PARIS
September 24-27
Paris was definitely (and not surprisingly) at the top of my list of European cities to check out, so Stef and I decided to stop putting off our weekend travels and booked some Eurostar tickets and a hostel about a week before we actually left.
We left on a Thursday afternoon, right after class, and arrived in Paris around 7p. We headed right over to our hostel, which wasn’t the most glamourous place on the planet, but definitely a fun experience. We stayed at the 3 Ducks hostel, which is apparently pretty well-known among (cheap) European travelers. It’s in an awesome location- a cute street filled with cafés and shops, really close to a metro stop and less than a ten minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. It also has a pretty decent bar and a cool outdoor courtyard. Despite all this, we still saw a few less-than-stellar reviews online- mainly referring to lax security and somewhat gross conditions. We talked it over for 30 seconds before booking it and decided that the pros outweighed the cons- we weren’t bringing anything that valuable with us and figured we could rough it for a few days. In retrospect, a great decision for the experience.
We stayed in a room with six other people, but we had our own set of bunk beds that was somewhat separated from everyone else. Pretty much all of the other people who stayed in our room were really friendly and interesting- we met two girls from Northern England that we talked with for a few hours and a guy from the Czech Republic who gave us some recommendations of other European cities to check out. Maybe I’m somewhat naive, but I never felt unsafe. I still slept with my passport/phone/ipod/cash under my pillow, of course- I’m not THAT trusting. I brought my own sheets/pillowcase and flip flops for the shower, too, so the gross factor was kept to a minimum. The one thing that was pretty shady was the fact that there was no point in locking our door- the window that led out to the rest of the floor wouldn’t lock, so anyone could climb through it at anytime (including us at least once). Whatever.. we’re still alive, and like I said- it was all for the experience.
ANYWAY, let me get started on everything we saw/did in Paris.. trust me, it’s a lot- we crammed as much as possible into our 3 day weekend (and I’m SO glad we did).
As soon as we got to Paris Gare du Nord we got on the Metro and headed to the 3 Ducks to check in and drop off our stuff. About 10 minutes after that, we headed out in search of food and the Eiffel Tower (cheesey, yeah.. but come on, it was our first trip to Paris). We ended up getting some Thai food for dinner and exploring our neighborhood a bit before we found La Tour Eiffel- and it was gorgeous. :) See my video (complete with my ever-so-intelligent and profound commentary) to get a feel for what it looked like when we wandered over. We were pretty wiped out at this point, so after taking a few pictures we headed back to the hostel for some sleep.
We got up pretty early on Friday morning hoping to beat the crowds at the Louvre, which worked out pretty well. There were still a ton of people there at 9:30, but no wait to get in and it wasn’t as jam packed as it became later in the day. They say it would take about three months for someone to see every object at the Louvre (leaving only 4 seconds to look at each one, supposedly), so we definitely weren’t expecting to see a lot of it. We spent a little over two hours exploring several different exhibits, and it was awesome. I recognized a lot of the works and styles from my AP Art History class senior year and it was pretty cool to see them in person. The Mona Lisa is kind of overrated, IMO.. it’s not that big and you can’t get within 10 feet of it because of the massive crowds of people perpetually surrounding the space where it hangs. Still, it had to be seen. The Louvre building itself is also really gorgeous and impressive- it was a palace long before it was a museum. On a side note- Stef and I totally got a laugh out of THREE separate instances where random tourists (all european guys.. one around our age and two that were a bit older) took our pictures (it was either laugh or be creeped out.. and we opted to take it lightly. Hopefully our heads don’t end up photoshopped into porn on the internet or something). We weren’t even looking in at least two of the pictures.. they just kind of snapped them when we were walking around or checking out paintings and then smiled at us when we gave them WTF looks.. we didn’t get really serious creep vibes, but maybe that’s just me being naive again.
Anyway, after the Louvre we decided to walk along the banks of the Seine to the Île de la Cité, where Notre Dame Cathedral is. We stopped at these stands that line the Seine and I bought some postcards and a book that I found on Robert Doisneau, one of my favorite 20th Century photographers (he’s famous for his depictions of Parisian street life, including the famous Le Baiser de l’Hotel de Ville, which is adorable- despite being staged, apparently). We made it to Notre Dame, which was beautiful inside and out. It was around lunchtime at this point, so we stopped at an outdoor café that was run by the most adorable and bubbly old Italian man. I had some great pasta, red wine and chocolate mousse before we wandered off in search of the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs-Élysées.
The Tuileries were beautiful, especially because it was a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. We stopped and chilled on the grass for a bit and then sat by one of the fountains and did some people watching for a few minutes. We wandered up the Champs-Élysées for awhile and spent some time under the Arc de Triomphe before getting on the metro and heading back to the Eiffel Tower stop where we bought tickets for a night cruise on the Seine. We had a few hours to kill before it was dark enough for the night cruise, so we went to a café and had goat cheese and baguettes for dinner (and a cappuccino with chocolate for dessert) while writing out a few postcards- it was the classic Parisian afternoon that I had pictured in my mind haha :)
Our cruise on the Seine was really peaceful and informative.. we saw the Île Saint-Louis and the Alexander III bridge, among other things. I definitely recommend a night cruise on the Seine for anyone traveling to Paris- the views are gorgeous and you really do learn a lot about the city. By the time the cruise was over it was kind of late, so we headed back to the 3 Ducks and had a few drinks at the bar and used the computers there before going to bed.
We got up pretty early again on Sunday morning to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The line was about 30 minutes long, but we were seriously entertained by these little French kids in line ahead of us who were there with their parents- there were 5 or 6 of them, all about 3-5 years old and they were some of the CUTEST children I’ve ever seen in my life. We were trying really hard not to watch the kids and have the parents think we were total creepers, but they were seriously HILARIOUS with the way they were playing and talking to each other. I can’t really describe it, but just know they were really adorable.
When we finally made it up the Eiffel Tower, the views were amazing. It was kind of hazy that morning, but we still saw a lot of the city and it was really cool. Definitely check out the pictures that I took. After we got back down on the ground, we got back on the metro and switched to the regional line to check out Versailles, which is about 30 minutes outside of Paris. As soon as we got there, the first thing we saw was a tex-mex restaurant. Yeah, seriously.. so random. We were starving and amused, so we decided to give them a shot. I had a chicken quesadilla and Stef tried an enchilada.. we decided that while the food definitely wasn’t real tex-mex, it was pretty good and definitely worth trying.
We walked around the corner and immediately saw what we came to check out- the Palace of Versailles. It’s amazing, seriously. You can look at pictures and see it in the Marie Antoinette film from a few years ago, but they don’t do it justice. We walked through most of it and were totally blown away. The Hall of Mirrors is breathtakingly beautiful and I couldn’t stop thinking about how the Treaty of Versailles was signed there in 1919 (there I go with the geeking out again haha) and of all the French royalty that have lived there throughout the centuries. The gardens are even more incredible, if that’s possible.. there are lemon trees, fountains, incredible landscaping and they just seem to stretch on forever. Once again, check out my pictures to see what I mean.
After chilling in the gardens for awhile and getting some dinner near the train station, we headed back to Paris. As soon as we got there we decided to go on an adventure to the red light district to see the Moulin Rouge and explore the area. We couldn’t resist checking out the Musée de l’érotisme (museum of eroticism) de Paris, which was ridiculously entertaining. Some of the stuff in there was really funny and other stuff was really interesting and informative.. I’d recommend it, if you think you can handle that sort of thing haha.
We went back to the 3 Ducks and talked to some other travelers at the bar for awhile, including this guy from upstate New York who was studying at Oxford and was traveling around Europe on weekends as well. We exchanged some stories and ended up getting to bed pretty late.. which was fine since we had already decided that Sunday would be a lazy morning.
We got up around 10:30 on Sunday, packed up our stuff and wandered around looking for breakfast, stamps and a mailbox so we could send out our postcards. It took the rest of the morning, but we were totally successful. I had some delicious croque-madame and a great cup of coffee (mmm I miss Parisian food haha), mailed out our stuff and headed back to Gare du Nord to catch our train back to London.
All-in-all, it was the perfect introduction to Paris and I’ll definitely go back the first chance I get. :)
More pictures of Paris & Versailles are here:
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