On Dragon Hill: One Night in Paris

Our first view of the sites of Paris

Okay, I know right off the bat everyone is going to say that one night is “no way” enough time to see Paris, but this trip was planned around the canal boat trip and a month in the south of France; Paris was just a stop on the way home. However, this is how we made the most of our limited time in one of the world’s most interesting cities.

With the canal boat trip finished we took a local train back to Narbonne where we caught a train back to Paris to catch our flight home. The train ride is almost five hours so we had to come a day early and stay overnight. Actually due to a flight change we ended up having two nights in Paris but one was at the airport because our flight was early in the morning. We worked it out to arrive at the Paris hotel and have the evening to explore Paris. Then in the morning, we would have the morning until check-out when we could leave our luggage at the hotel and the rest of the afternoon in the city, going to the airport hotel late in the afternoon.

The "Night Bus"

To make the most of our limited time, we booked a “Night Tour” with one of the city tours companies on a double decker bus. We reasoned that it might give us a good overview for the first night and allow us to decide what to see the next day. Although the war in Ukraine has made electricity four times as expensive and they are now turning the lights off on the Eiffel Tower overnight to save money, our tour was early enough that everything was lit up nicely. The bus drove by all the major attractions in the city and the recorded commentary gave us good descriptions. We saw the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the river Seine, Notre Dame Cathedral, the red light district, Moulin Rouge Cabaret, and most of the other sites Paris has to offer.

The Eiffel Tower by Night

The next day, we decided to walk down to the Seine and along it to the Eiffel Tower for a viewing in the sunlight and then Regis wanted to see an art museum. The Louvre was just too big and overwhelming and we figured we would really be disappointed that we did not have time to see more of it, so she decided on the smaller Musèe d’Orsay which featured European art from the 19th and 20th century.

As it worked out, even this smaller art gallery was able to fill the afternoon and tire us out enough to call it a day. Time to walk back towards the hotel to find some more French food for dinner.

Although we only had a day in Paris, we managed to fill the night and following day with the sights and sounds of Paris, but really there is so much here to see, I think you could spend a month in the city and not experience all it has to offer.