Paris: The City of Love

 I was fortunate enough to spend Wednesday to Friday last week in Paris - and luckily for me, it was my first time ever experiencing 30+ degree heat where it actually feels like it and has no cooling breeze at all! Lucky me! (Sarcasm, for those unaware).

The first day was mostly travelling. I woke up at 4:30am after a horrible sleep due to someone's car alarm going off, and rather than them switching it off themselves, they let it ring until it stopped itself. How rude! So I had about five hours of sleep, but luckily didn't feel too horrible. I left just after 5:00am so my dad could pick up my two friends, hoping we would arrive at the station early - and lucky us, we got there half an hour early! It was easy to fill the time, though, spending time chatting whilst my friends grabbed a Costa coffee - unfortunately, I don't like coffee or Costa, so I got nothing - keep reading for more money-saving strategies. Despite wearing shorts, a vest, and a jacket, I wasn't too cold despite being in the north of England.

Catching the first train was a doddle. It was about three hours long and was easier than expected; we spent the time chatting and doing our makeup. We were sat at a table, and the train was expected to be full, though many people didn't end up getting on, including our seat-mate - unless they were sat at one of the many empty double seats rather than with us.

We reached London and, again, it was a doddle going from King's Cross to St Pancras for our connecting Eurostar to Paris. It was my first time going through some sort of security line, but not my first time through passport control. I went through a machine which scanned my passport and then my face, which I had never seen before. We had arrived at the waiting area very early (as you are told to do on the Eurostar website), and so we had a slowww wander through Duty Free (small aisles and slow people with suitcases will cause that). Once we were bored of sniffing the Duty Free perfume aisle, we found an empty area to stand in front of some doors which, luckily for us, were right where we needed to be, so we essentially got front of the queue.

Once we were finally able to board, we were some of the first on, with our suitcases overhead and all the room in the world at our table. Until we realised we were on the wrong carriage - thank you to the women who stared at us rather than asking us to move; we couldn't have done it without you. Our actual carriage was just one over; we had mixed up the platform and the carriage number (well, not me, I didn't have the tickets or know what was on them). The only problem I had with the new carriage was that I had to use the luggage rack, which set off my paranoia, and there was a woman who insisted on standing in the middle of the aisle rather than sitting in the seat. Very odd. She had to move out of the way every few minutes so people could get to the toilet or to the food carriage. I don't really know why she thought it was a good idea.

It was so weird that our train from London to Paris was much quicker than our train from near where I live to London (about 2.5 hours compared to just over 3 hours), and we weren't in the tunnel for nearly as long as I thought; most of the time was spent above ground. My friends and I thought the French countryside was very similar to the English countryside. Despite how smooth the track was, I somehow got travel sick. I normally never get travel sick on trains, but for some reason today was the day I was to be travel sick. Lucky me.

When we arrived in Paris, it was absolutely boiling. I hadn't realised the train was beautifully air-conditioned, as when I got off the train, it was a crisp 30 degrees with no wind. Wow. And my friends still wanted us to walk over an hour to our hotel? I can't believe I'm friends with psychopaths. That walk was genuinely the most difficult of my life. Hauling my suitcase over the uneven streets was really testing my patience, and my friends thought it was funny when I was annoyed that my suitcase fell over. Like, yes, I'm annoyed my suitcase fell over, along with my bag and jacket on top, getting them dirty from the sandy path - why was the path sandy? We're nowhere near a beach!

Arriving at the hotel was bliss, although there was no lift and so I had to carry my suitcase up the stairs. I didn't care too much as I was too excited to be able to lie down on a bed - and the hotel was also air-conditioned, with further air-conditioning available in my room. Thank the lord! We all enjoyed the bliss of lying down on a nice cold bed for a few moments before putting our nice dresses on to go out.

We were rushed to head to the Eiffel Tower as we had booked to go up it, and you had to be about half an hour early. Though it didn't really matter as we were still there on time, and they didn't care. I was so grateful that my friends booked the lift up, as I don't think I would have survived the stairs. We had a little look around the whole way, took some cute photos, and then I sat for a while whilst they browsed the shops.

We spent about two hours up the top, and the peak was so pretty. I was only really scared of the lifts as they kind of had a rollercoaster vibe to me. We then headed back to the Trocadero (across the river from the Eiffel Tower with a nice view of it) to take some more pictures of us; it was so fun! My favourite part of my night was heading to a restaurant near our hotel to have a meal. I had the most gorgeous mince, onions, fried egg, and chips. I couldn't finish it because I had about a million chips, but my god, it was the most gorgeous meal I've ever had.

It was bliss getting back to the hotel and having a quick shower to wash the day's sweat off of myself before getting into my nice cold bed. Despite the pain I had during the beginning of day one, I had an amazing day.

Day two started well as I was able to have a lie-in until 8:00am, getting ready to leave for 9:00am (ish...). This was the only day when we actually spent the whole day in Paris, the first and last days were travel days, though we still spent a majority of those days in Paris. We headed towards the Louvre and some gardens which are in front of it, following the Seine. We also took loads of photos of each other on the way because we're whimsical like that. It was quite a tiring walk as, similar to yesterday (though I forgot to mention), the cold drinks we would buy would stay cold for about 10-15 minutes before becoming lukewarm due to how hot it was; it was very frustrating!

I was quite tired on the walk there, but thankfully got to take a couple of breaks. We didn't go into the Louvre, as you had to book very far in advance according to my friends, but it was still a cool building to look at. I hadn't realised that the big glass triangle was kind of in the middle of a courtyard, surrounded by these really gorgeous buildings, which were also part of the museum. No wonder my friend spent a whole day going around the Louvre; it must be massive!

We then headed towards a cute cafe - La Palette, I believe? It was apparently 'famous' on TikTok for their iced coffee or something; I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but they made the most unreal ham and fried eggs. I thoroughly enjoyed it! We also took this opportunity to steal lots of their tap water, since our drinks were quite warm by then. It was similar to drinking hot chocolate with a poor chocolate flavour.

Our next destination was the Shakespeare Bookshop, which I didn't realise there was one in Paris! There was a smaller bookshop, a cafe, and then the larger, main bookshop. My friends wanted to go in to buy one of their cute tote bags, and I really regret not buying one, though I suppose I could find one on Vinted. There was a huge queue for the main bookshop, though, so we had a browse through the smaller one and the cafe before joining the queue (in hopes of finding a nice tote), but we eventually just decided to go in. I was happy at how fast the queue was moving. Obviously, most of the books were in French, and so I didn't buy any, but it was nice to have a browse. One of my favourite parts of going into a bookshop is looking at the variety of covers out there. I know people say to not judge a book by its cover, but it's something that I enjoy.

From there, we headed towards the Notre Dame - we were devastated to find at the front of the queue that we had to cover our shoulders, so we had to go find a local shop to find a shawl or something. We fortunately found a cute shop with a variety of scarves, and I got a blue one with a floral pattern - my friends and I all got matching ones, with the only difference being the colour. They were 9 euros each, which I thought was a bargain! When we rejoined the queue, we were able to quickly make it to the front again, though there was still a long walk to the front of the door. It was only long because they had the barriers snaked towards the entrance. If there were no barriers, it would have been a very quick trip.

Inside Notre Dame was quite nice; I thought it was quite similar to Durham Cathedral (from what I can remember from it), and I think that York Minster is a better-looking building - just in my opinion. I thought it was more impressive, and it was also less cramped when I went. Notre Dame was still a beautiful building with some impressive artwork, but some of the other tourists were quite annoying as they would just randomly stop walking - though a lot of places are like that nowadays! 

By this point, my legs and feet were in agony, and so I was a little bit grouchy due to that and the heat, and so I was excited to finally be walking back to the hotel - although it took us about an hour, as we took detours to some places my friends wanted to see. Though we had a chance to rest on the field in front of the Eiffel Tower whilst my friends recorded some TikToks and took photos, it was a nice rest. I think it was in front of a military school, but it was such a gorgeous building; I couldn't imagine learning there! I've been to the military college in Harrogate, and the Parisian building was much more impressive in my opinion - though a lot of the architecture in Paris was just absolutely gorgeous.

I was pleased to get back to the hotel and have a quick shower to freshen up, before changing back into my dress so we could head to our Seine River tour. It was to last about an hour, and we had paid to get free crepes from one of the stands on the Trocadero afterwards. The river cruise was so nice and relaxing. It was seated, and so I got a lovely view of Paris - it was crazy to see how far I had walked in the day! Then the cruise went slightly further than that too, so it was nice to see some new places. The cruise was also commented on, so it was nice to hear some of the history of the places - there were a couple of buildings which inspired the White House in the USA! We also saw the smallest house in Paris, which was 2m wide; it was so cute compared to the ones next to it! It was also cute how many people were waving to the boat. I just had to wave back!

From there, it was just time for us to grab our crepes and head to a spot to take some cute photos whilst the Eiffel Tower sparkled. We had five minutes, and when it started, some people budged in next to us, knocking one of my unopened cans over, so I had to (embarrassingly) run onto the road to retrieve it, meaning my photos were rushed and poor, though my photos from behind were so cute! I did have a good time seeing it, as photos aren't everything, and I still have photos to commemorate it.

Once it was over, we finally headed back to our hotel at about midnight to have our final sleep in Paris.

By far one of the most difficult days for me was day three.

It started off alright; the day before, a muscle in my thigh was in agony, but a good night's rest had recovered it - though that muscle pain may have been a lighter sentence than the heat I was going to be experiencing for the rest of the day. We woke up at 8:00 again to leave for about 9:30, to account for packing, though I was prepped and packed most of my stuff the day before, meaning I had an easy morning compared to my friends. We had a very filling breakfast (well, I did), as I practically ransacked the buffet breakfast for all that it had.

Checking out was a doddle. We were familiar with the guy who worked mornings, and he was very kind, allowing us to store our suitcases with him until much later in the day. Our first stop of the day was Carette. If you were like me and hadn't heard of it before, it is a famous cafe in Paris, and if you try to arrive past 10:00am, you have to practically fight for seats. I believe it's most known on TikTok for its hot chocolate, which you receive in a little teapot type of thing and a big heap of whipped cream, which is what my friends wanted to go for. We didn't have to wait in a queue to get in, thankfully, as we were happy to sit inside.

In my opinion, the menu was lacking, but I think that's because, for some reason, Paris made me have an insatiable craving for fried eggs, so I settled on a Paris ham sandwich from the finger sandwich selection. Now, I was expecting this to be small, so I thought I would maybe get two or three. No, you pay 4.80 euros for one little sandwich wrapped like a stick of lard (shown in the photo). Was it nice? Yes. But was it delicious? Not really. I would say it was a standard sandwich, though my mam makes much better ham sandwiches. This isn't so much a slight to Carette; their fancy bakery items looked delicious, but I was cursed with being a picky eater, so I can't imagine I would have liked the actual flavour of any of them, though I wish I would have.

We spent quite a while in there, as it was nice and cool compared to outside, but we had more plans for the day.

Our first stop was Brandy Melville, which was about a fifteen minute walk from where we were, and on the way, we looked down a street and saw a couple of groups taking photos, which my friends recognised as a gatekept photo opp on TikTok - I promise my friends aren't chronically online, they just did more research than I did (I did none, I trusted them entirely). So we did the typical thing for our group and immediately took the opportunity to wait for a spot to take photos. Everyone was respectful of each other's spaces as we were all divas, and we took some cute photos. We also saw the third wedding photoshoot of our time there; I can't imagine how hot all those brides-to-be must be in those dresses! Although they were very pretty.

When we got to Brandy Melville, we nearly walked past entirely because there's not really any obvious signage for the one we went to (not the infamous one with the fat-shaming door), and it was quite nice inside, though poorly organised. A lot of the display items were on the opposite end of the shop to where you could actually pick up the item to buy. Though this didn't bother me too much, as I love to have a mooch, more of a little annoyance to whoever decided to organise the shop that way. I ended up buying two t-shirts - one with just 'Paris' and another with a labelled drawing of Japan - and a pair of polka dot shorts that are extremely soft and comfortable. This, unfortunately, cost me about 59 euros (ouch), but I just used some of the money my parents gave me.

Our next stop after this was the Arc de Triomphe, which was in the complete opposite direction, so we decided to drop off our Brandy Melville bags with our suitcases on the way, which the receptionist didn't mind, thankfully! It was a much shorter walk than I thought it would be, though it still felt sweltering hot; it was much more manageable after I was able to steal more ice from the hotel ice machine (an absolute godsend). Before planning this trip, I had no idea that you could actually go inside the Arc de Triomphe, let alone stand on top of it. I was worried the trip up would be worse than going up York Minster, but when I did it, it was actually quite easy. The railing was reliable, and the steps were insanely close together and uneven. There were also multiple floors, one floor being a museum, the second being a secondary museum telling the story of the creation of the Arc de Triomphe with a little gift shop, and a few stairs up from there was the top.

The view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe was beautiful; the way the roads all seemed to span away from the central roundabout (if you could even call it that; I don't even think the people who lived there knew how to use it) and a view of the Eiffel Tower from afar. It was nice having a slow walk around, and eventually just standing and watching everyone attempt to use the 'roundabout ', which had no markings, but should have been like six lanes, with people randomly stopping to let people on and randomly swerving in front of each other. It was beautiful, and a great reminder of how I will never do a driving trip in mainland Europe, despite how fun a Europe road trip sounds!

I think going back down the stairs was the worst part, as the way down was (from what I remember) mostly one continuous staircase, though I was constantly tired, dehydrated, hungry, and overheated in Paris, so I'm relying on photos for this blog.

The walk back to the hotel was painful, but knowing that I'd have access to more ice at the hotel and the thought of being closer to going home motivated me. This was not the most tiring part of my day, though.

We collected our stuff and headed to the Metro station, as the last part of our day was to go to Montmartre. I had never heard of it, but my friend wanted to see the Moulin Rouge windmill and the Sacré-Cœur, so I thought, easy, it will be mostly flat like the rest of Paris! I was so wrong.

Our problems started in the Metro station; not only were there no lifts, so we had to carry our luggage up and down the stairs, but we bought just one ticket and paid for the three of us together as it was 2 euros per ticket printed, but then it would only let us scan once. We only realised after letting one of our friends through. So my other friend and I had to crawl under the barriers like criminals whilst we watched the Metro leave us all behind. Which was fine because about two minutes after sitting down, the next Metro showed up. It was really nice inside; it had lights on the map, off to show we'd been, blinking to show the next/current stop, and on to show it's an upcoming stop. This was perfect for us as we had no idea where we were otherwise. It was a super quick journey compared to walking. It took about fifteen minutes to get to our stop rather than the almost two-hour walk (according to my friends).

The Moulin Rouge windmill was waiting for us when we emerged from the Metro, and I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. But it wasn't for me; it was for my friend, so I didn't really care. After this was when the real pain started. There were numerous steep hills on the way up, which had us tired from lugging our suitcases around (I should mention that by this point, I had moved my Brandy Melville stuff into my handbag and binned the bag from the shop). But this wasn't the worst part. My psychopathic friends had planned for us to walk up numerous flights of stairs - with our suitcases - to the Sacré-Cœur. I did the best I could to get myself up those stairs by lifting my suitcase onto my shoulder and walking up all in one, as if I stopped, I would have blocked everyone else, and I doubted my ability to persevere after stopping; but I managed to do it! When we got to the top, I will be honest and say I was not impressed. All of that work for a subpar view and a building we weren't even going into.

From there I thought: well, at least we're only about forty minutes from the station! But this was forty minutes from hell.

All of us were hungry, and the area where our hotel was was abundant in restaurants and cafes, but where we were was likely where more Parisians actually lived, and it was mostly bars, which my friends refused to eat in. We eventually found a cute little bakery, but they only had sweet food I liked, though I did fancy a savoury meal. I got over it as I just wanted some food, and I got a chocolate chip brioche and a pain au chocolat. I ate the brioche there; it was absolutely unreal and gorgeous. Then I had the pain au chocolat on the train; by then it was quite squashed; it was nice but was too sweet for me in that moment. So an overall like 9/10. They also had cold water I could buy, as by then, the water I did have was heated up. It was a lovely bakery to chill in after walking up all of those stairs, and then also having to prevent my suitcase from sliding down the long, steep hills before we'd have to go to the station.

There's not much for me to say past this point; we walked to the station for what felt like hours, got to where we needed to be, waited what felt like forever to go through passport control, and then to security, before finally making it to the waiting room. We nearly caught the wrong train; thank god it was just that the train before us was delayed by forty minutes! How unlucky! Could never be us! And it wasn't. Because our train was delayed forty-five minutes. I rang my mam after finding out, and told her about it with tears in my eyes. I was so tired and overheated that I just wanted to go home. On top of that, we had to pay to reschedule our connecting train as it meant we would have missed it. Thank god we didn't go for the last train of the day, or else we would have been stranded in London.

I was so grateful when we got on the train; it was lovely and air-conditioned, and we sat in the right seats this time. I couldn't really sleep because of how the chairs were, and I felt nothing but travel sick, which made me awful for the rest of the way. I was so hungry, but nothing at the cafe called to me, as it wasn't just like plain bread or something. 

We got our connecting train at just after 23:00. I was slightly cold but was more concerned about how starving I was; I couldn't wait for the cafe to open. I was so pleased to see they served bacon sandwiches all day. I ate it slowly to not cause myself to vomit, but it was so delicious, and it filled me sufficiently that I could go to sleep. I think I slept for most of the train journey, as my friends had a lot more energy than I did somehow, so I, again, don't have much to say other than I arrived home at about 2:00am and went to sleep by 3:30am.

I had a great time in Paris with my friends, and I definitely don't regret going; I just wish I had been more prepared for that sort of heat, though I would definitely recommend that anyone thinking of going does go! It was my third time going abroad (still never been on a plane!) and I hope to continue to go abroad and experience more cultures in the future. I learnt that the Eurostar goes to more than just Paris, so I'm seriously considering going on a solo trip to Amsterdam for my birthday, or inviting my friends to come with me or something.