I think it’s about time I shared my photos and stories from a recent trip to Paris.
My friend and I travelled over in November for a full on four day jam-packed trip! We enjoyed some sightseeing, shopping, music, good food and most of all, good company.
I’m extremely lucky to have a native friend living in the city who was kind enough to let us stay with her for the duration of our trip and act as a tour guide, an expert one at that.
I must admit I totally fell in love with Paris on my first visit. It’s such a special place and I’ve created fond memories each time I’ve returned that will stay with me forever.
On Day 1, we wanted to try to do and see as much as possible. We started in Montmartre at Sacre Coeur.
Montmarte is a beautiful area of Paris and from Sacre Coeur, you have great views of the whole city. It was a bit cloudy the day we were visiting but visibility was good enough to still able to enjoy the views.
Montemarte is a very interesting area which is also famous for Artists gathering and selling their work. It’s always bustling with people and it’s a great way to spend some time wandering around, looking at the different artworks and watching the Artists do what they do best.
From Montemarte, we headed back down the hill in search for a bakery to indulge in some croissants or pan au chocolats – very cliché I know. Unfortunately as it was mid-morning by this point, they were all sold out. We then headed for the Metro and made our way over to the Champs-Élysées. First we headed to the Arc De Triomphe for some obligatory tourist photos and then we decided to take a breather and stop for some lunch. There is so much to see and do in Paris and in order to do as much as possible in a short space of time, you need to be on the go all the time which can exhausting but most definitely worth it. We filled up on pasta and pizza and then got straight back out to continue our day. We dropped into Kusmi (my favourite tea shop) to stock up on some supplies and spent some time tasting the different teas available and deciding which flavours to buy. Very hard decisions obviously…
From there we headed to the Eiffel Tower.
We spent quite a bit of time at Trocadéro taking a lot of photos and just enjoying the surroundings. There is so much going on in this area with people dancing, performing and there were photo-shoots happening left, right and centre. Very good for the curious type, you could spend hours just people watching.
From the Eiffel Tower we made our way over to the Place de la Concorde for some more photo opportunities.
After a lot of walking, we thought we deserved a little treat and stopped by Laduree for some afternoon tea. We arrived around 4:00pm and luckily there was only a tiny queue so we only had to wait a couple of minutes. Once inside we had the difficulty of deciding what to have. With so many choices, each as indulgent and decadent as the next, I decided to keep it simple with some macarons and Raspberry Sorbet. I appreciate this is not really a traditional ‘Afternoon Tea’ however it’s not everyday you get to eat at the most famous French Bakery.
With a sudden burst of energy thanks to the sugar rush, we made our way over to Notre Dame. It was dark by this point however I think the Notre Dame is more beautiful by night when she’s all lit up.
By this point we were absolutely exhausted (you’re probably exhausted just reading) however the day was not over…
We made our way home, dropped our bags then headed out again for dinner. All the walking and sightseeing takes it out of you. You might think we couldn’t possibly be hungry after all the food we had eaten but Paris really is a City of indulgence and you may as well make the most of it whilst you’re there and worry about the consequences afterwards…
That evening we had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant and I was surprised by my friends with a cake and gifts for my birthday.
A great way to end a very busy day in Paris.
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