Soaking up the Parisian atmosphere
I recently had the opportunity to spend a weekend there in October with a friend, which I found was not enough time to explore and appreciate what this fantastic city has to offer. We flew from Cork Airport to Charles De Galle. On arrival we took the train to the city centre which took 30 minutes. On arriving in Paris City Centre we made our way to our hotel by taxi. While we were in Paris we stayed at the Hotel Atmospheres on Rue des Ecoles. This hotel is a beautiful boutique hotel not far from Notre Dame Cathedral. We found the staff to be very friendly and helpful. Each morning the breakfast was lovely and there is a bus stop right outside the hotel.
If you would like to see some of the tourist attractions the No. 62 bus stops outside the door & will take you to the main attractions. Alternatively you could take the hop on hop off bus tour of the city. After settling into our hotel we decided to take this bus as it allowed us to familiarise ourselves in relation to where we were in the city and what tourist attractions were nearby. After our tour of the city we had dinner at Le Restaurante which served beautiful French cuisine at affordable prices.
On the second day we left the hotel early to avoid the queues at the Eiffel Tower. The views of the city and the Seine River were spectacular. We then went onto visit the Champs d’Elysse and l’Arc de Triomphe whichare in close proximity of the Eiffel Tower. We decided to have a light lunch in a little restaurant called Pom’Cannelle on rue des Deux Ponts on the Ile St. Louis. They serve the most beautiful quiches, salads and ice-creams and it is always a good sign when you see a lot of the locals dining there.
We then went onto visit the Sante Chapelle which perhaps is one of the most beautiful buildings in France with its stained glass which is breath taking. On our way back to the hotel we walked down the length of the Champs Elysees to the Place de la Concorde which is about a mile and took the metro to Notre Dame which is not far from our hotel. After visiting Notre Dame we dined at Le Pre Verre on rue Thenard which was also close to our hotel. This restaurant is very sophisticated and very popular and I would suggest that you get the concierge at your hotel to book this restaurant as it can be difficult to get a reservation there. We found that the food was unique and had some very interesting combinations of flavours which were really excellent.
On our last day we visited the Louvre Museum and then took the metro up to Mountmartre to see the Sacre Coeur. For lunch we stopped off at a little café called Café La Palette which serves a menu to whet any palate. After lunch we wandered through the nearby beautiful Luxembourg Garden. We headed back to our hotel early, however on the way back to the hotel we visited the lovely Cluny Museum in a wonderful medieval mansion which had lovely Unicorn tapestries. On our last night we decided to take an evening cruise on the Seine where we also had dinner. It was absolutely fantastic to see the city all lit up and in particular the Eiffel Tower at night, definitely a must while visiting Paris. After dinner we went to see the Moulin Rouge Show with VIP passes which enabled us to skip the queues.
Unfortunately a weekend is very short for this fantastic city and I cannot wait for my next visit back there to explore this city further.