We arrived quite late (10pm!) into Paris Gare Du Nord as we had a timezone change! On exiting the terminal, we made our way down into the Paris metro to catch the underground to our Airbnb. It was strange after the sophistication of the London metro system to go back in time to using paper tickets! Also, you had to insert your ticket and practically shoulder barge the gates to get them to let you through!

The sound of French around us was so beautiful after the clipped English accents of the past few days. On exiting the subway station in the neighbourhood we were staying, we were instantly in love with the beautiful buildings and cafes/bars dotted around. In French-style, everyone was out enjoying glasses of wine on the terraces and smoking away the night.

Our Airbnb host graciously met us at 11pm at night to let us into our cosy little Paris apartment. It was probably the same size as our place in London but so much more thoughtfully laid out and tastefully decorated. The bed was also much more comfortable even though it was a fold-out couchbed! We ended up sleeping in quite late the following morning as we hadn’t been sleeping very well in London - we were exhausted!

Our first morning was a lot of clothes washing admin as the London apartment did not have a laundry as advertised; so we hadn’t done any washing since Cologne. While waiting for the washing, we popped to a French bakery to grab a filled baguette and an escargot chocolat for breakfast. Baguettes, the French really do them well!

The neighbourhood in the daylight was even more beautiful and after depositing our washing at the apartment, we set off to Montmatre, the famous artist district nearby.

We made our way through the lively streets up to the Sacre-Coer Basilica. It was a lovely warm 26 degree day and I hadn’t communicated very well to Sam that we would be walking up a lot of stairs (the basilica is up a hill and is famous for its views out over the city!). As it was a Sunday, it was extremely busy at the view point. Sam started to get FOMO (fear of missing out) as everyone was walking around with delicious looking gelato! The lines for the gelato were massive and the prices obscene (€6.50 for a single scoop!) so he had to miss out!

It was much to busy to go into the basilica. Behind the basilica was one of the oldest churches in Paris (circa 1200) which we escaped into from the crowds. It was lovely as it was cool and a nice escape from the heat. From here we continued meandering the streets and passed through the famous Place du Tertre where many artists lined the plaza to sketch/paint your portrait (some quite good / others not so much).

Our next stop was to the Love Wall which was very busy again so hard to get close to.

We also stopped by Van Goghs' old apartment but sadly he wasn’t in!

On our way back to the apartment, we walked by the famous Moulin Rouge. We had looked at going but the tickets were expensive. We had also looked at another famous show called Crazy Horse but that was also very much outside of our price range! We stopped in to grab some groceries at our local supermarket for dinner. I had a craving for salad after the heavy food in London. We also bought another baguette, cheese, French wine (when in France!!) and Orangina (a popular soft drink in France like sprite and orange juice). The rest of the evening was spent drinking wine on our balcony while eating french cheese on baguette slices with salad.

Our second day in Paris was a big day of walking and exploring! Starting out, we walked to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to view the Arc de Triomphe. The roundabout around it is absolute chaos! It’s multi-laned but has no lane lines - I don’t understand how they don’t have more accidents! The Arc de Triomphe itself is quite impressive. We didn’t go up it. Unfortunately, we found this, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre needed to be booked more than two months in advance to actually get tickets. Looking at the queues of those with tickets, we would of just spent our entire trip in queues so we were actually quite happy that we didn’t get tickets in the end.

After the Arc, we continued on to the crème de la crème, the Eiffel Tower. Honestly thought it would be much bigger in real life! It was beautiful all the same! Was interesting watching the lifts go up and down. It was also interesting to see the scams going on around the tower. In particular, the three cup and ball scam would pop up randomly with a crowd but as soon as there was a whiff of the police, would vanish in the blink of an eye. There were also lots of illegal vendors selling miniature Eiffel towers and other Paris souvenirs. They would put all the wares in a white blanket net that they could quickly zip up and throw over their shoulder to disappear when the police turned up.

We walked around the tower perimeter as it is all blocked off now. Sam doesn’t remember any of the barricades being there last time he visited. In fact, he remembered you could actually walked right under the tower! In the Champ de Mars (which is the park next to the tower) we stopped for a picnic lunch before continuing on.

We walked on past the Hotel Des Invalides where Napoleon’s tomb is interred, over the bridge to the Grand Palais (centrepiece for the 1900 World Fair in Paris) and Petit Palais (its little sister) where we saw this awesome sculpture that was donated to France from the USA.

From here we walked along to the Place de la Concorde where, after the French Revolution, the King and his wife, Marie Antoinette were beheaded. Supposedly there were supposed to be two fountains here but they both appeared to be under repair. There is randomly a 3,000 year old Egyptian obelisk in the middle of the road however - go figure.

Between here and the Lourve was the Jardin des Tuileries garden. I didn’t think very much of it but it was nice to see people out enjoying the sun. Parisians really enjoying reading books in the sunshine - it was lovely to see!

We arrived at the Lourve and admired the beautiful old palace buildings and the glass pyramid. The mass of people in front of the pyramid is the queue to get in!

We walked over the famous Pont des Arts (the love lock bridge) however there were no love locks on display as the bridge is undergoing restoration work (probably because of the weight of all those love locks!). At this point, we found Sam some reasonably priced gelato (only a day late!).

We crossed back again onto the island which holds the famous Notre Dame Cathedral. From the front it doesn’t look like anything is amiss with the building as the front facade survived the fire. Walking along the side of the building, you could see all the scaffolding and repair work being undertaken. There were various information panels on the work being done to repair the damage from the fire complete with photos. The amount of work required to stabilise the building after the fire was astonishing!

By this time we were pretty tired from our adventures so caught the metro back to the apartment. For dinner, we had a pizza from the grocery store, followed by more wine and cheese!

On our last full day in Paris, we headed out in the morning for some delicious crepes followed by a walk around the Montmatre Cemetery. This cemetery is famous for the artists and influential figures buried here. As they are all French, there weren’t any names we recognised. The cemetery and the tombstones were beautiful and interesting to look at.

As I wanted it see the Eiffel Tower light up, we had a relaxing afternoon at our apartment before heading towards Luxembourg Garden. On the way, we passed by the Louvre again and as it was a Tuesday, captured a few great shots of the grounds without any tourists present!

Luxembourg was a palace before it was converted to a government building following the revolution. The gardens from the palace still exist and are now a public park. The walk to the gardens through the surrounding neighbourhoods was beautiful and interesting. The gardens themselves were nice and peaceful and again, so nice to see all the Parisians outside in the sun reading!

We couldn’t leave France without having a proper French dinner! You may have noticed we haven’t eaten out as much as we normally do. This was because Paris was expensive! We made the most of it though and went to a proper French brasserie, sat on an outside table (you pay more for this pleasure) and ordered as French a meal as possible! The Aperol Spritz was very not French but definitely worth it!

We found a spot on the Champ de Mars to watch the Eiffel Tower light up. It was very busy and very popular with many groups picnicking and drinking. Locals were walking around selling beer and wine to the crowd and the atmosphere was lovely. Lots of influencers were striking poses which provided much amusement as we waited for it to get dark. One thing not in our favour is that it doesn’t get dark until quite late in the evening in France. The famous light show is supposed to happen on the hour from dusk until 11:45pm. We waited and as it got closer to 10pm, the lights on the Champ de Mars turned on, the lights on the towers observation decks turned on but the tower itself remained dark. Many people got out their cameras for 10pm assuming the light show was going to happen but 10pm came and went. At three minutes past, the tower lights finally turned on. We waited another 10 minutes but the light show never started. It appeared we had missed out by three minutes! We didn’t want to wait another 45 minutes for 11pm so decided to call it a night! A slightly disappointing end to Paris!!

However, overall, I really enjoyed Paris! The streets and the atmosphere were an experience it’s difficult to describe in writing without using superlatives like “beautiful” “charming” “awe-inspiring”. We were lucky enough to stay in a very French neighbourhood, away from the tourist areas, so got to experience more of the true charm of Paris. There were many things we just couldn’t afford to do with our budget and minor lack of forward planning (e.g. the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower etc). I would of really liked to have gone to the Palace of Versailles as well but was put off by the cost and the negative reviews of other travellers about the over-crowding and queues. The food was nice (the few times we ate out) and the Paris Metro System relatively easy to get around. It also felt much safer than London. I would like to come back but with less of a budget constraint!