This is part of a series from our recent travel to Europe in June/July 2026.
There’s a particular kind of relief that comes with a day that has nothing on it. After a week of trains, graduations, ceremonies, and a Belgian farewell tour, July 1st was our first real chance in Paris to just exist for a bit: no schedule, no train to catch, nowhere we had to be.
We started slow, grabbing breakfast and wandering the neighborhood without much of a plan, which after the last several days felt like its own kind of luxury. It was also a designated work day for me, so I spent a good chunk of the early afternoon at the counter in the apartment with my laptop while Chris did his own thing. It’s not glamorous, but it’s part of how we make trips like this sustainable: a few working hours now means fewer distractions later, once Jason, Jamie, and Izzy land tomorrow and this stops being a quiet two-person trip.
By evening we were back in tourist mode, heading up to Montmartre for dinner at Le Poulbot, a small restaurant tucked away at 3 Rue Poulbot. It’s the kind of place that only exists in a neighborhood like this; a short, limited menu, a handful of tables, and a setting so charming it almost doesn’t matter what’s on the plate. Montmartre has that effect generally; it still feels like a village that happens to be inside a major city, all narrow lanes and ivy and windows with the shutters thrown open.
After dinner we did the thing you’re supposed to do up there and walked to Sacré-Cœur (officially called the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre), and it did not disappoint. Photos of it never quite capture the scale. The pale stone dome sitting up over the whole city, lit against the night sky. Inside, it’s everything you’d expect from a church the Catholics clearly poured a century of effort into: soaring, ornate, heavy with history in a way that makes you lower your voice without being told to. Those voices got even lower when, around 22:00, a Catholic Mass started and the many tourists inside the cathedral stopped to listen and observe. Whatever you believe, there’s no denying they know how to build a cathedral.
The real payoff, though, is the view. Montmartre sits up above most of Paris, and from the steps in front of the basilica you get this sweeping look across the rooftops, better at night, with the city lit up and the crowds thinning out. We stood there for a while, not saying much, just taking it in.
From there we wandered back down through the village, stopping for gelato along the way, because a night like that deserves it. And on the walk home, we found ourselves back at Le Bar Belge, the same Belgian bar we’d stumbled into the night before. Another World Cup match was underway, this time Belgium against Senegal, and we couldn’t resist ducking in for a couple of beers to watch. There’s something about a small, packed bar full of strangers all invested in the same ninety minutes that makes you feel briefly like a local, even when you very obviously aren’t.
We finally made it back to the apartment late, tired in the good way. Tomorrow the trip changes shape: Jason, Jamie, and Izzy fly in from Dallas, and this quiet, unstructured stretch of just the two of us in Paris comes to an end. It’s their first time outside the U.S., which means the next stretch of this trip is going to look very different from anything we’ve done so far. But today, we got one last slow day to ourselves, and Sacré-Cœur at night was as good a way as any to close it out.
