Not to miss in London and Paris

[brit]

I'm about a month out from our big trip to London/Paris. It's my first time in Europe (DH lived there for a year in college) and I'm so excited! We have our days tentatively planned but want to allow for time to just explore and wander. I'd love to hear about any of your "not to miss" ideas. We love food and unique/quirky and off the beaten path things. I'm not a huge museum lover, but we're going to hit the major ones and big tourist attractions just to say we did them. I'm particularly interested in evening and nighttime things and even better if it's something you can only do in London/Paris. Thanks in advance for any help!

[alleinesein]

Tea and macarons at Laduree in both Paris and London (there is a nice location inside Harrods).

Borough Market- hit up the chorizo guy.

Camden Markets is great for people watching on a saturday.

[mbcdefg]

I've been to London but not Paris.

Afternoon tea at The Orangery at Kensington Palace

Westminster Abbey

Tower of London

Boat tour on the Thames (should be included if you buy the London Pass)

Churchill War Rooms

Royal Observatory/Prime Meridian in Greenwich

Maybe a train out to Windsor Castle if you have time

I wish we'd seen the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the portrait gallery museum. We also didn't go into Harrod's, and we weren't there for the day when they do the Borough Market.

[babsbunny]

Catacombs in Paris. A tourist attraction but not everyone visits.

[dragon's breath]

London...

Go see a show at one of the theaters. There are many to choose from.

We did the Jack the Ripper tour with Donald Rumbelow and it was good (and, he made the material ok for the younger kids on the tour). A friend did it with the same tour group, but a different person, and his didn't sound as good.

We popped into the Tate Modern Museum because everything else was pretty much closed. Glad it was free because it is not my idea of art at all.

If you ever go back, try to do the Ceremony of the Keys. You have to request tickets a few months in advance, so that part takes some planning.

The Tower of London, and do a tour with a Beefeater, they are hilarious.

You might look online and see if there are any "2-for-1" deals you could use. We used them a lot, the only requirement was that you had to order your train/bus/underground ticket at a train station. We were able to eat at a couple nice restaurants that would normally be over my desired price range. (I believe we also got the tickets to a show, we saw The 39 Steps, using the 2-for-1 vouchers as well.)

[v]

Paris:
- Le Grand Epicerie
- The "Left Bank Walk" that is detailed in Rick Steves' Paris book
- Shakespeare & Co
- Place de Vosges & shopping on Rue des Francs Bourgeois (this is part of the Marais that @bigreddog was talking about)
- Drinking wine at an outdoor cafe on Boulevard Saint-Germain

London:
- Borough Market
- Westminster Abbey
- Tower of London
- British Museum
- If you have time to make a (half) day trip, Greenwich
- Harrod's. It is horribly touristy, but worth seeing because of its over-the-topness

[mich1]

I LOVED the Rodin museum in Paris. I'm not sure why it struck me so strongly as I never really was into things like this. But after going to the museum , it really caught my interest.

Also in Paris is Pere Lachaise cemetary. I know it seems morbid, but there are so many notables buried there that it seems like you relive history....things you just read about.

Also off the beaten track neat Monmartre s a huge number of textile stores. I would have been in trouble had I known how to sew. I spent hours wandering through them.

[dragon's breath]

Apr 18, 2015 11:47:02 GMT -5 Stan said:

Apr 18, 2015 0:22:40 GMT -5 dragon's breath said:

We popped into the Tate Modern Museum because everything else was pretty much closed. Glad it was free because it is not my idea of art at all.

Sorry  I prefer less modern stuff I guess.  We walked into one room and there was a "art display" of fluorescent light fixtures on a metal rack.  I see that stuff at work every day!  

Now, get me into museums with old sculptures, paintings, mummified stuff, prisons, etc, and I'm happy.

[msmerymac]

It seems cliched, but the two best things we did in London were the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. Give yourself plenty of time for tours of both.

In Paris, we went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe on our first day after a leisurely walk down the Champs Elysee. It helped get our bearings. The Louvre was amazing, of course. Sainte Chapelle was so cool, although the line was brutal and it was in the rain. But if you are a foodie at all, I would suggest seeking out a good restaurant and doing a tasting menu. We knew we wanted a 3 Michelin starred restaurant when we were there because it's Paris. 

[msmerymac]

Apr 18, 2015 11:27:55 GMT -5 mich1 said:

I LOVED the Rodin museum in Paris. I'm not sure why it struck me so strongly as I never really was into things like this. But after going to the museum , it really caught my interest.

Also in Paris is Pere Lachaise cemetary. I know it seems morbid, but there are so many notables buried there that it seems like you relive history....things you just read about.

Also off the beaten track neat Monmartre s a huge number of textile stores. I would have been in trouble had I known how to sew. I spent hours wandering through them.

My only issue with the Rodin museum is that there are like... 40 of them. Definitely not something you can ONLY do in Paris. I only glanced in, since it was right down the block from L'Arpege, but if I want to go a Rodin museum, I'll go to the one 30 minutes from my house.

[dragon's breath]

Apr 18, 2015 17:02:47 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

The Tate Modern currently has a set of giant slides I want to check out, but otherwise I'm not a huge modern art fan either.

Oh, I could get behind giant slides!