Paris, Part One: The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre & Montmartre

Paris does not ease you in. Within the first couple of days we’d walked the Seine, wandered the Tuileries Garden, and stood at the obelisk in Place de la Concorde — and somehow it still felt like we’d barely started.

Eiffel Tower in evening

The real welcome, though, was an evening picnic at the Eiffel Tower. We staked out a spot on the grass at Champ de Mars with pastries and a bottle of champagne and just watched the tower shift through every version of itself — flat in the afternoon light, gold at sunset, and finally lit up gold against a dark sky. We came back more than once during the trip, and it never got old. If you only do one “just sit and watch it” moment in Paris, make it this one, and give yourself the full sunset-to-dark window — the transformation is worth the wait.

Picnic on lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower

The next morning became a favorite ritual: coffee and croissants from Michalak, the modern pâtisserie from chef Christophe Michalak. If you’re near one, it’s worth seeking out over a generic café croissant.

Then came a full day at the Louvre — and “full day” undersells it. We stood in the crowd for the Mona Lisa (smaller than you expect, always is), but the real standouts were the pieces with room to breathe: the Winged Victory of Samothrace at the top of the stairs, the Venus de Milo, and the sprawling history-painting galleries. The most surprising part of the museum wasn’t the art at all — it was wandering into Napoleon III’s apartments, a set of rooms so over-the-top with gold and red velvet and chandeliers that they don’t even feel like they belong in the same building as the rest of the museum. Budget real time for the Louvre; we easily lost half a day in there and still didn’t see everything.

Mona Lisa

We capped that day with a rooftop view over Paris’s rooftops — grey skies, but the kind of panorama that makes you stop mid-conversation anyway.

Montmartre got its own full day, and it’s a completely different pace from the rest of Paris — steep cobblestone streets, small squares, less rush. We climbed up to Sacré-Cœur for the view over the city, wandered past La Maison Rose (the pink corner house every Montmartre photo seems to feature), and watched street artists sketching portraits in the square. The neighborhood’s real hidden gem, though, was Le Mur des Je t’aime — the Wall of Love, a wall tiled in “I love you” written in nearly 300 languages, tucked into a small park. It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it, and worth the detour. We finished the day near the Moulin Rouge with steak frites, the kind of simple, unfussy dinner that Paris somehow always gets right.

Highlights: Eiffel Tower at golden hour · The Louvre (Winged Victory & Napoleon III’s apartments) · Sacré-Cœur & Montmartre · Le Mur des Je t’aime