Cash and Carried in the City

Last weekend was our final Bank Holiday for the summer and we decided that we needed to take advantage of it but didn't want to spend too much money or go too far away. With Eurostar throwing big discounts on travel, we decided that we should just go visit Paris and get a quick introduction to the city. We've been here 3 years now and I don't know why we haven't done it earlier, but it was definitely a good trip.

After we told a good friend of mine here that we were going, we invited them to join us and they took the bait! It was actually the first time I think that we'd travelled with another couple but it was great fun! We left bright and early in the morning to ensure a full two days of sightseeing and dropped our luggage off at our central hotel. It wasn't the nicest room we've ever stayed in, but it was definitely a good rate considering the location and the fact that we spent maybe 8 hours there.

We decided to avoid anything that would potentially require us to wait in long lines and mainly stuck to walking around the city to see the larger sites and off the beaten track sort. We did see alot, but there is also a lot that we didn't see. We did see the Pantheon, Luxembourg Palace & Gardens, Notre Dame, Sacre Coer, and ended the first day with a night viewing of the Eiffel Tower.

The second day we decided to head a little out of the city and went on a market run of Les Puces. I can say that this place is HUGE with goodies, odds and ends, antiques, and artwork. We purchased a couple of prints that we found early on and then decided that we did enough damage for the day and briskly walked through some of the market. I'm sure there were tons of goodies to see, but we really wanted to make it over to Parc de Villete. The weather was lovely and a quick metro ride got us to the park where we bought some lunch cheeses and champagne to sit out and soak up the sun. The park was bursting at the seams with people and the large red structures spotted in the area were a nice little treat!

We then decided to head back, take an hour or so to drift around where we were staying to scavenge some postcards to send home and collect our luggage. Our train left at 8 and before we knew it we were back home! Its taken me some time to upload all the photos hence the delay in this post. You can check out the photos in the sidebar if you'd like to see what we saw!! I'm sure we'll make the trip again within the next couple of years where we'll catch up on all the things we DID miss!!