Sightseeing in Paris

2/12/ 2025

This morning we have a 4 hour panoramic tour of Paris as part of the Viking program. Our bus leaves at a civilised 9 am, and this time around we have scored an excellent tour guide. The first part of the tour is in the bus during past some of the city highlights.

First we head down Champs Élysées, which is quite close to our hotel, we catch a glimpse of the Arc de Triumph, which is hard to photograph from the bus before heading down past the famous shopping area.

Our guide advises that this Brasserie, Forquet’s, is the most famous in Paris and all of the rich and famous dine there.

High end stores line the street 

We pass many stunning buildings that seem to be mostly museums today, with our destination for our first stop being the newly renovated Notre Dame Cathedral.

Point Neuf , the oldest bridge still standing in Paris

Having past many highly photogenic buildings, we arrive at a place where we can briefly park the bus and walk to the Notre Dame Cathedral. We gather at a park nearby where a Christmas market is under way and it is also the site of the oldest tree in Paris. It as struck by lightning many years ago and is propped up by a steel beam, but is still alive after 400 + years

The Christmas market is only small but has a few interesting vendors.

Christmas market with the Cathedral in the background 

Santa is out a bit early this year

My first sighting of green cheese

Once the group is back together after our walk down here, we cross over the bridge to the Cathedral.

Looking at the Cathedral from the bridge

There is quite a queue waiting out the front to gain access to get into the Cathedral and we join the queue as we have a bit over an hour of free time here. The queue actually moves quite quickly and we did not have a long wait before we were inside. It was absolutely packed with people, so progress around the inside was slow.

We join the queue in front of the Cathedral

 

As you can see from the photos above, it is a stunning church.

Having spent a considerable time inside the church, it was very crowded and we were glad to be back out in the fresh air, wandered back through the Christmas market.  We still had a bit of time up our sleeve, 

So looked for a place to get a cup of coffee and remembered our guide had pointed out one cafe nearby that had, in his opinion, the best crème puffs ( profiteroles) in Paris. Why not test out his theory, so we waited in line and were confronted with a wide range of flavours, but settled on raspberry, based on the guide’s recommendation. It was well worth the visit, and the coffee was also good.

Oddette, home of the famous crème puffs

Our guide is waiting for us at the appointed meeting time, and for those who wish to continue on the tour, he takes us back to the bus along a different walking route. Some people opted to stay in the old city area, but we completed the tour. We walked through the backstreets, past the old Roman baths, and the Sorbonne.

The old part of this building to the right was the Roman baths

Sorbonne University 

Back in the bus, we are heading back to the hotel with a short stop at the Eiffel Tower. The bus takes us past a couple of important sites along the way.

Les Invalides - Napoleon’s Tomb

The Pantheon 

More Christmas decorations, this time on a Christian Dior Shop

Eventually, we arrive at the Eiffel Tower and have a brief stop to get a photo.

Now the tour is complete and we return to the hotel in time for lunch. Yesterday we noticed a Japanese restaurant not far from the hotel, so we ventured off there for what was a pretty good Japanese meal. We had ordered a bit more food than we probably needed, so after lunch we went for a walk to try and make amends.

We found a nice street market in a back street with some great produce

Everyone appears to try to outdo each other with Christmas decorations 

We have been walking for a while and up a side street we see what looks like the Arc de Triumph

It’s not too far up the street to check it out, so off we go, and find ourselves on Champs Élysées , with a great view of the Arch.

So as not to get lost, we backtrack the way we came and further along our return trip we discovered the Church of St Ferdinand,  another impressive church tucked away just off the main avenue.

 

Church of St Ferdinand

Ready for a rest and having certainly chalked up our steps for the day, we return to the hotel to have a rest before dinner.

Tomorrow we have an early start, leaving the hotel at 7.30 am with a bus ride to Trier to board our riverboat, with a number of sightseeing stop offs along the way. That being the case, we walked across the road to a nearby restaurant for an early light dinner after a big Japanese lunch. We continued our research on French wines and tonight’s selection is below.