Recently Seth and I took a trip to Cape Town, and on our way there we were lucky enough to have a 20 hour layover in Paris! We had never been before and wanted to take advantage of it. It was so fun getting a few hours to walk around and explore the city and I highly recommend choosing a longer layover on extended flights if possible. We are actually doing this again this summer with a 24hr layover in Iceland on our way to Europe!

It was a quick trip but we saw a ton of Paris! This blog is a breakdown of what we did and what we recommend if you only have a short time in Paris. Unfortunately we did not take our “real” camera with us because of the short time so I’m sharing the few photos we managed to capture on our phones!

Our flight got in late in the afternoon (around 3pm). We bought a rail ticket and started to make our way to our airbnb! Luckily our airbnb was right next to one of the rail stops and it was pretty easy to find. However, we did not have any service so we had to use maps we had downloaded to get around as we were walking most places. I recommend downloading a map of the city on google maps so that you can have directions even without service! That makes it so much easier to get around. We had a 30 minute walk from our airbnb to our first stop – Notre Dame! We got to see the outside and walk around the plaza but then it was on to our next stop.

Next we headed to the Louvre to see the famous pyramids and beautiful exterior of the museum! We have plans to go back and see the inside when we are back in Paris next summer.

After this we walked by Sainte Chapelle and then along the Seine until we got to the Point Alexandre III bridge. It was absolutely freezing cold so we were running low on our desire to stay outside and ended up taking a break inside a bookstore to warm up. Then we took another break inside a small restaurant and had my favorite appetizer (burrata!) and french wine! It was a nice break and warmed us up enough to keep walking to the Eiffel Tower. It was pitch dark even though it was only about 5pm and the Eiffel Tower was lit up and sparkling bright!

It was so beautiful but because of the cold we were only able to stay a few minutes before we needed to make our way back to our warm airbnb. Unfortunately for us we had used up all of our money and had to walk home. It took us about 45minutes in the cold but we eventually made it back to our cozy airbnb! We fell asleep pretty much instantly because of the time change and all of the walking we did that day. Then the next day we woke up early and headed back to the airport! It was a very quick visit but so much fun to get to see this city for the first time!