We arrived in Paris in the evening. After struggling to connect with our uber driver, we finally him. He spoke no English. I have no idea why we didn’t try to get a train or something, but we were probably really tired. That uber ended up being uber expensive!
As we drove through Paris, I was like hmm, I wasn’t feeling the vibe at all. When the driver stopped on the street of our hotel, I looked around the block like what the hell?
We booked our Paris trip after 9 hours on our laptops booking trips to other cities, so we weren’t in the mood to do any extensive research about where to stay. We picked a place that was walking distance from the Louvre and the Eurostar train station. So anyway, we arrived on the street of our hotel, which ended up being a really commercial block, but closed, seeing as it was Sunday evening. Our hotel had this really narrow alley way type entrance, we walked up and down and then had to call the hotel to figure out how to find the entrance.
We checked in (tourism tax is a thing you should always have, they almost always charge it at the hotel). The room was small but as nice as it looked online, which was a relief. It wasn’t that late but we were tired so we ordered uber eats and went to bed. The next morning, we made the biggest mistake of the trip- eating hotel breakfast. Now the breakfast was only 7 euros per head but it was the most pointless scam of a breakfast ever. The coffee machine coffee was so bad that I had instant coffee instead. Do you know how bad coffee has to be for instant to be a good alternative???
We booked Louvre tickets online and walked there. It ended up being a pretty nice walk. It was nice to get to the louvre and walk past the large crowd queing for tickets. (Tip- always book online). The Louvre was amazing. After seeing the exhibits we wanted (its too large to see absolutely everything), we bought some stuff from the museum gift shop and bought some lunch. The mona lisa is soooo tiny and so guarded and so crowded that you’re probably better off looking at it online.
After that we went into the Louvre gardens where we spent a couple of more hours. We spent the whole day at the Louvre and it was magical. We left and it started raining so we took an overpriced keke to the Eiffel tower. which was blocked off, for some reason. We decided to postpone our cheesy tourist photos to the next day and went to have some coffee instead. The metro back to the hotel was super efficient, cheap and easy to figure out. Walking to the hotel from the station (via sephora which was also super close to our hotel) what did we find almost directly opposite our hotel? A Lidl! That “breakfast” we had at the hotel would have been like 1 euro each. To make up for our breakfast purchase, we bought drinks and fruit to have at the hotel.
With our Lidl and sephora haul, we did what made sense- had mini facials in the hotel room!
Writing this post has made me realise that we didn’t do a single Parisian night out. We didn’t even have champagne! We have to do better next time.
The next day, we grabbed water from Lidl on our way out and took the metro to the Eiffel tower. It was a super cloudy day, so our pictures were dead. After stumbling on a scooter a couple of times, we went to Arc de Triomphe, which is a block. Nothing to see there (no offence to the rich history of the block).
The good thing is we were on Champs- Élysées Which is the fanciest shopping strip. After doing a bit of coffee and desserts, a bit of shopping and a bit of lunch, we finally headed back to our hotel.
In the middle of the night, I woke up with surprise cramps! I had no painkillers. Including this because if you don’t want to carry painkillers cross border (which is dramatic and dumb, like I was), you should buy some painkillers when you arrive, so when you need it in the middle of the night, you have it!
After 4 hours of excruciating pain, we walked to find the closest open pharmacy. Just looking at painkillers on the shelves was enough to make me feel better. That and buying like 3 croissants! Also, I have to say, I didn’t find the croissants in Paris to be that much better than other places, which was disappointing!
At the station, you go through French immigration to leave and then British immigration straight after, so when youre on the train, youre already technically in England. I wish airport immigration could be like that as well. It is so much more efficient. With a nice settling into our Eurostar seats, we were off to London!
