A recipe for the perfect 48hrs in Paris
How to do Paris as someone that doesn't love Paris
Somewhere between the budget airline losing my luggage for the entire duration (4 days) of my last trip, overpacking my itinerary with “instagrammable” streets to get the perfect shot, and it being the middle of July (high 20 degrees!) with the streets smelling like a urinal and there not being a Parisian in sight, I decided Paris was not my place. And speaking to others about my non-plussed stance on the city, most seemed to agree. There’s even a SYNDROME named after extreme cases of it.
Well, it turns out to cure it, all you need to do is visit for a weekend in January (blue skies not mandatory, but it did help in our case), base your itinerary on flitting between one cool eating establishment to the next, and strictly limiting your hit list to the immediate area of your accommodation — don’t worry though, you will still average 20,000+ steps a day.
In our case accommodation was The Hoxton, nestled between the Marais and Montmartre in the 2nd Arrondisement. Truly the perfect location to base your explorations out of. We arrived into Charles de Gaulle mid-afternoon on Friday, and flew back on Sunday teatime so we realistically had about 48hrs in the city, but here’s how we spent it.
Side note: we flew Air France over because we couldn’t face 6am at Edinburgh Airport and the cost was about the same as Easyjet. What a joy it was! A little jamon beurre roll, a free wine (the ripple of ‘is this included?’ questions from Brits along the plane was a sight to behold) and before you’ve had time to settle into a TV show on the little phone holder on the seat in front (it’s the simple things) you had arrived.
Eat + Drink
This was one of the few signs of life we found before 10am on a Saturday morning. There’s a few different outlets dotted around the city but they’re all serving up an abundance of pastries (everything from your standard croissants to perfect little edible works of art) and sandwiches come lunchtime. A lot of other bakeries are closed on Sundays but these guys were open so we returned for a sandwich too!
One of the few things that I actually really enjoyed from the aforementioned infamous Paris trip was a pistachio snail from here. Eaten while wandering along the Canal Saint-Martin. Perfect.
As we were limited on time we elected not to risk going to eat at a restaurant that doesn’t take reservations (no time for waiting in queues! More time for wandering to my heart’s content), but had I had longer I would be making a beeline for Clamato. Please go if you too are a seafood fiend and let me know if it’s as fantastique as it looks.
Speaking of the locations we didn’t have time to visit, I made a MEGA Google Map with all the good looking bakeries, food places, bars, coffee spots, shops and points of interest I could find. It seems a waste to have done that research and only visit a few places on that map so here’s the link for you to use if you’re planning your next trip:
