[France Summer Vacation] Day 01/02: Exploring the city of Paris + Lunch at Benoit Paris – 1 Michelin Star

It's been a super long hiatus for travelling since the pandemic started in 2020. I'm so happy that borders around the world are now opened much more freely for travelling. I last visited Paris back in 2011, and I loved the experience so much that I promised myself I would re-visit it again in the future. We decided to make this our first trip after the lifting of travelling restrictions!

We began planning for this trip by keeping a lookout for cheap airfares. Baby did some additional research to visit other nearby places of interests. In short, he did most of the preparation and planning, which I love him deeply for!

We purchased our air tickets from Singapore Airlines was a non-stop direct flight to Paris. In all, we paid SGD1500 per pax for our return tickets which I felt was pretty reasonable.

My flight journey to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Airport was about 13+ hours, and the selection on food and drinks were pretty wide.

On the entire flight, apart from sleeping, I watched a lot of in-flight movies that I had missed out on. I was totally having a movie marathon. 

There is a USB port at every passenger's seat, and this made it easier for us to charge our phones before leaving the aircraft. It was lovely indeed! After what seemed like an eternity, my seat-screen finally showed that I was less than an hour flight time away from Paris! I was so happy to see that!

We landed at CDG Airport at about 945pm local time. Do note Paris is 6 hours behind us in Singapore, hence we sort of earned a day there! Baby had arranged for a transfer from the airport to our hotel in advance, which was very pleasant and nice. The private hired car took us about 40-45 minutes to reach Opéra, where our hotel was located.

Hotel Opera Marigny is a 4⭐classic boutique hotel which is centrally located near the City Centre - the heart of Opéra, which is just a 5-minute walk to the Palais Garnier. The Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra Garnier, was also within walking distance to the large shopping mall Galeries Lafayette.

Once we checked in to the hotel, we went straight for our shower and then headed to bed after our long flight, as we wanted to charge up our energy levels in order to explore the lovely city of Paris the very next day!

Good morning! Our room stay was inclusive of a daily breakfast, so we headed down to the café to enjoy the mini buffet spread! There was a pretty decent selection of bread, croissant, pastries, cereals, scrambled eggs and bacon.

There are numerous reasons to love Paris, and one of the reasons are their exquisite architecture. The Palais Garnier is a dazzling building, and it's frequently called an architectural masterpiece! 

Another reason to love Paris is the food! We first went to Cédric Grolet, in order to pick up some crispy croissants! The place is a famous bakery café and we just couldn't stop admiring the golden crispy croissants and pain au chocolat that lay behind the glass-pane windows.

The line started even before the café was open. We did a take-away and we brought the crispy croissant to a nice park to indulge in our pastry!

I was not disappointed! The golden, crispy and flaky layers on the outside of the Croissant was just as tantalizing and flawless as its inner layers! The inside was buttery and soft, and the shell was crispy and melted in my mouth! I had never seen a croissant with so many layers and visual perfection! I would probably say that Grolet's pastries are a must-try, and the croissants are perhaps among the best in Paris!

The Le Palais Royal is one of many amazing locations to visit.

One of my favorite spots (especially for OOTD) in Paris is the Le Palais Royal. It has such a unique location, as you can find old and new architecture blending together into a stunningly beautiful scenery.

The gardens of Palais Royal were phenomenal, and it was so beautiful that words simply can’t describe it. One thing good about Summer in Paris is that we enjoy longer days and short nights. Sunrise begins at 545am and you will be hard to believe that the sun only starts setting near to 10pm!

We bought the Paris Museum Pass for 96hrs aka 4 Days. Note once you start the pass, it will begin and cover all entrances from a list of museums for 96hrs and this duration cannot be paused. One good thing about this pass is that it also allows us to skip any queues and have priority entry but you will have to arrange for this online.

The Sainte-Chapelle is one of the finest royal chapels to be built in France and it features a truly exceptional collection of stained-glass windows. Join us, as we enter the historical Royal Chapel.

OMG! It looked magnificent and I love the high ceiling and stained-glass windows. It is
widely considered as one of the finest French Gothic styled chapels.

Lunch at Benoit Paris – 1 Michelin Star, and it is definitely worth a visit! I certainly didn't feel like it was a tourist trap, as they served pretty delicious food!

No visit to Paris is complete without having a great meal.

After our lunch, the sightseeing continued... Here we are, at the Notre Dame de Paris, which is also known as the Notre Dame Cathedral.

We took the metro train to Pigalle for our dinner, as we had made a reservation at 630pm at Bouillon Chartier - one of the most authentic restaurants in Paris. They serve simple and old-fashioned French classics.

We were glad that we made the booking in advance, as we were shocked by the horrendous line outside the restaurant.

Our dining experience was decent and the damage was pleasant too!

After our dinner at 8pm, we decided to take the metro to Charles de Gaulle - Etoile station. We then headed to the Arc De Triomphe since the day was very long! We made use of our museum pass to enter and head up to the top of the Arc De Triomphe for a nice view of Paris City.

Finally, night fell around 10-ish pm, and it was time for us to head back to our hotel. We had a fruitful experience in Paris. Though I had been Paris way back in 2004 and 2011, knowing that I am visiting Paris again makes me feel excited and happy.

Stay tuned for my next day’s itinerary in this beautiful city of Paris…