A Seven Hour Lay-over in Paris

When I first downloaded my photos from Turkey, I was incredibly confused by the first dozen pictures.  And then I remembered, we’d spent the afternoon in Paris!  Our flights to Turkey included a 7 hour lay-over in Paris.  I tried with my best French to ask if we could be switched to an earlier flight to Istanbul but no luck.  So with seven hours in Charles de Gaulle and a need to keep jet lag at bay, what did we do?  Power up on airport cappuccinos and head into Paris!

The view from my seat at lunch

Since we only had 3 hours to spend in Paris, we decided to eat lunch and walk around.  It is very easy to buy train tickets into the city which were $13 each round-trip and could be purchased from multilingual machines.  Somehow we ended up on an express train and were in the city center in 25min.  We hopped out of the metro by Notre Dame and quickly found a restaurant outside with a nice view of the Cathedral.  I had delicious French Onion soup and a salad.

Our lunch spot in case you want delicious soup (and fine service)

Our incredibly rude and hurried waiter at lunch was almost comical.  Maybe he was sick of tourist soaking in the view and only ordering a coffee, but he really couldn’t be bothered with us.  He essentially threw our food and silverware at us such that my fork fell on the ground.  When I asked for a new one (in French, politely I think), he made it seem like such a huge burden.  I didn’t mind that it took him far to long to return, I was still processing the fact that I was eating lunch in Paris.  Comparatively, the waiter just seemed like a silly travel stereotype.

Interior of Notre Dame Cathedral

Next, we wandered through the Notre Dame Cathedral.  I’ve been a couple times before but always appreciate the soaring elegance of Gothic architecture.  We then walked along the Seine and looked at some of the street vendors.  A few blocks North, we found a patisserie and bought fruit tarts and cookies.  We brought desert back to the garden park behind Notre Dame park to enjoy some people watching.

Trying out my zoom on a Rose Window, Notre Dame Cathedral

“Love Locks” along the Pont de l’Archevêché (Archbishop’s Bridge) in Paris

We hit rush hour traffic on the train back to the airport and so the trip was about 45minutes.  My husband fell asleep almost immediately while I ate half a box of mints to keep from dosing off.  It was a fun few hours in Paris and definitely worth the effort to escape the airport!

After that quick afternoon in Paris, hopefully you can sympathize with my photo confusion.  Here is the very next picture on my camera following some long shots of Notre Dame:

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul