Flight infoWe booked British Airways flights, using avios. Up until recently, British Airways RFS flights to Europe required a miniminum of £17.50 of taxes in each direction in economy (£25 each direction for business). BA recently changed this to allow you to pay the tax element minus £0.50 using avios. Paying the tax element with avios generally represents poor value per avios, however, being that we’d like to consider ourselves as ‘avios rich’ and on a budget we opted to pay the tax element with avios. So the total cost of our flights for 4 passengers in economy, round trip, from LHR to CDG was 80000 avios + £4!
Day 1 (and hotel info)We started off early morning from LHR T5 on the 25th December. Being that it was Xmas day, taxis were a bit difficult to find/very expensive, but we knew someone else flying out of T5 that morning and shared a driver with him.
We travelled with hand luggage only, so we cleared security in no time and headed to the plaza premium lounge, which had just opened (5:30am). We had access to the lounge with our American Express platinum card, it is NOT a priority pass lounge, you get in by just showing your platinum card. Our gate happened to be right next to the lounge which was convenient. We also discovered a really fun, kids play area near the gate, which we’ve never noticed before.
Flight was uneventful.
For the duration of our stay, we got around using public transport (mainly by metro). All transport around Paris, under 4s go free.
We found the metro network in Paris pretty simple to use, but we found that the ticketing process is a bit old fashioned (Compared to what we are used to in London). For example the first ticket we bought didn’t work when we put it through the barriers and had to go back and revalidate it.
We read on the forums that a lot of people take the RoissyBus but being that we were staying in the 14th arrondissement, it made more sense to take the train.
We bought tickets for the ‘B’ RER train. We got off at ‘Denfert- Rochereau’ and walked to our hotel.
We stayed at the Niepce Paris hotel, Curio collection by Hilton on points. We had the queen junior suite. It was a very nice and clean hotel. It’s a small boutique hotel in the 14th arrondissement and was just a 1 minute walk to the nearest metro station. There was also a Carrefour supermarket right across the street.
The hotel was fine with us checking in early, so after we checked in, we took the metro to Champs-Élysées and walked around the area. The kids were then so excited that they spotted the Eiffel Tower in the distance so we stayed there for a while taking in the surroundings. We then took a bus to Soum Soum to get something to eat. There are 3 branches of soum soum around Paris. When we got there we asked the person welcoming us in, if the food was chalavi or bassari, he didn’t understand what we were talking about. We did not like the vibes there. We were getting weird stares from the other diners and none of them looked Jewish, so we got up and left.
It was the last night of Chanuka and we had looked up beforehand, on the chabad website if there were any public menorah lightings, and we found that they had public menorah lightings at a different location in the city every day. That evening the lighting was taking place in Place de l’Opéra.
Being that we scrapped our supper plans, we arrived early and watched them set up the menorah. There was, music, singing and dancing which was nice to see especially in such a busy, public place! There was also a Harley style motorbike parade playing loud chanuka music that passed the square just before the lighting.
We then headed to the famous L’As du Fallafel. (If you Google “best falafel in Paris” it shows up as number 1 in all the results!) When we got there, there were 2 lines there, one is to order takeout and one is to sit in. We did takeout. The lines look very long but they do move quite quickly. And it was worth the wait! A staff member walked through the line, taking orders and payment to speed up the process.
There was a lot going on outside, lubavitcher bachurim were giving out menorahs, and there was some Chanukah music and dancing. At one point the motorbike parade turned up there as well!
We then headed back to the hotel for the night.
Day 2We started the day at The Reserve for brunch, it’s right near the Eiffel Tower. The food was delicious and all looked incredible too! They have croissants, fancy cakes, sandwiches and a separate cheese carving station.
We got 3 different kinds of sandwiches and a strawberry tart, all of which were delicious!
We then walked towards the Eiffel Tower. The kids spotted a playground along the way so we ‘had’ to stop there! We had looked into going up the Eiffel Tower and booking in advance to go up with the lift (elevator), but we decided that we would walk up the steps, which we quite enjoyed and is not as daunting as it seems. Even the kids managed fine (aged 5 and 3). We booked the tickets online while we were waiting in the line for security. (Which was around a 20 min line.) If you want to book tickets to go up with the lift on the day, you would have to wait around another hour after security. The lift tickets were all sold out already a few weeks in advance.
You have access only until the second floor using the stairs. As it turns out the top floor was closed when we got there anyway.
We were there for sunset which was a really nice view!
Donut from The Reserve, with a view!
We then headed down and tried to work out what we are doing for supper.
The restaurants in Paris are open at very interesting hours. Most of them open at 12pm until 2:30pm and then reopen only at 7:30pm. We made a reservation for Bassar online and got an automated email reply saying that our reservation is not confirmed just yet. We then got another email a few minutes later saying that our reservation was cancelled as they were fully booked. We were already on our way so we thought we will continue there an try our luck. We got there at 7 and being that they only open at 7:30, they said they were closed. After telling them that we tried to make a reservation they looked through their reservations again and said that we can come in as long a we were done by 9, which was great! They told us to come sit inside already as it was cold outside but we only started took our order after 7:30.
They put on the table some olives and baguettes, while we waited for our food! We ordered pulled beef focaccia, and popcorn chicken which were both amazing! We also got arancini with foie gras in it, it was ok but couldn’t really taste or see the foie gras. We then got a burger with truffle mayo which was soooo good, it was served in a bun that was the same texture as the classic French baguette. And we got the steak with peppercorn sauce. It was all really delicious!
Day 3We went to Rosetta for lunch. We were lucky that we got there when we did, we got the last table and everyone else got sent away or told to wait outside unless they had a reservation. It was really good food! We got 2 types of pizza and a pesto pasta which was amazing!
We then walked towards the Arc de Triomphe, which was around a 20 min walk.
Then we headed to Bateaux-Mouches (another 20 min walk) to go on a boat ride on the Seine. The boat ride is around 1 hour 10 mins. The line to get on looked very long but once they fill up a boat, everyone gets in! Some of the boats they have, hold up to 1000 passengers! We bought a ticket while we waited in the line. The tickets are valid for 2 years.
Sunset views from the boat ride.
We then went to Chlew, they have a few locations around Paris.
It’s a fast food place which means that they are open all day unlike the restaurants. We got cold cut sandwiches. It was very good, tasty and generous and the staff were all very friendly! It was very well priced too.
Day 4We checked out of the hotel but left our bags there, then we headed to Le XXV for brunch. It was once again very good, they had a nice selection of food, like sandwiches, mini pizzas, sushi, pastries etc.
We then went to see the Louvre (but we did not go in) and walked through the Tuileries Gardens towards the Place de la Concorde.
Then we took the metro to Montmarte and walked to the Sacré-Cœur.
There are a lot of steps going all the way up but the view is worth it!
We then walked to ‘ByElla’ to get food for our trip home, we got there at 3:30 but since they close at 4, they didn’t have much food left. They told us to try a different place round the corner called Doueib but the owner told us that it wasn’t glatt so we headed back to the hotel to get our bags. We stopped off at Le XXV (a different location) to get some food for our flight home. But they were also almost out of food. We bought a few things that was left and headed to the airport.
We flew back from terminal 2b. There was no lounge in that terminal as far as we know, but the terminal was really nice with a great seating area and even had PS5 consoles to use and a kicker table!
for more photos and videos of the food check out my Instagram account
here.
