with Bateaux Parisian. It is a river cruise, where you can enjoy lunch, dinner, or just sight seeing with the BEST views of the city. We decided on the 8:00pm cruise and upgraded to the front of the boat. I mean when in Paris right? We were greeted with glasses of champagne, enjoyed a four-course meal with complimentary drinks, and saw the best views of the city all lit up. The cruise was about a 2.5 hour experience, and definitely worth the money. At night, the Eiffel Tower sparkles for 5 minutes every hour, on the hour. It was magical to float next to the tower, sipping a glass of champagne, while a woman on board is singing romantic songs in French. Our waiter also had a fascination for Texas and told us a story about how his father fought along side a man from Texas in a war. His father would tell him stories about this man and he told us “He was the strongest man he has ever seen” while holding his biceps in the air. We were starting to realize that being from Texas wasn’t a bad thing 😉

 

As the cruise was coming to an end, I realized how quickly our time in Paris was ending. We were leaving in the morning for Florence, and I told Graham I wanted to walk to the tower one last time. We walked hand in hand to the base of the tower and just gazed up at it. I knew I was going to miss it here. I wished we had more time to see the things we didn’t have time to see, and I wasn’t sure if we would ever be back. But I was content knowing that we created so many great memories and did as much as we could in the two days we were here. I left a little piece of my heart in Paris. But this was only the beginning. Italy was right around the corner.

 

xx Sam