After a day of nothing but museums, we were ready for some time outside and exploring. And we were ready to do some walking. But I don’t think we were ready for exactly how much walking we’d do on this particular day. More to come on that, though. First, we began our day with a breakfast of one of Paris’s most popular items, crepes. At Crep’s Crew we were able to chose from a variety of different crepes and eat comfortably in the fast-food style location. They were good, but nothing to brag about, and I wish we would have just ordered crepes at a more formal sit-down eatery instead.
Window Shopping on the Champs-Élysées
Paris is widely known for its high-end shopping and the designer fashion industry, so what would a trip to Paris be without browsing the windows of some of the world’s most luxurious storefronts on one of the world’s most recognizable avenues? We started at the east end of the Champs-Élysées at the Place de la Concorde and walked west toward the Arc de Triomphe, stopping at whichever stores or windows looked intriguing. Many of the windows were decorated with elegant and extravagant Christmas displays. While it was raining for the majority of our stroll, it was still neat to see the lavish lifestyles of the Parisians actually shopping on the Champs-Élysées.
By the time we reached the Arc de Triomphe it had nearly stopped raining. When we first approached the monument, which honors the French who fought and died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, we admired the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I directly beneath the Arc. The line to enter the monument was short, so we bought tickets and began our ascent to the top. There is an elevator that first takes visitors to a small museum almost near the top of the monument. Climbing only a few flights of stairs is required to reach the monument’s terrace, where 360º views of the city can be enjoyed. It was a cloudy, windy, and wet morning, so we took some photos but didn’t spent a whole lot of time up there before descending back to ground level.
Continuing with our plan to walk as much as we can throughout the day and use a rideshare app to return to the hotel, we decided to walk from the Arc de Triomphe to the Eiffel Tower. We broke the approximately 30 minute walk up into two segments by stopping for lunch along the way. We chose Villa Sophia, an Italian restaurant where we were hoping to get a warm meal with plenty of carbs to keep us energized! The meal was great – some of the best Italian food we’ve had in a long time. Emily had the clam linguine in an olive oil sauce, and I enjoyed the smoked salmon penne in alfredo sauce. With our tummies full and lunch complete, we continued onward the rest of the way to the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower
The day remained cloudy and cold, but that did not stop us from finally walking all the way to the Eiffel Tower. We knew ahead of time that the landmark was closed to tourists due to the ongoing Parisian strikes, so we weren’t so concerned about the nasty weather. Had the circumstances been different with clear weather, we would have loved to ascent the Tower all the way to its top to look out over Paris from above, but we would just have to enjoy it from the ground instead. We took some photos from the Champ de Mars on one side of the structure before walking toward it, under, and across the Seine. Emily and I worked hard to view the Eiffel Tower from all angles because we were trying to recreate an old photo of my best friend from his high school days that I love to give him grief about. Finding the perfect spot where the original photo was taken was not easy, but we were pleased with the final product, and he got a good laugh out of it too.
Now that we were cold, a little wet, and ready for some relaxation, we used our phone to request a ride back to the hotel. This was the one time that our planning was an absolute failure. Because it was nearing Paris’s rush hour and we were in a pretty popular area, we could not get connected with a driver to take us back. We tried for an hour to meet up with a driver before we decided to just bite the bullet and walk back to the hotel. With rain now steadily coming down and frustration building, we started the hour-long journey back. It was not fun at all, but it was pretty much the only time the entire week that the strikes made a big hiccup in our daily plans.
A Couple of Americans in Paris
Prior to our arrival in Paris, Emily had entered a contest through Paris, Perfected Trip Planning in order to win free tickets to see An American in Paris being performed during our vacation. In a strike of luck, she won the giveaway, and we were very excited to see the Gershwin musical that is one of her dad’s favorites. We actually considered forfeiting our tickets due to our miserable walk home from the Eiffel Tower but ultimately decided that this opportunity was too good to pass up. And we are so glad we made it to the show because we had so much fun! This time well in advance, we requested a ride to the Théatre du Châtelet and arrived in plenty of time to find our seats located astonishingly near the front of the theatre. We had done very little research into the event, so it was a welcome surprise to have such great tickets. In fact, we did such little investigation that we didn’t have the faintest idea whether the show was being performed in English or in French! Luckily for us, the musical was performed in English, with enough1920’s-style singing and dancing to make us completely forget about the day’s earlier frustrations and allow us to escape into another era in Paris.
I wish I could include details about another fantastic French meal, but the musical ended rather late in the night, and we were starving. We just walked down the street to McDonald’s for a quick meal – behaving like, wait for it, a couple of Americans in Paris!
