Paris, France

A DAY TRIP TO PARIS

As you may know if you follow me on pretty much any social media, Sean and I recently spent just shy of a week in Disneyland Paris. We had the most incredible time and I still have the post holiday blues now. To break the trip up a bit (not that we could ever get bored of Disney) we hopped on the train and spent a few hours in the city of love.


As usual we hadn't really planned what we wanted to do too much, however Sean really wanted to visit the islands where Paris was originally founded and so we headed that way. Out first stop was at The Conciergerie when Marie Antionette was held before her execution in 1793. There was a lot of information about the French Revolution, however there was not so much about Marie Antionette herself which I found quite surprising. The Conciergerie is free for European citizens under 26 and can be more or less done in around an hour so I would recommend a visit if you get chance. 

After our short visit there we stopped for a little snack break. Walking around all day really does take its toll on you so we like to have regular munchies. We then headed towards Notre Dame which I had never seen up close despite being to Paris twice before. The structure really is something else. It's bigger and more beautiful than I have ever seen in pictures an I'm really glad we got to spend a lot of time just soaking it all in. We did consider going in but the queues were really quite long and we didn't want to spend the day standing still.


Once we had taken more photos than any tourist should we moved to towards the Centre Pompidou but not before stopping off at Sephora for some treats. Sean actually tracked it down as he knew how keen I was to pick up some goodies you just can't get here in the UK. We grabbed a few bits and carried on.

We arrived at the Centre Pompidou just as it started pouring it down. Like every other tourist in the vicinity we ran towards the entrance, however we went in through the library instead of the main doors and beat the ridiculous queues to get in. Like the Conciergerie, The Centre Pompidou museum is free for Europeans under 26 however exhibitions needs to be paid for. The Centre holds many works of modern art including 'Fountain' which I was over the moon to see as it was one of the works I think really started modern art. We also had a wander around the top level which gives you absolutely gorgeous views over Paris and I would say is a must see while you are visiting.


Once we had pretty much exhausted the Centre Pompidou we took the Metro over to The Bataclan Theatre. To my surprise there were no flowers, no cards, and only a tiny plaque to commemorate the lives lost there back in 2015. Considering the size of the atrocity that took place I thought there would be more but I guess now it's just turned into the site of yet another terrorist attack. Despite there not actually being that much "to see" there were still several tourists posing for selfies in front of the plaque which I really didn't think was appropriate at all.

By now it was getting quite late and our tummies were rumbling. Not wanting to go too far we headed into a pretty Parisian café on our way back to the Metro. It was the least touristy place we'd eaten in for a while and that was exactly what we wanted. We had a long look at the menu before deciding we were actually rubbish at decoding French and we both ordered safe options. I picked a delicious four cheese pizza which could have probably fed a family of 12 and Sean went for a Caesar salad after enjoying one earlier in the week. We could have stayed there all night people watching and soaking up the atmosphere but we wanted to get back to enjoy a few hours in the Disneyland Park.


Last time I went to Paris I didn't really enjoy it much. We didn't plan a lot and I just didn't fall in love with the city like I usually do when travelling. Although I still wouldn't rank Paris in my top 5, we did manage to tick off a few things from my 'to do list' and I had a much more enjoyable time. I'm sure we will be back to explore more of this beautiful city and hopefully then I will finally feel the way most people do as they wander around the pretty Parisian streets.

Thanks for reading!


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