Accidental Trip To Paris

I’ve heard many great things about Valencia, Spain from several different people. So when it came time to plan my 2nd trip to Europe, Valencia was at the top of my list for destinations. My wife and I decided on spending half of our time in Spain and the other half in Morocco. We would do a few days in Valencia followed by a few days in Barcelona before spending 5 days in Morocco and a quick stopover in Lisbon, Portugal. You will notice that France is not one of the destinations I listed…

To get to Spain, I happened to find a premium economy seats on a NYC to VLC flight on Iberia Airlines for 44,000 points each. I happened to have points on British Airways that would transfer over (leftover from my Chase British Airways 100,000 point credit card sign up bonus). I just needed to find a way to get to NYC from Indiana. I thought “no problem, I’ve done this before. I’ll just book a cheap non-stop flight from IND-NYC”. I decided to book a flight that arrived in NYC 3 hours before the Iberia flight in case my American Airlines flight from IND-NYC was delayed a bit. Seemed like a good plan at the time. The travel gods disagreed. Storms over Pennsylvania delayed our flight for 30 minutes….then 30 more minutes…. then 15 more minutes…. then 45 more minutes. We are getting more and more nervous with each delay, so we call Iberia and tell them our situation. Iberia says “when you get to JFK, go to the desk and have them re-book you on the next flight”. That sounded reasonable, so after a total of 2+ hours of delays we board our flight and get to JFK. We headed over to the Iberia check-in line and the agent tells us “sorry you missed your flight, we are not going to re-book you”, my 88,000 Iberia points were forfeit. At this point we are livid, since the only reason we were in New York is because Iberia call center told us to board the flight and we’d get re-booked. Now we are stranded in New York City.

After about a half hour arguing with Iberia with no success we headed to our friends house in Brooklyn while we figured out what we were going to do. I was on my cell phone calling Marriott to cancel our Valencia hotel, while my was searching for a way to get to Europe…just anywhere in Europe. We figured once we got to Europe we could take a cheap flight to Barcelona and pick up the remainder of our itinerary. Eventually Gina found us a flight to Paris for the next day and I managed to find a Courtyard Marriott in the outskirts of Paris that would qualify for a free night certificate. We flew an airline I’ve never heard of (and haven’t heard from since) called XL Airways from New York to Orly. It was an uncomfortable budget flight and we sat next to a gigantic smelly man we nicknamed Andre the Giant. But at least we got to Paris.

Flight	JFK-MAD-VLC on Iberia Airlines premium economy	88,000
Flight	JFK-CDG on XL Airways economy	$1000
Hotel	Courtyard Marriott Paris Arcueil	Free Night Certificate

Paris…Now What?

So we got to Paris with no plan. We were not expecting to be there and we were leaving the next day. After checking in to our hotel, we took a cab into the city and found a cafe near the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile for some breakfast.

The Arc de Triomphe seemed an easy next step since we were right there. It was still fairly early in the morning so crowds were not too bad. My wife braved her claustrophobia to climb the cramped stairway to make it to the top for some nice views of Paris. I was surprised to find out that there is a “mini museum” and gift shop inside the structure that has some sculptures and history of the monument.

We left the Arc de Triomphe and took a stroll down the Champs-Élysées. Since the plan was to only spend a day and a half in Paris we wanted to try to see as much as we could so we ended up being super touristy by stopping at a kiosk to buy a ticket to the hop on hop off bus tour. I had often scoffed at these since its a very tourist thing to do, but it was really useful in this instance since it took us to several destinations we wanted to see. We hopped off the bus at the Trocadéro and headed to the see the Eiffel Tower. We spent some time hanging out around the Champ de Mars (great spot to take pictures if there aren’t many tourists around) before finally heading over to ascend to the top of the Eiffel Tower. By the time we got back down, night had fallen and it the site was closing to visitors.

We decided to head back towards the Champs-Élysées for dinner and drinks before heading back to the hotel. We found a nice little restaurant called Le Berkeley that had outdoor seating across from the Champs-Élysées Gardens.

The next morning we headed to Holybelly 5 for some pancakes and bacon (anyplace with a line out the door must have good food). We then walked down to the Louvre for a quick browse through the museum (I browsed, Gina found a bench and sat down).

I always love seeing the weirdest things in museums. Like the 2 sculptures below. Why is this man sticking his knife into his eye? This was actually to signify justice! Why is this bearded man being breastfed? Overhearing a tour group I learn that this man is her father. Now I am even more confused…..

After the Louvre we walked over to the Cathedral of Notre Dame (so glad we were able to see it before the devastating fire the following year). Finally we found a place to enjoy some ice cream and wine (we are in France afterall). It was here in the shadow of Notre Dame that the travel gods finally smiled on us. Our non-refundable flight from Valencia to Barcelona was cancelled and our money was refunded!

There was much to Paris that we did not get to see. Considering how our vacation started, we were happy to see the little that we did. After Notre Dame we headed back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and hopped on our Vueling flight to Barcelona.

Morocco Trip Report

• Accidental Trip to Paris
• Weekend in Barcelona
• Lost in a Moroccan Back Alley
• Night in the Sahara
• Final Stop in Portugal