Last summer I did a 3 week trip to London, Paris, a few places in Italy, and Switzerland! About a month ago, I blogged about my trip to London (pt. 1) and Mona’s senior photos , and here is FINALLY part 2 about Paris! We stayed in Paris for the shortest amount of time (about 3.5 days) at a cute apartment in an amazing location only a block from Notre Dame. We packed sooo much into our short time there, and still didn’t check everything off of our “want to do” list, but that’s okay…just another excuse to visit again!! Here is a short synopsis of our days there:

DAY FIVE (of our entire trip, including London!)

We took a Eurostar train to Paris from London, and from there arrived at our AirBnB apartment via taxi. Once there, I took a much needed, accidental nap.  While sleeping, Mona and everyone went out to get some snacks and explore our neighborhood so that I could catch up on some rest. After snacking on their finds, we left our apartment and explored the shops right next to it. From there, our day consisted of us walking to the Notre Dame and along the Seine River, eating lunch at a cafe next to Notre Dame, visiting the Love Lock Bridge, strolling around the Louvre pyramid since the museum was closed,  exploring the Tuilieres Gardens, walking down the Champs Élysées, and ending our day by taking our first Parisian metro back home to our apartment.

Also, the apartment had pink toilet paper…which I thought was really fun so that’s why there’s a picture of toilet paper in this blogpost, ha.

DAY SIX

We started our day bright and early with nutella crepes. From there we did some morning shopping, walked to the Notre Dame, got on a bus tour, and rode it until we arrived at Champs Élysées. As soon as we stopped, we hopped off and strolled to the Arc du Triomphe, which had an amazinnnngg view of the Eiffel! Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower, which we rode all the way to the top.  After exploring all the different levels, we rode the bus back to the Notre Dame got a wonderful dinner at the Latin Quarter. For dessert, we ate our second round of crepes for the day and also bought some souvenirs. As we waltzed back home, fireworks started exploding in the sky…pre-prep for Bastille Day!

DAY SEVEN – Bastille day!

This day was France’s independence day! Throughout the entire morning and afternoon planes, helicopters, and other aircrafts all the way from WWI and WWII to the present flew overhead – it was amazing! For breakfast we walked to a little café for croissants and fresh OJ, and then caught the metro to the Eiffel Tower, where we picnicked, napped, ate lunch, and just enjoyed people-watching. After this, we did some shopping along the Champs Élysées, and then rode the metro to Montmartre – my favvvooriitee part about being in France! The light was simply gorgeous and there weren’t many tourists. Once there we walked around the streets, ate at a restaurant (tried escargot for the first time!!), and then took the metro back to Invalides to watch the fireworks near the Eiffel. The fireworks were ammaazingg. Crowds were gathered everywhere and cars even stopped in the street to admire!

 

DAY EIGHT

Our last day! We had croissants for breakfast in the apartment before metroing to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa amongst so many other incredible pieces! For people who don’t know, I’m a huge art lover, so it was really surreal getting to see artwork I had admired over the internet in person.  When we left the Louvre (could’ve stayed there all day), we took the metro to the Madeleine and found an incredibly expensive chocolate shop that even had a chocolate stingray (!!!). After lunch at Pret A Manger, we went to Luxembourg Gardens, which was probably my second favorite part of our France segment! Before entering the gardens we stopped at a cute pastry shop and bought a raspberry tart, a raspberry Napoleon, an apple pie, and two small French desserts, which we took into the gardens and ate while enjoying the beautiful, calming view. Mona and I laid on the grass and took a nap until an officer told us that we couldn’t sleep in that area of the park, lol, so we walked to the lake part of the gardens which was stunning. From there we walked to the Pompidou museum near our apartment and walked around the building a bunch of times because we couldn’t find the entrance, haha. We only got to stay for a bit though because our train to Milan, Italy was leaving soon!

Now, here are some higher quality pictures from the trip I took with my camera!

Notre Dame!

Love locks!!






Champs-Élysées!






Arc de Triomphe. The flag was only up in lieu of Bastille Day!

View from on top of the Eiffel.

Dinner in the Latin Quarter, yum.






Bastille Day!! Everyone watching the planes pass by in the streets.







The lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower was PACKED because of Bastille Day.









Oh Montmartre…how I miss you.





The fireworks were amazing!!!





The Louvre.