Paris in 24 Hours: Day 2

Starting Day 2 the French way: coffee, toast with butter and jam, and of course, a delicious croissant!

The café was located on the Champs-Élysées. While I was there, an open-air exhibition was taking place right in the middle of the avenue, featuring a section with dancing robots that made for quite a fascinating sight.

I saved strolling down the Champs-Élysées and visiting its famous boutiques for another time, and after breakfast, I headed straight to Place Charles de Gaulle—home to the iconic Arc de Triomphe (Arc de triomphe de l'Étoile).
Place Charles de Gaulle is truly remarkable; 12 avenues, including the Champs-Élysées, radiate out from it, which is why locals refer to it as "Place de l'Étoile" (the Star).
Following the French army's decisive victory over the Russo-Austrian coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon promised his troops, "You will return home beneath triumphal arches," commissioning the monument soon after. Its construction spanned 30 years, ultimately reaching completion under the reign of King Louis-Philippe.
Beneath the arch rests the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, alongside the Eternal Flame, which has burned continuously since 1923. The flame holds immense symbolic value for France; during the 1998 World Cup, when an intoxicated Mexican fan named Rodrigo Ortega urinated on the flame and briefly extinguished it, a diplomatic dispute erupted between France and Mexico, culminating in an official apology from Mexico's foreign minister.

On the way to Montmartre, I noticed an interesting audible traffic signal system for the blind. You press a button underneath, and a loud tone sounds when the pedestrian light turns green. We have a similar system back in the Netherlands, except there, tapping the sensor not only activates the audio cue but can also trigger the light to change green faster.

Next up, we made our way down Avenue de Clichy and stumbled upon a street festival that gave me strong vibes of our familiar Parking Parvaneh. Vendors of all backgrounds had set out tables packed with artisanal crafts, retro oddities, and antique dishware.

Around halfway down the avenue, I spotted that famous red windmill: the historic Moulin Rouge. Opening back in 1889, the very year the Eiffel Tower was finished, it quickly turned into the beating heart of Parisian nightlife and the home of the French can can.

Not even a catastrophic fire in 1915, which forced it shut for years, could dim its vibrant spirit. It was a regular hangout for celebrated painter Toulouse Lautrec, whose vintage posters still grace Paris streets today. Over the decades, French music royalty like Édith Piaf and Charles Aznavour, alongside global legends like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, have lit up its legendary stage.

I was truly thrilled about our next stop. Loving the movie Amélie as much as I do, visiting Paris without seeing its famous spots was simply out of the question. I headed uphill from the corner by the Moulin Rouge to find Café des Deux Moulins. The name translates to the Two Windmills Café because it is nestled right between the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin de la Galette.

The café felt remarkably true to the movie, even with a few noticeable differences:

The glass window where Amélie wrote the specials of the day was nowhere to be seen.

Georgette's little tobacco booth was cleared away to make room for customer seating.

I was dying to slip into the bathroom to see the exact spot where Georgette and Joseph made out so loudly, but I just felt too embarrassed to do it!

Our next stop was Monsieur Collignon's grocery shop, run by that grumpy man who constantly scolded his assistant and put down Lucien. That is until Amélie finally took matters into her own hands, sneaking into his flat to unleash her brilliant little payback scheme!

Just past the grocery shop, we reach the striking white church of Sacré-Cœur. If you are an Amélie fan like me, you definitely remember this spot as the setting for that playful game of cat and mouse between Amélie and Nino.

Built toward the end of the nineteenth century following France's defeat against Prussia, this basilica was created as a beacon of peace and national renewal. The white stone it is carved from actually self cleans with every single rainfall, ensuring it keeps gleaming like brand new day after day!

Perched high up on the hill, the church offers a view where all of Paris sits right under your gaze, easily earning the title of the rooftop of Paris. Crowds gather here to sit along the steep Montmartre steps and simply watch the world go by below!

Now let us step away from the Amélie vibe and its charming stories to enter the cozy little Square Jean Rictus garden. Back in the early nineties, a creative artist named Frédéric Baron went around asking neighbors and foreign residents across Paris to write down I love you in their native languages. The result was three hundred expressions of I love you in two hundred fifty different languages, which he engraved onto six hundred enameled tiles in the year 2000, naming it the Wall of Love!

I was so lost in the charm of Montmartre that hours slipped away unnoticed. Heading back, spotting the spinning blades of the Moulin Rouge windmill was my reality check: it was well past 6 PM and getting late to catch my ride back to Groningen! I quickly grabbed a shared e bike to race over to the van pickup location.

Driving back home meant crossing Belgium. We stopped for a dinner break, only to discover not a single person on the team spoke English, French was the only option! Loved discovering how French speaking the Belgian side along the border is. With that warm meal, my quick trip to France officially came to an end!