Treat yourself to a weekend in Paris

Paris in winter. The air is crisp as you stroll along the Seine, passing the Cathedral of Notre Dame glowing golden in the afternoon sun, before finding a cosy cafe for a Chocolat Chaud to people watch for a while. Sounds good doesn’t it? If you fancy a winter weekend in Paris, you can build up travel credit by earning Avios points as you shop at all your favourite stores – read on to discover more.

Our weekend in Paris

One of the highlights of our last winter visit to Paris was a walk around Marché d’Aligre in the 12th arrondissement. This neighbourhood is just far enough away from the tourist hotspots and has a multicultural feel – of course it’s wonderful for foodies. In fact you get three markets in one, since there’s a covered market where you’ll be drooling over the cheeses and admiring the beautifully presented fish and meat, as well as an outdoor fruit and veg market and a flea market where you can shop for vintage clothes and cute household finds. As you often find around markets, there are lots of lovely cafes and restaurants in the streets nearby, all supplied with the freshest of produce.

Read about my visit to Marché d’Aligre in Paris here.

Not too far from Marché d’Aligre we enjoyed visiting the Victor Hugo house in Place des Vosges which is close to the fashionable Marais district. Although there are plenty of cute shops in the Marais, we found it a bit touristy, but when we reached Place des Vosges it was a much more local experience with everyone enjoying a bit of winter sunshine and children playing in the park at the centre of the square. The apartment where Victor Hugo lived is at No 6 Place des Vosges, to one side of the square, full of the paintings, furniture and artistic objects that he collected giving a fascinating insight into the creator of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Read about my winter weekend in Paris here

More tips on things to do in Paris

On your weekend in Paris you’ll almost certainly end up at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, where there are always plenty of crowds gathering to see Paris’ number one tourist site. We preferred to walk through the less crowded garden of Jean XXIII behind the cathedral and then over the bridge to Ile Saint Louis. Along the main street of main road of rue Saint Louis-en-l’Ile there are plenty of charming independent shops, galleries and cafes.

In the Bastille neighbourhood, it’s fun to walk along Canal Saint Martin and take a look at all the house-boats moored there, a little like Regents Canal in London. Walk right to the end where the canal meets the river Seine and you can walk along the cobbled footpath by the river. There’s a good view down towards Notre Dame on Ile de la Cité and you can watch the boats go by before climbing up the steps and crossing over to the Rive Gauche at Pont Charles de Gaulle.

Read more about my winter weekend in Paris here.

If you love to travel you’re probably aware of Avios – they were formerly British Airways Air Miles. You can build up Avios like a currency each time you fly with British Airways, Aer Lingus, Flybe, Iberia and Kululu.com and use them to book flights or hotel stays. What you may not realise, however, is that you can also earn Avios by shopping online at over 1000 stores – probably the places that you are shopping at anyway. If you’re stocking up on food and wine at Tesco Direct, or buying gifts at John Lewis, House of Fraser, Selfridges, Currys and many more stores, you could be building up enough Avios for that weekend in Paris very soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my tips for a winter break in Paris – don’t forget to use the Avios estore to shop for everything you need at your favourite high street stores, so that you can make your weekend in Paris a reality.

How to collect and spend Avios Points

Check out the main Avios site for information on where you can collect Avios and where you can spend them.

Pin It

This article was sponsored* by Avios

* More info on my policies page

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

Click to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, news and reader offers