In this Just The Tip episode, we’re sharing how to make the most of a super quick 8-hour stop in Paris. Kim and Zeina met up in the City of Light and see as much as possible before catching a train to Nice

In this Paris episode we cover:

• Climbing to the top of Sacré-Cœur for panoramic city views
• Wandering Jardin du Luxembourg for history, fountains, and peaceful vibes
• Taking in iconic views from the Montparnasse Tower rooftop
• The best spot for Eiffel Tower photos (without the crowds)
• Lunching like locals at Le George V
• Train station tips for navigating chaos and saving money with Rail Europe

Paris hotels we recommend (if you have more than 8 hours):

• Relais Bosquet by Malone – Classic Parisian hotel near the Eiffel Tower
• Pullman Paris La Défense – Modern room close to the La Defense Arena
• Timhotel Le Louvre – Reliable stay super close to The Louvre

Paris is the ultimate place to slow travel, here are some tips to enjoy is slowly if you have more time.

Check out our curated list of things do in Paris on our Viator Shop for all the tours and activities we recommend doing when you have more time here.Find a great flight deal to Paris by signing up for Thrifty Traveler Premium and watching the daily flight deals (points & cash) that are emailed directly to you! Use our promo code TS10 to get $10 off your first year subscription.

8 Hours in Paris – Episode Transcript

0:35

And get ready to embark on a new adventure with us around the globe.

Hey Squaddies, Travel Squad Podcast is back with Just the Tip, our Friday mini episode series where we give you quick travel stories, hacks and recommendations to set you off into your weekend.

Right today you just have me, Kim.

0:51

I’m going to be sharing what to do in Paris for a quick 8 hour visit.

Yes, only 8 hours in Paris.

Now of course you can’t see it all, but I wanted to see Paris because I was already planning to do a few days in the South of France.

Our friend Zana, former squad member, is also going to be in Europe.

1:10

We decided to meet in Paris.

Now if I can only see it for 8 hours, I’m going to take advantage of that.

Yes, I of course want to go back and spend several days here and really enjoy and slow travel here more, but I’m going to try to see as much as I can in the 8 hours that I do have.

1:26

After Paris, we were planning to go on to Nice to spend a few days there in the French Riviera.

So that is why we can only stay for these 8 hours here.

Some tips that I have after visiting Paris for the short amount of time is yes, you can use the metro, but for us this specific day, just having 8 hours, it was easier to use Uber and actually found it to be pretty affordable.

1:47

It was about €20 for a 45 minute drive that we took.

That was one of the longest Ubers that we took and so thought that’s not that bad of a deal.

Let’s go ahead and do it and save time finding the metro and waiting for it and getting on and all that.

Traffic is pretty crazy in Paris, so plan for that.

2:05

It can take a minute to get to the next place.

So first stop on our Paris excursion here is the basilica do now I’m going to pronounce all this wrong.

Sacre core du Monte Marte.

I know I’m saying that wrong, but it is a very beautiful basilica here in Paris and it is worth a visit.

2:29

Now you might not need to go spend a lot of time here, but it’s definitely worth going in walking up all of the beautiful stairs that lead you up to this gorgeous building.

It is open.

It is an active basilica, so you can go inside and check it out.

2:46

It was constructed originally back in 1875 is when construction started.

So it’s a very old building, very historic building.

It’s beautiful.

When you get up there, you can also turn around and look out at the beautiful view of Paris from up there, and it’s a very bustling area.

3:02

When we went, it was a Saturday morning, probably about 11:00 AM.

Tons of people around.

There’s people selling stuff.

There’s different tours that they’re trying to get you to go on so you can spend as little or as much time as you’d like here.

We just spent a few minutes, took in the sights, looked at the beautiful building, peeked inside, and then went on to our next stop.

3:23

Next up on our list was the Jardin de Luxembourg.

This is a gorgeous park that was created by Marie de Medici in 1612.

It’s a extremely old historic landmark in Paris.

3:42

It was inspired by the Boboly Gardens in Florence.

It’s about 62 acres large, so I was getting Central Park vibes from New York when I was here.

It is a place that you can sit on the beautiful benches, walk around the pathways, take in the fountains and the beautiful buildings.

3:59

They have tennis courts here, they have greenhouses and orangery, fruit trees.

They have a bunch of different monuments here.

It’s really, really pretty.

We stayed not that long, of course, maybe an hour, walked around and took some pictures and whatnot, took it in.

4:15

I would love to come back here on a longer trip to Paris and maybe bring some sandwiches and eat them in the park and just relax for a little bit.

It’s a beautiful place to do that.

It’s that really historic building, but fun fact, it actually houses the French Senate now.

4:31

Used to be a royal residence, now it’s for the French Senate.

So it is a historic place.

I would recommend you come here and plan to spend a bit of time.

One thing that was really funny when we were here, Zana was like, oh, I’ve been here before.

I love this place.

I always remember the the beautiful big fountain.

And I’m looking at this fountain, which is in the middle of the square.

4:48

It’s a very big water repository for the fountain, but the fountain itself is very small.

So she was over here saying it’s such a big fountain.

I’m like, that is a tiny fountain with a big pond.

And we had a nice little laugh about that.

So squatty, as you tell us, is it a big fountain or a small fountain?

5:05

Next, we walked on over to the Montapanasse Tower.

This is a skyscraper almost 700 feet tall in different destinations.

We like going up to these big skyscrapers and getting the big beautiful views.

And out of all the things we did in Paris, this is the one thing I recommend if you only have a very short amount of time.

5:26

I loved it.

You pay to go up to the top.

They do have a restaurant or they do have an entry just to go up to the rooftop area.

And the pricing is a little bit different.

When we went it was €36 for entry and a glass of French champagne, or if you don’t want the champagne, just €28.00 for the views.

5:44

When you go in, there’s like a cafe where you’ll get the champagne and indoors all around 360 glass windows, so you can take in the views there.

But then you can go up a couple flights of stairs and be on the rooftop.

I recommend going up there.

The views are amazing.

6:00

This was my first sighting of the Eiffel Tower out in the distance.

So exciting.

It was pretty cool.

It was actually a pretty cold day when we were there in Paris, so it wasn’t as enjoyable to be on the rooftop, but I kind of forgot about it when I was up here because it was so beautiful.

6:16

They also have an I Love Paris sign that you can take pictures with.

So definitely go here if you have the time.

It is worth it to see the beautiful views of the city.

Like you can really see the design of the streets of the city and it’s it looks like an art piece from up here.

6:32

It’s really cool.

Next up, I know I said Montapanas tower is the one thing I recommend you do, but of course you have to see the Eiffel Tower.

All I wanted to do in Paris with this 8 hours, I didn’t really care about anything else.

All I wanted to do was have a picnic on the grass underneath the Eiffel Tower.

6:51

Baguette, a little wine, some French cheese.

Oh my gosh, I was romanticizing it in my head.

But you can’t really do that anymore.

They have built a glass wall surrounding the park area of the Eiffel Tower.

You cannot even go inside without paying.

7:08

So you can’t stand underneath the Eiffel Tower without paying.

In fact, once you do pay to go beyond that glass wall, then the ticket is is not just to get in there.

It gets you into the Eiffel Tower to go up it.

And there’s different pricings for what parts you want to see of it.

7:24

We didn’t really even want to do do that, so we did not pay to go in.

But even if you were to pay to go in, you still cannot picnic there.

The grass areas are all roped off.

You can’t even go in the grass areas.

I have no idea why they did this.

I think it’s a somewhat recent change that they made.

7:40

Of course, they’re glass walls, so you still can see the Eiffel Tower from the outside, which is nice.

But I think it totally just changes the romanticized, beautiful Eiffel Tower that it is.

Like I’ve seen for years pictures of people sitting on the grass underneath the Eiffel Tower and just loving their lives.

7:58

And like, it wasn’t like that at all.

It was an overrun tourist trap.

Now on the perimeter of the glass wall and the sidewalks you’ll find people selling Eiffel Tower trinkets and Paris memorabilia.

So it’s very, very touristy here.

I think that was a big mess up that they did in this area and Squatty’s.

8:17

If you have any back story on why they did this or if you have a different opinion on how the wall makes it a better experience, let us know because of course, I was only there for 8 hours and I’d love to hear a different perspective if you have one.

If I had more time, I would have paid to go in and I would have gone up in the Eiffel Tower because they kind of forced you to do that now if you want to get close to it.

8:37

So next time I will go in and then I’ll report back to see if it’s worth it.

So we took some pictures.

You know, when you’re right outside that glass wall, you can’t really get a great picture of the Eiffel Tower because it’s so close.

So what you’ll want to do is cross the street.

Directly across the street is the Sun River.

8:53

This is a beautiful thing to do is just walk along the Sun River.

It’s a beautiful pathway.

There’s trees it, there’s a gorgeous river of course, and then right across there you can see the Eiffel Tower.

So there’s a lot of really good places that you can sit on the wall, get a great picture of yourself against the Eiffel Tower and just really take in the views of this beautiful structure.

9:16

I love it.

It’s such a beautiful structure.

I’m so glad that I got to see it.

Yes, only 8 hours here, but I did get to see the Eiffel Tower and that’s really what I wanted to do.

We hadn’t eaten anything here in Paris, so before we needed to set off to the train station, we decided to stop at Lee George the 5th, which is a restaurant very close by to where we were walking on the Sun River.

9:37

And it was good.

I mean, there’s a few restaurants right here in this area.

They were all bustling and busy and I love how the outdoor patio chairs, they always point them out towards the street.

I saw that in the South of France too.

And it’s just like it’s meant for people watching and sitting and enjoying and slow traveling.

9:55

So we had lunch here.

I got another glass of champagne carbonara pasta.

Dana got this massive monstrous burger.

And the food was good, drinks were good.

And they were so good, in fact, that we lost track of time and we realized, Oh my gosh, our train is going to be leaving very soon.

10:13

We have to to go, so we tried to get an Uber.

The Uber wasn’t finding a driver.

Must have been a busy time.

So we were freaking out.

We found a cab and we got in that cab, rushed back to the hotel where Xena had been staying and where we had our luggage.

Got that super fast, had that taxi take us to the train station, which Xena had thought was right down the street, but she got the train stations mixed up.

10:37

It was Garde de Lyon.

She was actually near Garde Nord.

So really pay attention to the train station and stay near Guard de Leon if you plan to leave Paris like we did.

We were rushing, we were right at the buzzer and we would have made it.

10:55

I truly think we would have been on the train like maybe 30 seconds before it took off, except for the fact that when we rushed into the train station, the trains are all upstairs.

We did not know this.

The trains are all upstairs, the metro is downstairs.

But as soon as we rushed in, the trains are kind of blocked by signage and restaurants.

11:14

We saw one sign that said Hall A this way and it was pointing downstairs.

We knew we needed to be in hall A so we rushed downstairs.

And then we were trying to scan our ticket to get through the gate and it wasn’t working.

And then the time had passed and we were so defeated.

11:29

We were like, what the hell.

We go back upstairs and then we that’s when we see our train area and our train leaving.

So just one last tip for you guys.

I recommend you get to the train station at least 20 minutes before your train is scheduled to leave.

11:45

The trains in Paris and France are on the point exactly when they say they’re going to leave, they are going to leave.

And so give yourself at least 20 minutes to get in there.

Find where you need to be.

They have some like convenience type things that you can get a croissant or a coffee or whatnot so that you have that on the train ride.

12:03

The train from Paris to Nice was I think 3, three to four hours.

So it’s quite a long time and you’re going to want some snacks.

So maybe even get there 30 minutes early.

Go to the bathroom.

You don’t really need to do that because there is a bathroom on the train.

Then once the train arrives, it’ll be there probably 10 minutes before.

12:20

On your ticket you have a specific cart that you’re going to be on for.

For these long distance train rides, you have a specific seat assigned and a cart, so you’ll want to find which cart you’re going to be on.

Give yourself time to get settled in so squaties arrive 30 minutes before your scheduled train departure and plan for traffic in Paris.

12:42

Don’t mess up like we did.

There’s a a lot of other trains, so we ended up getting another one, not to Nice, but to Marsai.

And if you want to hear more about that fun excursion, tune into the next episode where we talk about my three days in the South of France.

Thank you so much for tuning in to just the tip.