Breakfast - what time

As my time is really limited in Paris (2 days) I thought this might be my plan for 1 day. Get up early, shower, look great for the day, get out of the hotel, walk to a gorgeous little place for breakfast then walk from Marais to Eiffel Tower (about 1 hour) for a 9.30am early bird queue (no tour)to go up to the very very top - 11am finish?

My question is what time can I go out to have breakfast - I have noticed that alot of the shops don%26#39;t open their doors until 10am, but do in fact stay open until around 7pm.

Should I just sleep in and do it all later on.

Thanks guys.

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Your walk from Marais to Eiffel Tower will take much longer than one hour.

Personnaly i would take the metro to reach the Eiffel tower early at 9h00 or 9h15. Then after that you walk to the marais.

Breakfast in a café will be a croissant and coffee. You can buy things at the baker%26#39;s, they open early, about 6h30 or 7h00.

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Good question. I%26#39;m a very early riser, and

no matter how late I may have dined the night before I%26#39;m always in the mood to have a nice breakfast.

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Croissant and coffee for breakfast - hmmm, is there anything else on offer or is that just about it?

How long do you expect Marais to Eiffel to take then?

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Well if you are a good walker and do not look at the sights or the shops (how likely is that to happen? :)) like me you can make it in an hour but I think at a reasonable pace 1.5 hours is more realistic and with sights and shops 2-2.5 hours is maybe not enough!

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Well Kasthor a woman on a mission, what else can I say - think 1.5 hours, I can make that.

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Well, considering you might pass by lots of clothing and other interesting shops in the marais, plenty of nice buildings and architecture, lots of nice cafes to sit outside in St Germain, you might want to consider the 2-2.5 hour options!

On the other side I know Australian women can be very stubborn when it comes to sticking up to a plan ;)

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Kasthor, Kasthor, Kasthor, I am sure the temptation will be enormous for me to take a slight detour or two, taking many stops on the way.

Are you saying to avoid this walk and to make the Eiffel by 9.30 I need to take the metro?

Won%26#39;t the shops be closed at this time on my way up - I could take notes of worthy %26quot;stops on the way back%26quot;.

So, Kasthor, you are saying my plan is doomed to fail - even though I am on a mission and maybe a tinsy winsy bit stubborn - ;)

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Mappy.com reports walking time from the Hotel de Ville to the Eiffel Tower to be approximately 1h9m, so from anywhere in the Marais, it would be a little longer than that. I would easily expect it to be 1h30m without a question. If you do decide to walk, consider crossing the Seine at the Ile de la Cite in front of Notre Dame and once your on the Quai St Michel, heading west, stop for breakfast at the Depart St. Michel just in front of the Place St. Michel. It%26#39;s open 24 hours, has an extensive menu, and would be good place to stop along the way to break up your walk. From there you can continue around, down and over. You have a couple of different routes, depending on what you want to see along the way. Try a few different routes on mappy.com (select Pedestrian) by entering desitination points along your route, then piecing them all together. If you%26#39;re an early riser, it will be a beautiful walk if you leave your hotel around 6:30a. Do it on a Sat or Sun and you%26#39;ll be the only one around, and you%26#39;ll have Paris all to yourself for much of your walk.

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My wife and I are enthusiastic walkers, and when we%26#39;re on vacation try to walk everywhere.

You can not walk from the Marais to the Eiffel Tower in one hour, unless you%26#39;re planning on doing some very serious speed-walking.

Perhaps because of its height or mass, the distance of the Eiffel Tower from the souhtern and eastern part of Paris (particularly the Latin Quarter, where we stayed and where I will be in two weeks) is very deceiving, or was for us, anyway.

We spent the morning strolling around the Tuileries, des Invalides, back to the Luxembourg Gardens in the morning and decided when we had lunch near our hotel (we stayed at the BW Jardin du Cluny on Sommerard) that we%26#39;d stroll to the Eiffel Tower, which we judged to be about a few minutes, maybe a mile, past Hotel des Invalides. We figured this would be a nice one-hour walk, if we took our time.

When we got to the Eiffel Tower about two hours later, my feet were aching (granted, we%26#39;d walked about ten miles that morning.) I%26#39;d no idea how, but we walked back, too, though my feet were killing me by day%26#39;s end.

I have a funny breakfast story from that trip, too.

We were in Belgium for 8 days before heading for a 10-day stay in Paris. This was our first European trip. In Belgium, our hotel served a free, incredibly wonderful, huge buffet breakfast. Everything was free and delicious, and everyone helped themselves to second servings (ok, sometimes three cups of coffee....)

Our first morning in Paris we were ravenous, and we walked into a cafe, early-mid-morning, took a table (!!) and couldn%26#39;t figure out why the waiter seemed surprised when we indicated we wanted to see menus.

We ordered omelettes, with ham, cheese, peppers, onions, etc., the equivalent of home fries (I forget what they%26#39;re called), croissants, coffee and juice. As is my habit, I also ordered two cokes.

In a good diner where we live in New Jersey, the capitol of the diner universe, this breakfast would cost something like $15.00, plus tip, and, of course, the toast, home fries and unlimited coffee would be included in the price.

In NYC, where we work, the price might be as high as $30.00 or so, but could easily be had for well under.

Through the course of ordering, my wife and I were aware that the waiter--very polite, and very professional and efficient--seemed a bit taken aback. As we ate, we also were somewhat puzzled by the fact that we were the only customers in the place that were seated...everyone else was standing at the bar.

Then came the bill. I don%26#39;t remember exactly, but it was something like EUR50.

We learned later that, first of all, breakfast in Paris is a croissant and coffee--which is just fine. Also, that if you order the meal described above, you%26#39;re gonna pay for each item...the ham, the cheese, the peppers, the onions, the home fries, the bread, the second cup of coffee, etc.

My wife, who is Korean and most definitely possesses that Asian thrift sensibility, was enraged. I thought it was a great lesson, one of those little hassle that comprise the cost of memorable travel experiences.

She won%26#39;t admit it, but I believe this experience may be the reason she%26#39;s not joining me in Paris this time around!

PS: one very cool thing about that enormous first Paris breakfast--instead of ketchup, they served fresh, lightly cooked tomatoes. I now do the same thing at home--becuase after that meal, I learned that despite including 57 flavors in their junk, Heinz can%26#39;t match the flavor of fresh tomatoes!

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If you are really craving an American style breakfast there is an american guy who has a diner in I believe the 5th (maybe 6th). I think it is called Breakfast in America. They have a website. We ate there one morning and had scrambled eggs bacon and pancakes. Strangley enough most of the other patrons were french.