Something that I enjoy doing is looking back to times where I traveled.
Ok- I like the actual process of traveling more but you can’t really go on vacation every weekend, so just appreciating past trips will have to do.
This specific trip took place last summer, or the summer before my sophomore year of high school.
My mom and I traveled to Paris.
I wanted to write about my experience, as well as give you our itinerary just in case you may want to travel to Paris in the Future.
~day one (june 6-7, 2019)~
The first two days were our traveling days.
We took a direct flight from the LAX airport to London, where we then took a train to get to Paris.
One we got to Paris, we took the metro to Jisseau, and then walked to the street Rue Runner, which was very close to the metro.
I have some family who live in France, so we stayed in their apartment with their cat Vitamin.
There was a really big time change from Los Angeles to London and Paris, so we were very jet lagged and didn’t do anything when we got there except eat cheese and sleep.
~day 2 (june 8, 2019)~
I want to say that we started off the day early- but that would be a complete lie.
Since I was jetlagged, I slept in until noon and my mom had to come wake me up.
So starting off the day late, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower.
We were lucky to have family to show us around Paris since we didn’t know what to do, where to go, or to just get the best experience out of our visit.
We didn’t climb or buy tickets to the Eiffel Tower on this day, but there was still a good view of it.
Next we walked over to Les Invalides where Napoleon was buried. It had a lot of narrow and dark hallways and tunnels you could walk through which I thought were very fun- it’s easy when walking through them to feel like you’re in some sort of Indiana Jones or spy movie.
Then we walked to the Rodin Museum, where there were many statues and the garden was beautiful.
Finally, we went to Le Bon Marche to do a bit of browsing.
We didn’t buy anything here but it ended up being one of my favorite places that we went since the way the store was presented was very different from most department stores in the U.S.
It was also very cool to see all of the designer brands in a huge department store.
~day 3 (june 9, 2019)~
The next morning, we went to the Arab institute close to where my family’s apartment was and took the elevator to the top.
At the top was a great view looking over the city.
After, we walked through the city and saw the Seine River as well as Notre Dame although we did not go inside since it was under construction.
We went to the flower markets on the Ile Saint-Louis, which was one of my favorite parts of the day.
We ended the day by going to some bakery’s and having ice cream at Berthillon, which ended up being our favorite ice cream on the entire trip.
I got salted caramel and chocolate, and it was dangerously good.
~day 4, june 10, 2019~
We started off our day with the Louvre Museum.
Despite the countless pieces of timeless artwork, I actually found it to be one of my least favorite places we went to, since it was so hot, sweaty, and crowded. There was roughly a 45 minute line to use the women’s restroom!
Then we went outside of the museum to the Tuileries Garden, which wasn’t very crowded and had lots of space to explore.
In the afternoon we headed to Palais Garnier, which is a famous opera house.
This area was surrounded by shops and was definitely a popular tourist area.
The large crowd did not feel super overwhelming and we had an overall positive experience looking around in this opera house.
In the evening we went to Les Deux Magots, which is my grandma’s favorite cafe in france which is why we stopped by.
I had some gourmet hot chocolate with whip cream and it was delicious.
~day 5, june 11, 2019~
We woke up very late and close to lunch time, so we ubered to Le Pre Catelan to sit down and have a very fancy lunch.
Le Pre Catelan is located in the Bois de Boulogne, which meant it was a very long car ride to drive out and back into the city, but it was definitely worth it.
One of my favorite things about having lunch here was how prior to dessert they brought out so much cheese- it was wonderful.
Later that day we climbed the Arc de Triomphe.
This was an amazing structure and wasn’t too crowded once you got inside and started to climb to the top, but outside was a very long line and surrounding the structure was a giant roundabout that was crowded with cars and was honestly really scary.
~day 6, june 12, 2019~
This was our last day in Paris after an amazing trip full of good food, tourist attraction, and time with family.
In the morning we went to the Musee d’Orsay, which was one of my favorite museums of the entire trip.
It was located on the south bank of the city and was surrounded by cafes and shops.
In the afternoon we climbed the Eiffel Tower.
There was a restaurant halfway up the tower which we stopped at to have some lunch.
Surprisingly, there was no wait to get a table and we didn’t even have a reservation.
The food was also really good even though it was a pit stop for hungry tourists.
After some shopping we went to Fauchon to get some chocolate treats and espresso.
Overall, we had an amazing experience in Paris- I mean who wouldn’t!
My favorite part of the entire trip was definitely the food.
The food is so fresh and unique no matter where you go.
Many nights for dinner we would be too tired to go out so we would just stay at my family’s apartment and have fresh salad, baguette, and cheese for dinner- and it was delicious.
