The olympics in Paris seemed like a dream trip….gymnastics in the city of lights, perfection. Until I looked at the prices and imagined the crowds. So I shifted my dates to October during my favorite season, convinced my sister to come and a Paris trip was born.
First things first
The first thing you are going to do when even considering a trip to Paris is join the “Les Frenchies” Facebook page, this is a nonnegotiable. They are a wonderful couple on YouTube giving every tutorial imaginable about traveling to Paris and the Facebook group is a genuine community to boot. I truly fell in love with Paris way before traveling solely from this group, it’s that good ya’ll.
Flight
We took the Amtrak from Union Station to Newark Airport. If you’ve never tried traveled by train, I can’t recommend it enough. There’s a cafe on board, wifi, no seat belts, and a relaxing, stress-free ride as you watch the beauty of our country go by, win win. The train got us to Newark Liberty International airport and we flew direct with Frenchbee (budget airline). For the way back we did Play airlines, also a budget airline with short layover in Iceland (very tempting). I was very nervous about jet lag for my toddler thinking we would be all mixed up for the trip, but she slept on the red eye then arrived at noon, took a walk after we dropped our luggage until she was tired, did a short nap 1-2 hours and she slept through each night, so relieved. The Les frenchies Facebook group recommended to either push the kids to stay up until at least 8pm with no jet lag nap or take the short nap.
Mindset
My agenda was simple, relax and truly try to vacate my busy season in photography and experience Paris, not tour it. I wanted to meet the people, eat the food, and meander the streets with minimal agenda. We put one thing a day on the calendar and just enjoyed, this is the Parisian formula, friends. The other secret to total relaxation was the Rue Cler. The what, you ask? The Rue Cler, the “prettiest street in Paris”, according to Rick Steves. Well, he wasn’t lying, except he forgot to add charming, quiet, fresh food aplenty, and charm off the charts. Please note if you are an art history major and francophile, your trip priorities may be different, important to decide the goal/hope of your trip before embarking which will help determine where you should stay. I wanted a pretty street and Eiffel Tower views and that’s exactly what I got with Rue Cler.
Itinerary
Arrival day, 1pm walk to Eiffel Tower + crepes, NAP for an hour.
- Day 1 Batobus to Notre Dame, Shakespeare bookstore, Luxembourg
- Day 2 Batobus to Jardin De Plantes
- Day 3 Walk to Louvre, Tuileries Garden, Place De La Concorde
- Day 4 (BUS)Pink Mama, Montmatre (Sacre Couer), French Pharmacy
Stay
Since I fell in love with the Rue Cler street well before going, I knew I had to stay here. Some poo-poo this location believe it or not because it’s not close to many of the main attractions, but remember my mindset wasn’t to cram as many tourist attractions in as possible it was to meander! The Rue Cler is a 14 min walk to the Eiffel Tower, plus bonus we could see it from our room, which isn’t possible from every room in our hotel, but the Lord was with us! The other critical thing to know is all the major icons are along the Seine river (Eiffel, Louvre, Notre Dame, etc) and the river was also a 14 min walk, so it was perfect. One of my bougie hopes was to see the Eiffel Tower from our room, you do pay for this perk at most hotels, but our room didn’t have an extra fee for it, so truly a dream come true and really impacted our trip, thank you Grand Hotel Leveque! Seeing it covered in fog every morning and twinkle at night brought such a bond with the Iron Lady. Did you know there are 72 names of famous French scientists, engineers, and notable people engraved at the base of the tower, truly a tribute to the creatives, be still my heart.
Transportation
Since all of the major landmarks are along the Seine river, it made total sense to use the river taxi, aka the Batobus, off and on each day to see all the sights. Do check their website to purchase and ensure water levels are low enough for the boat to ride under the bridges or they will close them for the day. It’s almost the same price to purchase the 2 day pass, such a no brainer. Not only was the boat reliable but it was just a relaxing way to see the city and get around Paris, adding to the experience even more. Our last day we did take the bus to Montmartre but not nearly as wonderful, but did the job and was very cheap.
Famous French Monuments
The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Louvre, Tuileries, and Luxembourg Gardens were my must sees and I gotta say we stayed longest around the Eiffel Tower and Luxembourg gardens. All the other famous spots, particularly the Louvre were teeming with people and made those areas unpleasant, unfortunately. The only thing in this list you need tickets for in advance is the Louvre, which can be purchased online. Be sure to grab a crepe from the one and only crepe cart at the foot of the Eiffel Tower on the grassy side, which still had Olympic fencing up, otherwise we definitely would have grabbed charcuterie from the Rue Cler and picnicked on the grass! Next time.
Toddler Tips
Remember my mindset, relax and meander, well for my toddler girl it was have fun and play! So we found a playground each day so there was something for her daily. Each of the main gardens: Tuileries, Luxembourg, and Jardin Des Plantes all contained a playground + merry go round and the Jardin Des Plantes had a mini zoo too. Our number one pick was Luxembourg gardens for my 3 year old, they had the largest park and vast acreage of gardens, so less people! Our umbrella stroller had a love/ hate affair with Paris, the cobble stone streets were lovely but the stroller felt differently. All I could recommend is backpacking your child or having a stroller with good suspension, but those are typically bigger and I wanted to travel light! I did see lots of Mama’s using their baby ergo carriers with the babies on their back! There were toilets as they call them throughout the city as well as filtered water fountains to fill your water bottle, so super kid friendly.
Food
I care deeply about food and was super excited to see how my gluten sensitivity fared in France. Overall, it did well. I didn’t go crazy with the bread, croissants, and crepes but I definitely ate them with minimal bloating! The fruit was what blew my mind, right off the Rue Cler, fresh pressed juice and a vast variety of food stalls featuring Mediterranean, French, and Italian. Since we had our toddler we only did two sit down dinners, the first night and the last. All the other days was a crepe or bakery (boulangeries) stop while we meandered, perfect fit or one of displays on the Rue Cler all allowed take away. The restaurants we tried and I can recommend on the Rue Cler are L’Elcair, Les Rossillion, and our hotel recommend Petit Cler. Our absolute favorite place, closer to Montmatire is Pink Mama. If you search on Tik Tok, “Paris Eats” Pink Mama is featured on every clip and trust me the hype was real. Another food tip, enter “kids menu” on google maps search and it will show you every restaurant that’s kid friendly and go from there, easy peasy.
Photography
I brought my old (2017) mirrorless camera, but coming hot off of Fall family mini sessions, I was a bit burned out and found my iPhone to suffice and then edit the pictures in Lightroom. The iPhone’s have arrived, still not the exact quality or even close to the look of my canon R5 but I was content with the results pictured here!
French Pharmacy
When I was dabbling in research on Paris (on of my favorite pastimes truly is travel research, its half the fun of the trip) I came across French pharmacy favorites on tik Tok and instagram. Be still my skincare loving heart, I knew I wanted to immediately try France’s version of retinol, hylauronic acid, and hand lotion based on the raving reviews. The number one recommended pharmacy is City Pharma, near Notre Dame, while my attention was to absolutely go here, it slipped my mind in the moment. What I discovered is every French Pharmacy with the green plus sign you see essentially carries the same products, some are behind the counter, but city pharma has the the largest selection with the greatest discounts. But you should know that its super crowded in City pharma, so I was happy to have the wonderful customer service experience I had in my Rue Cler corner pharmacy and found all the items on my list!
What to Wear
Number one priority is comfortable feet because you will be walking everywhere (ideally)! So go for cute sneakers that go with everything! If you are curious what the French wear, they go very classic: black, tans, solid colors, trench coats paired with adidas sambas. That was the French uniform for Fall! I brought items that could all mix and match- black, tan, and pinks! I’ll attach my exact formula below with a link to shop it all!
Links to shop: skirt, black t shirt, striped sweater, blouse, sneaks, wide leg pants
