On our last full day in Paris, and our anniversary trip overall, we tried to relax and take it a little bit easier. Our day mostly consisted of shopping down Champs-Elysees (and window shopping down the expensive side streets), going up the Eiffel Tower and having dinner before leaving the next day.

Our day started off having a wonderful breakfast at Kozy, a nice little spot literally seconds away from our apartment. After that, and toeing the line of being confident and cocky of knowing how to get around the metro system, I finally took us to a stop that was one away from where we wanted to go. We wanted to start our day off by seeing Arc de Triumphe and then walking down Champs-Elysees to go shopping. Somehow I was a stop off and it worked in our favor as we were able to walk up and down Champs-Elysees and explore both sides of it. It really worked out well for Christi as she hit up Ladurée to buy some more macarons during our visit. Finally we made it up to Arc de Triumphe and it was fun to watch the traffic circle around it.

After this we traversed the other side of the street ducking in and out of shops. I found a good one to grab a scarf, because hey, when you're in Paris, you need to rock a scarf! Once done on the cheap(er) street we headed down Avenue Montaigne so Christi could rub elbows with some of Paris' finest and pretend like she was going to buy some five-digit bags (even though she really wanted to).

We headed back to the apartment to grab some lunch, and more importantly, get off of our feet. With a lot of time to kill before dinner we decided to go up the Eiffel Tower. It was only a ten minute walk from us, so it would've seemed like a complete waste if we stayed that close and actually didn't ascend it. When we went on a Friday afternoon it surprised us how empty it was. After a short wait to head up the elevator, much shorter than the wait for Notre Dame, we made it to the middle part of the tower and took a bunch of panorama pictures.



The wait to go all the way to the top was a good couple hundred people deep and would've taken a few hours. Instead, we just spent a little more time around the middle of the tower and then opted to take the stairs down to the bottom.





Before our trip I did a lot of research to find a great restaurant. It just so happened the dates worked out that it was actually the date of our anniversary on our final night. I settled upon Les Ombres because the photos of the Eiffel Tower from the inside looked absolutely stunning. Half joking, half not, I told Christi we should ditch our two-month-old reservations and just go back to Le Cocottes since we were (and still are) craving that place ever since we left on our first night. We went forward with the original plan because our time in Paris was too short to not try food at other places.

Low and behold, we should've went back to Le Cocottes. The food wasn't horrible, it was just overpriced for what we got. However, the views were amazing. There was a terrace off the main dining hall with absolutely spectacular views. We even had a great view from our table.

We spent a lot of time outside. Before our meal, during our meal and definitely after our meal. One of the highlights was being around right at 9pm to see the Eiffel Tower light up since we missed it the night before. We must've started a trend as we were the only people out there to begin with and then when we turned around there were a good 30-40 people behind us.

Once we got back to the apartment it felt like we stared at the Eiffel Tower out our window until we couldn't stay awake any longer just to soak it all in for one last time. The trip was an absolute success and now we get to try to plan the next one.