The Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysées, Centre Georges Pompidou and the “Beaubourg” Neighbourhood, Sacre Coeur and Montmartre… If you flip open any tourist guide for Paris, these places will be on the top of the Must See-list every time. And guess what, I went to see ‘em all!

I’m not that much of a tourist really, but I actually had a lot of fun acting like one when I was out in Paris this summer. It started of more as a joke really. I went there with my brother and his girlfriend on our birthday. We are twins, but non-identical as you’ll probably notice in the pictures, and we hadn’t spend our birthday together the last couple of years so when Thalys started advertising it’s city trip promotions and one of the dates offered was July 23th we just had to go play tourist.

The downside to the promotion was that it was for it’s low traffic departures only, which meant ridiculously early or somewhere in the afternoon. To make the most of our visit we opted for the early one, but I for sure had a ruff time getting out of my cosy bed at 5 in the morning.

My brother Bavo and his girlfriend Fien walking back to the bridge after checking out the tip of the little island.

We arrived in Paris around 9, and decided to start our day with a visit to the Notre Dame. We bought one of those two days passes for public transport and hopped on our first ride in Paris’s famous Metro network. After the Notre Dame we hurried to the Eiffel Tower. We hadn’t kept track of time and we had pre-booked visits and only 20 minutes left to get to the other side of town. We didn’t get there on time, but they didn’t seemed to mind us being about 15 minutes late so we could just get in the elevator and be on our way up. I honestly was amazed be the amount of people that were on those platforms at the same time all the time. It was like a steady flow of tourists the entire time we were up there. Understandable though, the Eiffel Tower really is worth a visit. The view is truly incredible!

They didn’t seemed to mind us being about 15 minutes late so we could just get in the elevator
and be on our way up.

We had been up there for almost two hours and started to get hungry so we went looking for a nice little place to get some lunch. We decided to move more towards the outside of the city, to escape the fuzz for a while. A nice big sandwich and a coke later, we left the little snack-bar we had found and went to check out the Louvre. Again a lot of people, but the amazing architecture is just to good to pass up. I really loved all the little details that are literally everywhere.

This is one of the side halls. It was funny to see how they lit the whole cathedral with street lantern type of lights. It was kind of weird, but then again it was discrete enough not to bother anyone.

From the Louvre we ventured out in to the city in search of a place to go eat some ice cream, but I guess we took a lot of bad turns cause after almost an hour of walking we still hadn’t found anything so we decided to give up the search. We went to look for our hotel to drop our luggage and then headed back in to the city for diner and some Paris by night.

After diner in a nice little restaurant in the Champs-Elysées neighbourhood we ventured out in to the night. Our plan was to take walk on the Champs-Elysées and check out the Arc de Triomphe, take the subway to a station near the river and take a late night boat trip around Paris and then go for a drink. When we arrived at the boats, though, the last one had just left so sadly the only thing we cold do was watch it steer up the Seine. Bummer! After that we decided to just call it a night, we were all pretty tired from getting up so early that morning so we headed back to the hotel for a good night sleep.

My brother just loves Nutella! Okay we faked this shot, but so funny none the less!

The next day started the day with a visit to the Galeries Lafayette. A huge shopping centre in an ancient building. Pretty inpressive really. We had some good laughs playing around in the toys and souvenirs sections. After a nice lunch we visited the Centre Georges Pompidou and wandered around in that neighbourhood for a while. We headed over to the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre after that. From the Montmartre with all it’s painters and illustrators we rode the subway back towards the centre and went looking for a place to get diner. We eventually ended up in a great Italian restaurant and had ourselves a nice big pizza.

When we arrived at the boats, though, the last one had just left so sadly the only thing we cold do was watch it steer up the Seine. Bummer!

Our train back home departed around 22 o’clock so we had a little time left to go back to the Jardin Des Tuileries next to the Louvre for a little walk to round up our trip.

I had a blast in Paris and I think I’ll be going back sometime soon, not for sightseeing, but with my bike and some friends to ride and party. Have you ever been in Paris? Share you stories down below in the comments section!

UPDATE – More photos on facebook! Check it HERE.