With having just a few days in Paris, we wanted to get an overview of the major tourist sites. A great way to do this is in an open-air, hop on and off bus that travels to 50 stops all over the city—L’Opentour.
You can purchase a one or 2 day pass—hop off whenever you see a site that you want to explore or just sit on top of the bus with the free earphones supplied and listen to the audio. I don’t like to be on a schedule so organized tours don’t suit me but this was just perfect—flexibility with the education elements of a tour.
We paid 29 euro each for a one-day pass and rode the bus for 8 hours—until we were too tired to ride anymore. We saw the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, L’Opera, the Seine, the Louvre, and much more. We saw most of these attractions from the bus as we did not have the time to expore inside—the Louvre alone can take half a day or more. There are 4 tour routes and we managed to fit in 3 of them—Paris Grand Tour, Montparnesse and Montmartre. We missed the Bastille tour.
We stopped for lunch near Le Madeleine church, and discovered Fauchon. This food emporium is a gourmands delight. We found a bakery (of course), prepared sandwiches and salads, pastry bar, prepared take-out meals, and a caviar bar. Across the street we found another Fauchon shop with chocolates, cookies, bottled dressings and many other food stuffs. We shared a delicious ham and cheese sandwich on a fresh baked baguette and a salad. This is a fantastic shop worth visiting.
I have sold L’Opentour tickets to several clients and wanted to experience it myself. Now that I have, I highly recommend it. A 2-day pass is better if you intend to really see the sights instead of just driving by them. Just bring a jacket as it can get quite breezy on the top.
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