When my friend, Mo, and I were planning our trip last fall to Abu Dhabi in February to visit our friend, Allie, we were a bit unsure of how we’d transport ourselves to the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There were pros and cons to all the options. Then we came across one route that would have us fly from Seattle (home) with a layover in Paris and then fly to Abu Dhabi. The layover would be 13 hours. A quick Google search showed that many people have comfortably done a Paris layover with just 6-7 hours total. We both agreed we’d just make a Parisian day out of it.
As the trip approached, I was getting pretty excited for all the pastries and macarons I’d get to eat. Is a long Paris layover all that it’s cut out to be? Is it as romantic as it sounds even in early February? Read on, my friends.
The frenzy of just getting out of the airport
Like I said, we had 13 hours in Paris. This was 13 hours from when we landed in the morning, to when we would depart in the evening. Mo and I calculated that we’d then have about 7 hours in the city to explore and be tourists. We wanted to give ourselves ample time to take the train back to the airport and not be rushed going through security, etc. for our departure flight. I’m sure if others wanted to squeeze more time in the city, they could. At my age, I don’t want to deal with that stress.
We landed in Paris shortly after 8 am local time. We didn’t try to rush out of the plane or anything. Despite trying to sleep some on the flight, we didn’t sleep much so were pretty exhausted. I also like to think I am a savvy traveler — um, I mean, I do have a travel blog, but I guess what does that mean, right? — but we got a bit disoriented exiting and went past immigration so had to do some backtracking. Others also from our flight had to make their way back to immigration. (Let me tell you, this wasn’t the only time we got slightly lost in this airport so I really do think CDG has poor signage!) Once we got through that and made our way to the exit area, we stopped at the restroom to change our clothes. By no means were we even going to attempt to dress up, but at least we were going to not walk around in our athleisure. I’m already aware that when you walk around in a backpack, you clearly look like a tourist. Plus, I’m not trying to hide anything, I am a tourist!
After a bit of a hiccup trying to purchase our train ticket — note, make sure you have cash/euros — we were on our way to the train platform. Of course the platform that was closest to where we purchased our tickets was temporarily closed so we had to walk quite a ways to another platform. And then there was a notification of a train delay. Finally the train we wanted approached and we were on our way into the city! It was about 10 am at this point. Glad we weren’t in any rush because for those of you not paying attention, this was two hours from we landed.
Seeing the sights
Mo and I had planned out a tentative plan ahead of time so we had an idea of where we would go and what we would see. We mainly did this because we wouldn’t have cell data in Paris and didn’t want to have to rely on WiFi if it wasn’t always readily available. Also, we’ve both spent time in Paris before this, so there wasn’t that feeling of wanting to see “everything.”
Our first stop was Notre Dame. We arrived around 10:30 am. It was cloudy and a little colder than I anticipated. I was wearing my water proof trench coat length jacket though so I was ready for the elements. We had some off and on drizzle throughout the day but luckily didn’t get too wet.
Notre Dame is still under repairs so you can’t visit inside the cathedral. They have it fenced off and there is a timeline slash history of the cathedral you can read with images along the fence. We walked around and looked at some of the pictures but to be honest, for me, I was too tired to read everything. We took a few photos and walked on to find breakfast.
There are no shortages of bakeries and cafes in Paris. We found one that had ample seating inside. I ordered what essentially looked like a macaron sandwich with fresh raspberries in the center and a mini croissant. I also had a chai latte. (Sorry, I live in Seattle and even after being a journalist and now a parent, I still don’t drink coffee.) We enjoyed our breakfast and soaked in being in Paris. After we were finished eating, I caught myself leaning against the wall and wanting to close my eyes.
“We better get a move on or I may fall asleep here,” I said. Mo had no objections to continuing on with our excursion.
Our plan was basically to navigate from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. This is about three to four miles. We decided we would walk as much as we felt up for and take the metro if need be. We ended up walking the entire way.
Of course we made a few stops.
After breakfast, we walked through the grounds of the Louvre. We never had plans to actually go into the museum. We knew that it wouldn’t have been worth it since we wouldn’t have a lot of hours to look at the galleries. Also, I felt like I would easily just sit on a bench and take a nap had we been inside the warm museum. So, we opted to watch all the people take their quintessential “I’m pointing at the tip of the glass pyramid!” photos! and the influencers in the wild taking their overtly posed “I’m looking, but I’m not looking” photos — and then we joined them. By “them” I mean the latter group.
May as well just embrace being in Paris, right?
From the Louvre, we walked through the Tuileries Garden — nothing really in bloom in winter — and once we got to the end of the garden, could make out the Arc de Triomphe off in the distance. It was out of the way to our path towards the Eiffel Tower so we didn’t walk closer to it. (Perks of both of us having already been to Paris, it didn’t feel like we were missing out.)
We stumbled upon a sculpture of a large hand holding colorful balloons and walked closer to check it out. It turned out to be Jeff Koon’s Bouquet of Tulips.
From here, we walked across the Seine River via a bridge and the Eiffel Tower now actually looked somewhat close (not the tiny tower lost in clouds we could barely make out from the Notre Dame). At this point it was about 1:20 pm. On the other side of the bridge was a Pierre Hermé (a macaron shop, we wanted to go to at some point). We picked a variety of macarons and got them boxed up so we could bring them with us to Abu Dhabi. Surprisingly, we weren’t really hungry enough to eat one on the spot and were fine skipping lunch all together since it was in the middle of the night in Seattle.
We arrived at the Eiffel Tower around 2 pm. We didn’t go up the tower but spent a good half-hour here just people watching (again) and resting on a bench. It felt really nice to just sit. Not sure if it had to do with preparations for the upcoming Summer Olympics or what but they had a large portion of grass fenced off in front of the tower so you couldn’t sit on the lawn.
It’s dinner o’clock somewhere
From the Eiffel Tower, we caught a bus to go to a restaurant that a friend had recommended for good — yet, no frills — Parisian food. Even though it was shortly after 3 pm, there was a line out the door for this restaurant. We were finally hungry and didn’t bother checking how long the wait would be. We walked along the street looking at the other restaurants and found one that looked good — and by this, I mean that it was not crowded at all.
I had a salad that came with green beans, bacon and toasted bread with melted brie. It may sound like an odd combo but it was oddly satisfying. I am a vegetarian (who eats bacon), so it seemed like a good choice. After our early dinner, we walked around a bit to look for souvenirs. I tried finding something for my kiddo but didn’t end up seeing anything I wanted to buy for her. (I’d end up buying her the French version of Where’s Waldo? — they call him “Charlie” in France! — and a box of macarons at the airport on our layover in Paris on the way home. This second layover we did not leave the airport, well, erm, sort of. I’ll try to elaborate more on that in another post if I remember to!)
It was around 5pm and we decided to make our way back to take the train to the airport. We arrived back at the airport around 6pm with plenty of time before our flight would depart around 9pm.
CDG is not where I want to be
All in all, since we gave ourselves plenty of time back at the airport before our flight to Abu Dhabi would depart, everything went fine. However, there were still a few annoyances. The immigration line took forever. (Note, there are subreddits about this issue at Charles de Gaulle Airport.) They only had one station open for foreign passports. And then the airport has all these workers in red vests that say like, “Ask me a question” but in reality they don’t know much and I don’t know what their purpose is. So, it just annoyed me more. Finally when it was my turn, the officer looked at my passport and then asks me if I have “identification.” I have a second of panic but responded, “that’s it.” She looked at it again in silence and then eventually stamped it and sent me on my way.
Once through security, we tried to locate the lounge that I have access to. We walked the length both ways of the terminal and could not find it. At one point I asked a retail worker where the lounge is and showed him my phone so he could see the name and picture of it. He pointed his finger forward so I went looking a second (third?) time but again with no luck.
We eventually posted up at our gate like the rest of the commoners. When I took my phone out to see if I could connect to the airport WiFi, what do I see but the WiFi network for the lounge! Am I in the twilight zone? Am I losing my mind? I didn’t have the energy to go back and look again but was annoyed that none of this made sense. (Later after doing some online research, I learned that the lounge is actually before the security check point. What a poor spot for a lounge. Oh, and it’s like the lamest lounge with just like bottled water so we didn’t miss anything.)
I did not enjoy my time at the airport but the time spent exploring the city was worth it. We were well prepared in what we chose to wear (stable running/walking shoes) and had layers since it was winter.
I walked 23,266 steps that day so it also made for a good workout.
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