I don’t speak French.

I’m not a foodie.

I have traveled a lot but I don’t know how to take a vacation.

Two weeks in Paris? Sure?

My family just spent the best part of 2 weeks in Paris. This is my attempt to account what we did so we can all remember it later on. We left Raleigh Monday afternoon, landing in Paris Tuesday morning around 9am. As I type this I’m sitting in a hotel by Charles De Gaulle Airport. Not counting travel time, we were in Paris and doing stuff for 10 days. This is the account of someone who has traveled a lot for work, but isn’t very good at vacationing.

Things to know beforehand:

  1. My wife did ALL THE PLANNING. Where to stay, When to go. What to do. What to see. She did an amazing job.
  2. Bring comfortable shoes (foreshadowing)
  3. Where you stay is critical to your plans. We knew this going in, but we KNOW THIS going out.

Day 0 - Getting to Paris

The Raleigh airport is a little jewel. Not super crowded, but big enough to have Clear. Plus, a couple of places sell Diet Pepsi instead of Diet Coke. Like I said, a jewel. We were on an evening flight to Paris.

The Air France flight was already a little taste of France.

Aside When did it become OK for people take their damned shoes off on airplanes?! Y’all need to find Jesus. And your shoes.

  • No pre-flight drinks, even though we splurged for the upgrade to premium economy. A note about Premium Economy - you get a slightly nicer seat, significantly more space to the next row, and most importantly a free checked bag. Worth it.
  • The dishes were French. Pumpkin au gratin (but in April?). It was good. But oddly out of season.
  • The smallest cups of Coke Zero I’ve ever had. No ice. Like rinse and spit size cups. This turned out to be ominous foreshadowing.
  • The wifi sucked, especially compared to what Delta is doing these days

Flight Nerds We were in an Air France Dreamliner 787-9. We splurged for the upgrade to Premium Economy. TOTALLY WORTH IT with a 9 year old who is physically incapable of sitting still.

The ride in from CDG to Paris was long and tedious, but uneventful. Our daughter fell asleep for most of it. Drooling on my arm.

Our apartment wasn’t ready until 4pm, so we had to kill some time and we were exhausted. So we hopped on the Tootbus. It let us see some of the sights while relaxing, but not quite enough to let us fall asleep.

Our Apartment

Molly found an amazing little courtyard apartment on Rue Therese, only a few blocks from The Lourve. It wasn’t big (none we looked at in Paris were), but it:

  • Decent water pressure
  • Good wifi
  • Is on the ground floor (critical for tired American legs)
  • Has a bakery across the street and a solid restaurant next door
  • FranPrix ~8 minutes away (French mini-grocery store)
  • 5 minutes from 2 Metro stops that covered 3 major Metro lines for tourists
  • A street door (IDK if that’s what you call them) lock, a lobby buzzer, and a gate in front of the door that was locking. In addition, the actual front door had a huge 4-pin lock made out of some serious steel. If the zombie apocalypse started in Paris, we were good until the food ran out.

In short, prime real estate.

It’s main shortcoming showed up during the off hours. It “sleeps 4-6”, which is true. It has 2 queen beds plus a fold-out couch. But it only sat 2-3. It had a couch, a small table and uncomfortable chairs, and one of the beds in the common area. In the evenings when we were exhausted, seating was at a premium until bedtime.

Our apartment common area

We got unpacked to end Day 0 and crawled into our beds.

Day 0 Ratings

  • Air France - 6.5/10 - meh
  • Tootbus - 8/10 - great way to get your bearings and rest from a long flight and jetlag
  • Our apartment - 8.5/10 - would recommend
  • Food - N/A - we ate at a Pret a Manger so our kid would be a little more comfortable
  • Lack of Diet Pepsi - -6/10 - SUCKS

Day One - A boat ride around Paris

Day one had the Musee d’Orsay and Notre Dame on the schedule. To get around we go on the BatoBus. It had stops at both of our locations for the day, plus a bunch of others. We took a tour of Paris from the Seine. The day was gorgeous. Parisians were eating along the banks. Everyone was out and about. A great day.

The Weather Day one and Day two were the hottest days we had in Paris. It was probably 80F and super sunny. Definitely a sunscreen day, and being on the water in the wind was a great way to make it fun and not opressive.

Musee d’Orsay

The building alone is worth the visit. I’m not 100% on the history, but it was at one point a giant train station. The clocks are still there, and you can see nods in the design. But the building is BEAUTIFUL. The fact that it’s full of literal treasures is an amazing bonus.

Getting there was easy. It’s right on the seine. Our boat was another of Molly’s amazing ideas. We walked right up a ramp to the line to get in. You check your bag and head up to the top. That’s where The Impressionists. All of the heavy hitters sitting with their beauty and genius in this beautiful building on the river bank in Paris. An amazing start to our trip.

My favorite piece

I love impressionism. How it gets to the core of what it represents by how it represents it. But of all the pieces in the museum, a sculpture jumped out at me more than anything else. Ours Blanc by Francois Pompon is an almost life size sculpture of a polar bear he saw at the Jardin de Plantes in Paris. The form. The shape. It was stunning to see up close. It’s the closest I’ll ever be to the essence of a polar bear.

Ours Blanc by Francois Pompon

Notre Dame

Another hop on to the BatoBus and we were off to Notre Dame. Again, it’s on an island in the river, so it made all the sense in the world to get there by boat ride. Our kid has always loved street performers. On the way up the stairs she dropped a few Euros into the hat of a great guitar player as we got in line for Notre Dame. The line was long, but went quickly.

My take on Notre Dame - it’s stunning.

But when I think about it from the point of view of its main audience, it’s power is magnified. As I walked through I tried to imagine myself as a medieval peasant who’d just spent their week on a small feudal farm or street stall. Everyone working to have enough food to stay alive. No color or flavor anywhere. Just existence. Then I walk in to church on Sunday to stand and worship for 6 hours or more.

The riot of colors and gold and smells and polished surfaces. The colors streaming through the stained and painted glass and covering me as I walked the stations of the cross. Jesus really did have to be magic.

The Food

We had an amazing light lunch at a cafe on a street we can’t remember. It turns out that I ate a lot of fish in Paris. I didn’t want a ‘cafe burger’. Fish is a theme that was on every menu and never really disappointed me. That evening we went to the FranPrix and picked up some essentials and snacks for our stay. We were still pretty jet-lagged, so dinner was snacks in the apartment and an early bed time.

Day 1 Ratings

  • BatoBus - 8.5/10 - would recommend. even has a drink/snack machine
  • Musee D’Orsay - 9.5/10 - beautiful building right on the river. Amazing collection. Amazingly curated. A little hard to find the exit.
  • Notre Dame - 9/10 - the line went really fast. People were respectful. Standing in an 800 year old building that just recovered from its massive trauma was inspiring on multiple levels.
  • Stairs - 2/10 - you won’t miss leg day in Paris. This is a theme that will re-occur throughout
  • Food - 9/10 - found a great little cafe near Notre Dame. And don’t sleep on FranPrix! Just don’t forget your bag. We have 9 of them now if you need one.

Lessons Learned

  1. Speaking French in the tourist areas of Paris isn’t essential, but it is super helpful. Paris seems to be vaguely offended by effective signage to navigate around their city.
  2. Shoes. Money, it’s gotta’ be the shoes. I broke in a new pair of walking shoes just for this trip. One of the best ideas I’ve had in the last 10 years.
  3. Steps and Stairs. Paris is a walking city. Even if you’re on public/tourist transport, you’re going to get your steps in. And some of your friend’s steps. What I wasn’t quite ready for was THE STAIRS. So much of Paris is gated by lots and lots of stairs. If you have accessibility needs, a trip to Paris to see the sights will take a lot of careful planning.
  4. The food is legit. I’ll Get in to this more throughout the series. But it really is different there. Not the menu (although sometimes). And not even really in the execution. But it’s different.

Next Up: Day 2 - La Maison de la Souris!