Eiffel Tower at Night and Montmartre
I didn’t really sleep much so getting ready for the early morning was easy for me and Lacey set an alarm so she got ready quickly too. We took an Uber from our hostel to the airport. It took about 25 minutes. We didn’t know if an uber would be available the night before so that was kind of stressful. The public transit options were really bad and slow so it all worked out!
The airport in Porto is pretty small and security was easy. Because of the early morning, both of us were extremely tired so resting in the airport would have been nice. The chairs were super uncomfortable so resting didn’t happen. Our plane was a little late but it wasn’t a big deal because we were not in any hurry.
The flight was uneventful. I love that EasyJet doesn’t let anyone put their seat back. Both Lacey and I spent about an hour sleeping of the 2 hour flight. We landed in Paris, grabbed our bags, and headed to the train back in to Paris.
Our hostel in Paris is called St. Christophers Inn. It’s like 2 minutes walk outside of Gare du Nord train station which has a direct link to the airport. Again, we were in dorm beds but it was a smaller room and we didn’t hear any snorers yet haha. Same as the day before, we couldn’t actually check in quite yet so we left our bags and headed out.
The area I wanted us to see during the day was Montmartre. It used to be a suburb of Paris back in the day and has more of a seedy, artsy back story. Before heading to that neighborhood, we got some lunch at a cool burger place. It was kind of expensive but sooooo delicious. The dessert especially was incredible. It was a custard with raspberries on the bottom of a jar.
We walked the 25 minutes or so to the Moulin Rogue. A lot of walk was along a street called Pig Alley. There’s tons of sex shops and exotic dance places and stuff. Not great for kids! We saw someone get their phone stolen so that was a little freaky.
Moulin Rogue wasn’t much to look at honestly so we started our walk up the hill to the Sacre Couer church. On the way up the hill, we stopped at the “Love Wall”. It’s a wall with the word “love” written in over 100 languages.
Our main destination was Sacre Couer church. It’s a beautiful white church with distinctive architecture on the top of a hill overlooking Paris. Very pretty! There are lots of steps leading up the church so it was fun to see so many people hanging out on the grass and stuff. After taking pictures, we climbed up to the top. It was pretty warm out in the sun. There were looooots of guys selling souvenirs on blankets. When the cops showed up, they were folded up the stuff in the blanket and run away.
The area at the top of the hill around Sacre Couer used to be an artists haven. It still partly is. There’s a square with tons of artists hanging out and selling their paintings. I really wish we could have bought one but they were expensive. The area up there is quite touristy but we still enjoyed walking around the streets, people watching, and just enjoying Paris. We wanted to save our subway passes so we walked back to our hostel.
Back at the hostel, we took a nap (we were both exhausted). Our night time goal was to take the subway to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up. We got ready and headed out. While waiting for the subway, I got run into by a guy. We were convinced he tried to pick pocket me. Luckily, the whole trip I had been keeping my wallet in Lacey’s purse instead of in my pocket. Google Maps messed up our route so it took a little longer than we wanted but it was fine.
We got off the subway at the Trocadero which is the big open area across the river. It has an incredible view of the Tower. We found a spot to sit and wait for the light show. Every hour on the hour, the tower sparkles for 5 mins. It’s so pretty. I felt very, very lucky to be sitting there with Lacey on the tail end of our trip watching it.
We walked down to the Bir Hakiem Bridge again to take some pics from a little ways away. Beautiful!! Then we walked back down to the Tower itself. The security line to go under the tower was very short so we went through. It was fun to walk under and get a different view. We discussed buying tickets to climb the stairs up to the first level but it was getting kind of late and we were still tired so we decided against it.
There were lots and lots of guys doing that souvenir selling around the around the outside of the Eiffel Tower. Not a fan! We had a long walk to a subway station so we stopped at Amorino (our fav gelato chain) for one last sweet treat. This time splurged and got a macaron on top of one of the cones. It was sooooo good and the gelato was incredible yet again.
After riding the subway, which was surprisingly very busy at 11pm on a Monday, we got back to Gare du Nord. We never ate dinner and needed to eat something. McDonalds was our savior. Not a great last meal in Paris but it served its purpose and was actually kind of tasty haha.
We packed up for our long journey home the next morning and then went to bed. We both slept really well after cracking the window open a little to let some fresh air and noise in. There was a snoring guy but he snored less when there was cool fresh air.
This was another perfect, awesome, great day in a long line of perfect, awesome, great days. I’ll do a post-mortem post about what we would change or do differently but I wouldn’t change anything about how we did Paris or Portugal.
The airport in Porto is pretty small and security was easy. Because of the early morning, both of us were extremely tired so resting in the airport would have been nice. The chairs were super uncomfortable so resting didn’t happen. Our plane was a little late but it wasn’t a big deal because we were not in any hurry.
The flight was uneventful. I love that EasyJet doesn’t let anyone put their seat back. Both Lacey and I spent about an hour sleeping of the 2 hour flight. We landed in Paris, grabbed our bags, and headed to the train back in to Paris.
Our hostel in Paris is called St. Christophers Inn. It’s like 2 minutes walk outside of Gare du Nord train station which has a direct link to the airport. Again, we were in dorm beds but it was a smaller room and we didn’t hear any snorers yet haha. Same as the day before, we couldn’t actually check in quite yet so we left our bags and headed out.
The area I wanted us to see during the day was Montmartre. It used to be a suburb of Paris back in the day and has more of a seedy, artsy back story. Before heading to that neighborhood, we got some lunch at a cool burger place. It was kind of expensive but sooooo delicious. The dessert especially was incredible. It was a custard with raspberries on the bottom of a jar.
We walked the 25 minutes or so to the Moulin Rogue. A lot of walk was along a street called Pig Alley. There’s tons of sex shops and exotic dance places and stuff. Not great for kids! We saw someone get their phone stolen so that was a little freaky.
Moulin Rogue wasn’t much to look at honestly so we started our walk up the hill to the Sacre Couer church. On the way up the hill, we stopped at the “Love Wall”. It’s a wall with the word “love” written in over 100 languages.
Our main destination was Sacre Couer church. It’s a beautiful white church with distinctive architecture on the top of a hill overlooking Paris. Very pretty! There are lots of steps leading up the church so it was fun to see so many people hanging out on the grass and stuff. After taking pictures, we climbed up to the top. It was pretty warm out in the sun. There were looooots of guys selling souvenirs on blankets. When the cops showed up, they were folded up the stuff in the blanket and run away.
The area at the top of the hill around Sacre Couer used to be an artists haven. It still partly is. There’s a square with tons of artists hanging out and selling their paintings. I really wish we could have bought one but they were expensive. The area up there is quite touristy but we still enjoyed walking around the streets, people watching, and just enjoying Paris. We wanted to save our subway passes so we walked back to our hostel.
Back at the hostel, we took a nap (we were both exhausted). Our night time goal was to take the subway to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up. We got ready and headed out. While waiting for the subway, I got run into by a guy. We were convinced he tried to pick pocket me. Luckily, the whole trip I had been keeping my wallet in Lacey’s purse instead of in my pocket. Google Maps messed up our route so it took a little longer than we wanted but it was fine.
We got off the subway at the Trocadero which is the big open area across the river. It has an incredible view of the Tower. We found a spot to sit and wait for the light show. Every hour on the hour, the tower sparkles for 5 mins. It’s so pretty. I felt very, very lucky to be sitting there with Lacey on the tail end of our trip watching it.
We walked down to the Bir Hakiem Bridge again to take some pics from a little ways away. Beautiful!! Then we walked back down to the Tower itself. The security line to go under the tower was very short so we went through. It was fun to walk under and get a different view. We discussed buying tickets to climb the stairs up to the first level but it was getting kind of late and we were still tired so we decided against it.
There were lots and lots of guys doing that souvenir selling around the around the outside of the Eiffel Tower. Not a fan! We had a long walk to a subway station so we stopped at Amorino (our fav gelato chain) for one last sweet treat. This time splurged and got a macaron on top of one of the cones. It was sooooo good and the gelato was incredible yet again.
After riding the subway, which was surprisingly very busy at 11pm on a Monday, we got back to Gare du Nord. We never ate dinner and needed to eat something. McDonalds was our savior. Not a great last meal in Paris but it served its purpose and was actually kind of tasty haha.
We packed up for our long journey home the next morning and then went to bed. We both slept really well after cracking the window open a little to let some fresh air and noise in. There was a snoring guy but he snored less when there was cool fresh air.
This was another perfect, awesome, great day in a long line of perfect, awesome, great days. I’ll do a post-mortem post about what we would change or do differently but I wouldn’t change anything about how we did Paris or Portugal.
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