Earlier this year, my boyfriend Matthew and I traveled to Paris, France. This was the first time that either of us had traveled overseas and it was an incredible trip. I wanted to share about my experience with all of you and pass on my advice to anyone thinking of traveling to Paris soon.
I work in the legislature so I’m given a “legislative spring break” each spring. We planned our trip for this week in March as a short escape from the stresses of work. This also helped keep the cost of the trip down because this wasn’t during peak travel season. The biggest way we saved money was by booking our trip through Expedia. Y’all, I cannot stress how amazing our deal was for this trip. Normally a round-trip plane ticket to Europe could be $1,500+. Through an outstanding deal found on Expedia, Matthew and I paid less than $950 each. This price included roundtrip airfare from STL to Paris and 4 nights in a 4-star hotel in the heart of the city. Even though neither of us had talked about traveling abroad before, we couldn’t pass up this deal.
Day 1
After an eight-hour flight, we landed in Paris at 6:10 am local time. The first thing we did after checking into our hotel was hop in an Uber and head to the Louvre Museum. We had purchased our tickets online beforehand, so we didn’t have to wait in line. We were so excited to see one of the most famous museums in the world and we headed straight to the Mona Lisa. Shortly after seeing the painting, the exhaustion started to hit us. We wandered the halls for a little longer before deciding to head out and find something to eat. We stopped at a cafe called Cafe Pere & Fils and had Croque Monsieur (essentially a ham and cheese sandwich). Ham was the most common lunch meat that we came across while in Paris. I’m a big turkey fan, so that was a little bit of a struggle. After lunch, we ended up going back to the hotel and falling asleep for 5 hours. Oops! We woke up just in time for dinner. We tried to go out in the streets and look for a restaurant, but due to some protests and advice from the front desk staff, we decided just to order some food for delivery from an English Pub nearby. That night was the only time we saw protests during our trip, so it really wasn’t a huge issue at all.
Day 2
On our first full day in the city, we conquered a lot. We had photos taken by an amazing photographer, Julie Thies at Trocadero, a beautiful park are near the Eiffel Tower. We knew we wanted photos of our time in Paris to remember the trip by and Julie’s pictures were the perfect souvenir. After our photoshoot, we headed to Notre Dame. We ended up spending a lot more time here than I though we would because it was so beautiful. I honestly could have sat under the stained glass windows all afternoon. Near Notre Dame is a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company that I was really excited to visit. Shakespeare and Company originally opened in 1941 and now serves as a bookstore/library. Around lunchtime we found ourselves in the St. Germain District and stumbled upon an amazing crêperie called Chez Suzette. Nutella banana crêpes were my favorite and I probably had 7-8 in the 5 days we were in Paris. The St. Germain District quickly became a favorite of ours because it had so many different little restaurants and bars.
Day 3
The third day was a little more slow paced for us. We slept in and spent the morning walking around the area by our hotel. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza Paris- Republique and this area wasn’t right by all the tourist attractions, but it was a short Uber ride away and had lots of cute shops and cafes near it. We had breakfast at a little restaurant that was right across from our hotel called Mercier Luc. I had a Nutella and banana crêpe, of course. Matthew loves history so we spent several hours of the afternoon at Les Invalides which is actually multiple history museums in one. We visited Musée de l’Armée, a military museum, first and saw lots of artifacts from World War I and World War II. On the property there is a church called the Cathedral of Saint-Louis-de-Invalides. Hanging above the pews in the church were flags of enemies that the French army defeated from the 18th and 19th centuries and that was really cool to see. Underneath the dome of the building is where Napolean I’s tomb now rests. After we had our fill at the history museums, we went to visit the Arc de Triomphe. We had been told by a lot of friends that the view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe was actually a lot cooler than the view from the Eiffel Tower. Little did we know, the only way up was a narrow spiral staircase with close to 300 steps. The journey to to top was rough, however, the view above the city was well worth the hike.
Day 4
By the last day, we had pretty much taken care of everything that was on our “must-see” list. We went and found this little street called Rue Crémieux in the morning. It was this short little road with brightly colored houses on either side. It was a little challenging to find, but the adorable backdrop was definitely worth searching for. We stopped and grabbed a quick breakfast. Matthew has some coffee and I had hot chocolate and an eclair. After that, we ventured out a little bit from the center of the city and took the metro to Montemartre. This location was historically referred to as the art district and was a local gathering place for artists like Renoir, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, and Degas. Even today, the streets were filled with artists painting portraits and beautiful scenes of Paris. I bought a little watercolor painting from one of the local artists as a souvenir. The weather was the nicest on this last day so we grabbed some lunch from a little cafe and found a spot outside to eat. We found Montemartre to be so relaxing because it was a little ways away from the busy part of the city and it was the perfect way to spend our last day in Paris.
Day 5
Our last day just consisted of us getting up, saying goodbye to the city, taking the metro to the airport, and hopping on a plane back to the States at 10am.
Overall tips:
1. Check for a deal on Expedia, first! Because you bundle your plane tickets and hotel on Expedia, the prices are usually a lot cheaper than if you were to purchase them separately.
2. If you land early in the morning like we did, see if your hotel will let you check in early. We were able to check in when we got to the hotel at 7:30 and it was so nice to be able to shower and unpack before hitting the town.
3. You might not feel super tired when you land, but the exhaustion will catch up to you eventually. Don’t over do it on the first day.
4. The first few days we were in Paris, we took Ubers everywhere because we were more familiar with the Uber app than figuring out the Metro system. Towards the end of the trip, we figured out the Metro and realized we could have saved a lot of money if we had opted for the Metro over Ubers the whole time.
5. The museums were really cool, but something we didn’t really think about was that all of the information was written in French. Very few exhibits had English explanations, so it was a little challenging to figure out what the significance of many of the artifacts were.
6. Our last day was the day we didn’t really have a schedule and just ventured out. Having an easy going day where we just wandered around and experienced the city was definite.
7. Another resource that was really helpful in planning our trip was a website called, Inspirock. All you have to do is type in where you’re going, when you’re there, and what types of activities you like to do. Then, it puts together an itinerary of what you should do each day. This was super helpful because it told us what tourist attractions we should see each day based on what was close together.
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