36 hours in Paris

[chaosisawayoflife]

Anyone fancy creating me an itinerary?
We (me, DH, DD15 and dd12) arrive on the Eurostar at 6.50pm on the Thursday. We need to get to Novotel Paris Montreuil for the night. It would be good to find a decent budget friendly quick restaurant for the evening close to the hotel. We then have all day on Friday in Paris, staying in the same place, then need to be at Paris Lyon station by 3pm on the Saturday. None of us are hugely into art/history/culture, so we don't have any 'must-sees' but we want to make the most of our time. Quite active, so would be up for cycling/walking/boat tours. Basically anything interesting and fun but budget friendly.

If you're departing from Gare du Lyon and can stretch to one push the boat out meal, I really recommend Le Train Bleu restaurant inside the station. A really classic old railway station restored, which is visually stunning and serves lovely food

Saturday lunchtime I'd book Bouillon Pigalle for a very reasonably priced lunch and then do a walking tour in Montmartre up the back route to the Sacre Coeur. Start at Abbesses, see the Mur d'Amour/Bateau Lavoir/Maison Dalida/Moulin de la Galette/Passé Muraille, Maison Rouge before arriving up near Sacre Coeur.

For boat trip on the Sat morning I recommend the vedettes de pont neuf .. nicer than the bateaux mouches. They depart close to the Notre Dame / Ile Saint Louis area.

This assumes it's your first visit.

I'd also suggest you skip Tour Eiffel; the Tour Montparnasse is much cheaper and more interesting.

There’s some bike tours that sound great, the name is Fat Boy or something like that but I think @Oriunda has nailed an itinerary.

I'd get on one of the bus tours (hop on hop off) and there's a good river bus tour as well. That way you see everything without going in to every attraction especially as you are not in to art etc .

I’d eat when you arrive at Gare du Nord as I don’t think the choice of restaurants near your hotel is all that great. There are all the standard fast-food outlets such as Five Guys and Popeye. There’s also a little pizza place we like called La Villa Andrea.
Your hotel is fairly close to La Bois Vincennes. It has lots of attractions which are fairly priced (within the context of Paris' prices). We took a 4 person pedal car around the park for 30 minutes, which is enough time to see almost the whole park for 8 euros. There’s also a boating lake, crazy golf, adventure park section in the trees with zip lines and via ferrata type activities between the trees, fairly decent zoo (my dc especially like the manatees). You could spend the best part of Friday there.
Late afternoon, hop on the orange metro line at Porte de Vincennes and ride it all the way to Champ Elysees Clemenceau. Lots of great window shopping and creperies, and you could watch the Eiffel Tower light show after dark https://eiffeltickets.org/information/lights-shows/

Thank you, some great ideas here.

I used an app called the Fork to find and book restaurants when in Paris recently and found it really excellent. We went up the Eiffel Tower for the first time and it was truly excellent but the view from the ferris wheel in the Jardin de Tuilleries was also amazing.

One of my favourite places in the summer is Canal St Martin - they create floating lidos for swimming and beaches in the canal. Need to book in advance I think. Lots of nice bars and restaurants nearby. Can hire bikes etc. Really enjoyable couple of hours. It's where the lock bridge in Amelie is. Definitely a fun place to hang out.

www.sortiraparis.com/en/what-to-visit-in-paris/walks/articles/278593-the-canal-saint-martin-will-be-open-for-free-swimming-every-sunday-in-summer-2023#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20the%20Canal%20Saint,9%20to%20August%2020%2C%202023.