France (Paris, Loire Valley, Bordeaux, Lyon, Avignon, Nimes) Trip Review

Paris + Versailles
Duration: 2.5 Days, 3 Nights
Hotel: Maison Albar - Le Celine

We found $450 roundtrip flights to Paris on Scott's Cheap Flights, so we figured that it would be stupid not to go. Very convenient route of Little Rock > Dallas (3hr layover) > Paris, though we did get delayed on our flight in, which caused us to miss part of our first day in Paris. We figured we could find cheap flights to Paris pretty easily in the future, so we opted to break our Paris "Things to Do" list into multiple different trips and check out a few other destinations instead.

After breezing through customs and grabbing the RER Blue line to take us to our hotel from the airport, we finally checked in around 2:00PM. We threw our bags in the room, slammed a couple of espressos, and split a vyvanse before hopping in a cab to Place de la Concorde to see where everyone in the Revolution got guillotined. They also have a cool obelisk.



We walked up Champs-Elysees from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, which turned out to be about 1.5 miles of walking. Catches you by surprise a little bit after sitting down in a plane for 10 hours. True to the rumors, Champs-Elysees is an overly crowded shitshow, so our walk took quite a bit longer than expected. We visited on Friday, so I wasn't able to loot and riot with the Yellow Vest protesters.



Upon reaching the Arc de Triomphe, we walked through a tunnel under that deathtrap of a roundabout that surrounds the monument and used our Museum Pass to skip the line into the Arc. You can walk up about 300 stairs to a viewing platform at the top to see great views of the city, including the Eiffel Tower.



After climbing the Arc de Triomphe, we posted up at a bar for a view hours to rest up a bit before dinner, which was at Pain Vin Fromage, which wasn't really my cup of tea. Drank a lot of good wine, though.

Day 2 started off cold, wet, and windy, so we bundled up and made the short walk to Saint-Chapelle and its massive collection of stained glass windows. Following Saint-Chapelle, we walked (almost) right next door to the Conciergerie to tour the former palace turned prison. Really cool architecture in the Hall of Guards. Both were included in our Museum Pass, so we were able to skip through the lines.



Unfortunately Notre Dame had burned just a few weeks prior and much of Ile de la Cite was shut down to the public due to concerns about lead poisoning from the roof of the cathedral. We were able to cross over to Ile Saint-Louis to grab a quick lunch to recharge before checking out Musee d'Orsay in the afternoon.






We encountered one of our first lines of the trip at Musee d'Orsay, but it was only for about 20 minutes or so. We didn't really take any pics, but there are a ton of cool statues and paintings by Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, yada yada yada.

After Orsay, we wondered around a bit and stumbled across a taxidermy shop called Deyrolle, where I was tempted to buy a stuffed red panda for around $4,000. Unfortunately common sense prevailed. We also stopped by some chocolate shops and fattened up a bit before grabbing pre-dinner drinks. Dinner that night was at La Jacobine and I would highly recommend it, especially after the previous night's disappointment.

The following morning, our driver picked us up for a private tour of Versailles. Versailles is breathtaking, but it reminded me a lot of the Sistine Chapel in that it was so overly crowded that it was hard to appreciate it the way it should be.






Following Versailles, we made a stop by the Musee de l'Armee, which is the burial site of Napoleon. It also has a bunch of cool medieval armor and weaponry, along with a museum dedicated to the World Wars. Real cool stuff and definitely worth a stop.

Our last stop of the Paris trip was the Eiffel Tower, which is one of the only places where I saw migrants hawking their cheap selfie sticks and glowing Eiffel Tower figurines. We had tickets to the summit, which was a lot higher up than I thought, at almost 900'. I added the only picture I took that doesn't have me in it. Super crowded as was to be expected and security confiscated all the wine I tried to sneak to the top. Bastards.

For dinner, we stopped by a place called L'Alsacien since the place I had in mind was closed on Sundays. They serve a pizza-like dish called Flammekueche from the Alsace region. Uses creme fraiche as a base instead of marinara. The food was really good, but the one we ordered smelled awful, which made the taste a really pleasant surprise.



Misc.

Before heading to Paris, I had read and heard a lot of horror stories that led me to believe that I was going to get both swarmed by migrants and Allahu Akbar'd, but we didn't really have any issues. We did stay mostly around the 1st and in Saint-Germain area, which could have helped.

Our hotel had really cool toilets. Heated seats and bidets with air jets and multiple water settings. Cleanest my butt has ever been.

The wine is really cheap...and really good.

I had wanted to visit Musee de la Chasse and Musee Rodin, but flight delays and opting to drink instead made us mark those down for next trip.

Wow. Looks like a great trip. Been to Paris twice - I need to branch out the next time I go. Great job on the review.

Awesome thread.