On our way to spend Christmas in the Philippines, our flights were actually starting in Paris, since flights from there during school holidays were considerably cheaper than flights from the UK. Since we were flying out of Paris on Sunday, I thought it might be a nice idea to fly out on Saturday Morning, and spend some time in Paris before our departure.
Our flight from the UK was uneventful and we were able to check into our airport hotel with little fuss. While we were at Charles de Gaulle airport we noticed that there appeared to be a transport strike happening in France on the very day we wanted to travel. We had hoped that it would have been kept to the weekdays, but it had ended up stretching into the weekend.
Luckily the train from the airport to Gare du Nord was still running on schedule, so we would be able to do some exploring. On arriving in Paris, we started our walk into the city, since many of the metro lines weren’t running.
Our first stop was the Galeries Lafayette flagship store on Boulevard Haussmann. They are well known for having the most elaborate Christmas tree displays in Paris in their central atrium. The streets outside were covered in lights and the year we visited they even had ice skating on the roof, which we didn’t participate in. The windows are also very elaborately decorated and thanks to their very impressive food hall next door, you can combine your sightseeing with goods from the fantastic patisseries as well as the grocery downstairs.
Next we visited Printemps Haussman to look at their incredibly intricate Christmas window displays. These were really child friendly and even had steps to help children get a better view. They also have some lovely Christmas decorations inside, though considerably smaller than those in Lafayette.
Our final stop was the Jardin des Tuileries to visit probably the most well known Christmas market in Paris. Here, Little Person was able to go on the carousel while Shleah and I could warm ourselves up with some French Sausage and Mulled Wine, with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
The plan at this point was to get the metro back to Gare du Nord and end our evening. Sadly all metro lines had stopped running due to the strike and buses were not moving due to the amount of traffic on the road. For the same reason, taxis or ubers were also not an option. As such we ended up walking back to the train station.
While this was unplanned it did have the advantage of letting us see a lot more of Paris than we had planned to. We also got to try some more food which is always a good thing.
Eventually we made it back to the train station and were able to return to our hotel to rest before our long flight the next day.
I would not recommend that anyone go out of their way to experience Paris during a transport strike, but it honestly wasn’t that bad and I am still happy we did it. Flying from Paris ended up saving us a few hundred pounds as well as letting us see Paris at a time that we had never visited before. This was a refreshing change and one I wholeheartedly recommend.
