After more than two months in France, I finally made it to the most famous city: Paris! To be honest, I was very prepared for it to be ‘overrated’, because I’ve only heard incredible things about it and I found it hard to believe any city could be that great. While I will say I have definitely visited cities during my time here that I find more incredible, or impressive, Paris has a special feeling like no other city. I can definitely see why it’s nicknamed The City of Love. It really does have a romantic feel about it – if you can ignore the rats on the metro, of course!
While in Paris, my friends and I did everything touristy that we could. We visited the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tour, the L’Arc de Triomphe, and the Montmartre district.
All of which were incredible and well-worth the visit. If I can give any advice for someone planning to visit Paris, it’s book your tickets for everything you can days in advance. Someone recommended this to my group, and I’m so glad they did. Even things like the Notre Dame, which are free, are better enjoyed with tickets. You’re able to skip the lines, which can be very long.
Despite all of the incredible, historic things I saw, my favorite memory comes from our last night in Paris. My friends and I had not been able to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle, which happens for five minutes on the hour, every hour, after sunset. Despite spending the past two nights in the city, we had not yet seen the Eiffel Tower sparkle, which we are determined to do. Our first mistake was taking the metro to the Eiffel Tower, not realizing the second metro we were supposed to ride only left once every 30 minutes. Instead, we had to walk the last mile and a half to the Eiffel Tower. The only problem was we would definitely miss the sparkling in that time, which we couldn’t allow because it was our last night in Paris!
So, we ran the entire mile and a half to the Eiffel Tower. None of us are runners or are in any way in shape for that kind of exercise. But, we were fueled by excitement and desperation to see the sparkling. It makes me smile any time I think about us running and panting and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
I’m happy to report we did make it in time, just barely arriving before the sparkling began. While it was beautiful to see, my favorite part of this memory is the joy I shared with my friends.
À bientôt !
Ella