The Log Dog Blog: Paris February 2019

This was our fourth trip to Paris. Fourth! How crazy and amazing is that?!? As usual, C found a great deal on flights and when we looked at the potential dates, we realized we could be at Disneyland Paris for Valentine's Day, which was icing on the cake.

Friday, February 8

We drove up to JFK on Friday morning, and unlike the last time we went to Paris, we had no issues (that was not our finest travel experience, but it did make for a good story!).

One random thing…we stopped at a rest stop in Maryland and ran into a friend of mine from the doctoral program! What are the chances?!? I love her and it was so great to see her!

We parked in the long-term lot, took the AirTrain to the terminal, and got through security quickly. We flew on a 2-4-2 Delta plane, and it turned out that the flight was only about half full, so people were able to spread out a sleep and overall, it was a great flight! We love having this seat configuration because having two seats on our own is fantastic and we wish this were the case on every plane!

Saturday, February 9

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle on Saturday morning after clearing customs and took the train from the airport into the city. We checked into Hotel de Fleurie and even though it was only 9:00 am, our room was ready, so we dropped off our bags and then went out for a few hours to wander around and find a bite to eat.

We went back to the hotel after lunch and decided to take a short nap, which ended up being about five hours! Apparently the travel and the jet lag had left us more tired than we had realized! The good news is that lots of things are open late, so we spent the evening enjoying the city.

The hotel was a bit strange, but I have no complaints since the location was fabulous and we could walk or hop on the metro and get to pretty much anywhere we wanted to very easily.

Sunday, February 10

Since some things are closed on Sundays in Paris, we spent Sunday doing a lot of wandering and eating. In other words, it was a great day! So many crepes and macarons were consumed on this trip! In between all of the eating, we went to a very bizarre mall (complete with a glass/see-through skywalk), a famous bookstore, the opera house, and other nameless beautiful structures whose architecture is stunning.

One fun thing we found – purely by chance and courtesy of Google Maps – was a place called The Great Canadian Pub, so we decided to make it our final stop of the night. We ended up chatting with our very nice server who was from Canada and having a great time!

Monday, February 11

Whenever we travel, we certainly do love both wander about with no particular agenda and also hit the tourist spots with the other sightseers, which pretty much sums up this day. We went to the Pantheon, the Palais Royal, and the Louvre – although we didn't go into the Louvre this time, as we've been fortunate to visit it on a previous trip.

One of the most beautiful places we stopped at was the Bibliothèque Nationale Richelieu. Whenever possible, we like to seek out interesting libraries when we are traveling because I love libraries and this is definitely one of the prettiest we've been to.

We also went to the Arc de Triomphe, which we'd seen on other trips, but had never really visited. The climb was 200+ steps, but view was so worth it, and although it was super windy, I loved it up there! I also tried out one of the Christmas gifts I received from my brother – a photography sphere that I am pretty obsessed with, as you'll see in the photos.

After a FaceTime session with Ginny (always a fun thing to do – thanks to my mom holding the phone up to Ginny's face every time!), we went to a bar right around the corner from our hotel called The Moose. Yes, another Canadian-themed place! We went there because they offer vegetarian poutine, which was super scrummy!

Tuesday, February 12

This was the day I'd been looking forward to for many months! Back in the fall, I came across a picture on Instagram of the Eiffel Tower that had been taken from a hotel room. I wanted to stay in that room. After I learned the name of the hotel and the room, the next thing was keeping our fingers crossed that whenever it was that we returned to Paris, the room would be available! So when this airline sale came up and we began planning, we decided to see if we could get that room during our trip, and lo and behold, it was available on February 12! As you night imagine, it is a fairly pricey room, and although we'd have loved to stay a week, we planned on staying for one night only!

We packed up and checked out of Hotel de Fleurie and took an uber over to The Metropolitan. It was still very early in the day and the room was not yet ready, so we dropped off our bags and took the train to Versailles. It was our first visit there, and our tour guide was amazing! There were only two other people in our group, so we were able to chat and ask lots of questions. What a beautiful place!

Later in the afternoon, we returned to Paris on the train and went to the hotel. Honestly, I was so excited to finally go inside the Eiffel Suite! The pictures just do not do the room justice. It was on the sixth floor and had the most incredible view of the Eiffel Tower and when we got to the room, the light was absolutely perfect and I probably took 300 photos in the first fifteen minutes. We only left the room twice – once to grab some dinner and once to walk over to the Eiffel Tower – because we wanted to spend as much time at possible enjoying that view. We danced in front of that window and drank champagne and it was soooooo romantic!

A perfect way to way to end our time in Paris before heading to Disneyland Paris!