Weekend in Paris in Winter

I had always wanted to visit Paris, I mean who doesn’t? We were planning on going to a family reunion in Germany for a White Christmas and I noticed that our flight options had a layover in Paris. Well why not take the opportunity to make that layover a couple of days? We planned to not only go to Germany but also to Sweden to see the Northern Lights, again if you are going to go that far, why not check off more items on your bucket list right?

So we made the decision to stay in Paris for 3 nights. Finding a hotel that was affordable was not easy and we ended up staying in a nice, clean, well-positioned hotel that was walking distance to the Eiffel Tower. It was also right by a subway/train station so we could go see the city from there without relying on taxis.

IT WAS COLD!

It was not the best weather for walking around it because it was so icy cold but there was no rain so we made an adventure out of it! People were out walking everywhere so obviously we were not the only ones to make a go of it.

We walked to the Eiffel Tower, had coffee in little cafes, ate in cafes on the tiniest tables you’ve ever seen and explored the city…a little. When we got on the subway to go to the center of town, they made an announcement and I don’t speak French but I could swear they said that the next stop everybody had to get off. Luckily I said something to my husband and a nice woman next to me said yes, they are closing them down?! She said we could follow her through the maze as she was going where we were going. We got to the platform and it was PACKED. She squeezed on the train but we couldn’t make it so we pushed ourselves onto the next one.

We got into the middle of town, walked around, had a nice time….and then it happened. Everything shut down. The Louvre Museum closed down so we couldn’t go inside. We didn’t quite understand what was happening but then we saw the police showing up carrying large weapons. We went into a multi-story shopping area which was packed with holiday shoppers and bought some items. When we got out, it was starting to rain so we went to the subway station close by, and it was closed. Walked to the next one, and it was closed. Went to a taxi station, it was empty. We finally stopped in a bar to dry off and figure out our next plan and we asked about the taxis, said they stopped running because of the protests. We thought we could go to a hotel and stay the night BUT we had to leave at 5am the next morning for the airport so that wasn’t ideal as we’d need to pack. We had also already scheduled a taxi to the airport so it was getting a bit stressful about what to do. We decided to keep walking, away from town center and finally, drenched with rain, we found a station that was open and we made it back to our hotel.

It made for quite the adventure! If I was not with my husband I think I would have been much more scared but since we were together, I knew we’d be fine.

After we had left we saw on the news that the Arc de Triomphe had been spray painted, just after we’d seen it early in the day as well as other devastation from the protests. We were lucky that we didn’t have any issues and that we got to see it.

Quick Links to items in the above photo (Amazon.com):

Black Long Jacket with Fur, Long Open Cardigan, Relaxed Fit Jeans, Thermal Long Underwear Set, Long Sleeve Collared Shirt with Stretch, Cashmere Crewneck Sweater, Long Sleeve Batwing Top, Turtleneck, Ankle Boots, Waterproof Knee High Boots, Cashmere Feel Scarf, Cable Knit Set (Gloves, Hat, Scarf), Black Leather Purse, Ray Ban Jackie Ohh Black Glasses, Filigree Drop Gold Earrings, Gold Flattened Hoop Earrings.

What to Wear for a Weekend in Paris in Winter

We were on our way to see the Northern Lights in Sweden so we were over-prepared with winter clothing. But as you know if you’ve read about Paris at all, is that looking like a tourist in that city is like committing a crime! Luckily both my husband and I like classic clothing so we didn’t need to pack anything extra for our stopover in Paris. Layers is the best way to pack and dress. It may be extremely cold walking around but as soon as you get into a closed space, the heat is on so make sure you have plenty of layers you can remove if you need to.