My Paris day from the Arc de Triomphe and Céline Dion’s hotel to the Eiffel Tower summit with champagne and dinner at Les Ombres.
The second day of my Paris trip began with a few croissants and ended with champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower – you can’t get more classic France than that!
Many Croissants
The SO/ breakfast was so good. I always had a mix of pastries, fruit, chia pudding, and a shot of veggie juice!
Arc de Triomphe
Fueled up, it was time to see the Arc de Triomphe. The Metro 7 was steps from my hotel, so I bought a ticket (they’re €2.55 as singles, less as a bundle) and boarded. Note there is an app to download for the Metro, so it was easy to buy tickets right on my phone.
The Arc was, appropriately, very triumphant! (Top is by Quince!)
I sat on the wall beneath it and looked up at that majestic arch. The photo makes it look as though I had the place to myself, and no, I did not use AI to remove a crowd. Despite all the people, no one was sitting right there!
Céline at Le Royal Monceau
Next I walked to Le Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris, where Céline Dion was staying ahead of the opening night of her Paris concerts.
A group of fans was waiting outside, and I joined them hoping for a glimpse of her. I did debate getting tickets to the show when I realized opening night overlapped with my trip, but the combination of price and logistics overwhelmed me just a bit too much. So I decided a hotel stop in hopes to get a glimpse was second best! I know from Instagram she’s been greeting fans outside.
One woman from Italy told me she had waited more than 12 hours the day before!!! She hadn’t seen Céline, although she said she’d seen her sons. That’s dedication! Despite all the black cars and security that seemed to be ramping up in the hour I hovered around, I didn’t see Céline either, but I loved being in Paris while all the excitement around her opening night was building.
From the Champs-Élysées to Lunch on the Left Bank
We enjoyed seeing the Champs-Élysées, though it was crowded, and meandered through parks.
Lunch at Thoumieux
For lunch, we ended up at Thoumieux on Rue Saint-Dominique in the 7th arrondissement, on the Left Bank. It felt like such a lovely find after the busy avenue. It was the definition of “wandering into a neighborhood.”
Lunch was SO good: thinly sliced mushrooms covered in Parmesan, smoked salmon with crème fraîche and little pancakes for assembling bites, and fried calamari that might have been the best I’ve ever had. Of course some French rosé rounded out the meal.
As if the food weren’t enough, a truck pulled away and revealed the Eiffel Tower at the end of the street. We had no idea it was hiding there!
We kept walking afterward, including a stretch along the Seine near Notre-Dame.
Eiffel Tower Summit With Champagne
I had official Eiffel Tower tickets for 6:30 p.m. that went all the way to the summit and included a glass of champagne. We hadn’t quite appreciated how far the tower was from the hotel, so getting there turned into a bit of a hustle. We made it on time!
I’m not particularly afraid of heights, but the elevator ride up was a little scary. It moves quickly, and you can feel just how high you’re going. Once we got to the top, though, the views were simply incredible. Standing at the summit with a glass of champagne was probably the highlight of my entire trip.
On the way down, we stopped on the second floor to wander and look through the gift shops, then took the stairs from the second floor to the first and continued walking all the way to the ground. My legs earned dinner that night with all that plus about 20,000 steps of walking.
Drinks and Dinner at Les Ombres
Dinner was booked for 9 p.m. at Les Ombres, which sits on top of the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. My jumpsuit was jumping by the living wall.
Before the reservation, we went to the bar for an old-fashioned and a view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up.
I had just been standing at the top of it, and now there it was across the way! The view was simply breathtaking.
Dinner was delicious, and they require you to do a three-course menu. I started with a tomato dish topped with mozzarella foam. If you know me, you know I will almost always order the thing with foam on the menu, so this was my dream appetizer.
For my entrée, I had beef tenderloin with a glass of red wine.
And I ended with this amazing layered dessert!
The setting made the meal even more memorable. Each hour, the restaurant ceiling lit up like a starry sky, signaling that the Eiffel Tower was about to sparkle. For those five minutes, people looked up, oohed and aahed, and got up to take pictures. It felt like the whole room was celebrating together. After seeing the city from the tower, I couldn’t have picked a better place to end the night.
My Rings…
Finally, a quick note about the rings in these photos: I got quite a few Instagram messages asking if the ring on my left hand was some kind of announcement. Nope! Both rings belonged to my grandmother, and they only fit my ring fingers. This was a fancy trip, so I packed them to feel fancy. I wore one on each hand without thinking twice about it, but they caused quite a stir in my DMs. I’ll be more careful with my left hand in the future, haha.
Related Posts
- Paris Part I: my flight, SO/ Paris and dinner at Bonnie
- My Travel Favorites: What I’m Packing For Paris
- Paris Part III: Saint-Germain and a Seine dinner cruise [Coming next!]
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