Honeymoon in Paris Day 1: The Louvre Pyramid, Seine, Rue de Rivoli

We arrived at Hôtel de la Place du Louvre, our accommodation in Paris for the first four nights, at around 7:30 AM. Since we couldn’t check-in yet and had to kill time for 7 hours, we walked around 1st Arrondissement on a chilly, November day. Despite being tired and sleepless from our long flight, I was excited to tour my husband around Paris since it was his first time there (second for me).

Colonnade de Perrault just right across our hotel street. This building is part of the Louvre compound so we pass by The Louvre every single day.

View of Institut de France from Quai François Mitterrand

From our hotel, we walked about 5 minutes going to Pont des Arts and watched the sunrise over the Seine.

My husband and his first photo at Pont des Arts.

Institut de France, built in 1795, groups five académies including the French Academy (language), Academy of Humanities, Academy of Sciences, Academy of Fine Arts, and Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

After crossing the bridge, we walked along Quai Malaquais and Quai Voltaire as we enjoyed seeing the maple trees during fall season. It was quite enjoyable to walk around Paris on a Sunday morning for there were few people on the streets.


We made a turn at Pont du Carrousel to walk towards the Louvre Pyramid. The pyramid looks so lovely at sunrise and I was pleased we got there early.


Moving to the other side of Pont du Carrousel, we found ourselves going towards Rue de Rivoli. I felt so cold because I forgot my gloves inside my luggage, so we stepped inside McDonald’s for breakfast. I had croissant and hot chocolate, while my husband ordered pain au chocolat and a cup of brewed coffee.

On my way to makeup heaven!

After spending over an hour at McDonald’s we walked again along Rue de Rivoli in the direction going to Rue de la Monnaie. At some point, I found myself descending an escalator going to Sephora (hahaha!). My husband couldn’t believe this was part of our first day in Paris, but what am I supposed to do? Lol. I’m a makeup lover and we don’t have an actual Sephora store in the Philippines! I also wanted to get some change for my €500 (excuses!) but unfortunately, Sephora didn’t accept my money. They said they didn’t have any change, and for some reason, it was rare to pay that amount in retail stores. I had the same issue when I bought a pair of jeans at H&M, so I ended up using my credit card instead.

Ang saya saya!

Musee du Louvre entrance from Palais Royale subway station.

Done with Sephora and H&M shopping. Day 1 shopping that is. Lol.

I can’t remember what happened exactly, but we found ourselves at 9th Arrondissement walking towards Galeries Lafayette. I was so desperate getting my money changed, so I bought a Longchamp backpack. Thankfully the store finally had enough bills, although I felt like they exhausted their cash register just so they could give me change for my money. We walked back to 1st Arrondissement and stopped by at an Italian restaurant for lunch.

Crossing the street to Galeries Lafayette means more shopping for me! Lol.

Christmas 2016 decoration at Galeries Lafayette. Galeries Lafayette is a high-end French department store.

This Balenciaga bag that costs more than €2,000. I can't help but take a photo. Would Asians really buy this, considering there are tons of Bayongciaga in the Philippines' wet markets?

By the time it was 2:30 PM, we're back at the hotel and our room was finally ready! We entered our room at the 4th floor and we were very pleased to rest – finally! It was so sweet that the staff of Hôtel de la Place du Louvre left us a note and a gift for our stay during our honeymoon.

Man down! Thank you Hotel de la Place du Louvre. You're very sweet!

Believe it or not, my husband and I were already asleep by 4:30 PM (as in bagsak!), not minding that we didn’t have dinner on our first day in Paris.


P.S.


Behind the scenes jet lag version: me computing our expenses for Day 1 and having bread and noodles at 2:00 AM, Paris time (Parang nag-cocompute lang ng paninda. Lol!).