Eight months ago, I fulfilled one of my most romantic life ambitions: visiting Paris in the spring with the love of my life. Since then, we’ve been very busy ticking off lots of other goals. A few weeks later, we moved out of our flat (our first home together for half a decade!) and in with my in-laws. The second half of the year was then pretty much taken up by moving into and decorating our new house, as well as looking after the latest addition to our family: a puppy called Mabel. It’s fair to say that 2022 has been a very eventful year for us… and so concludes my excuses for having only gotten round to writing this blog post a whole eight months after the trip took place.
Now that I’ve finally managed to find a bit of spare time somewhere in that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year (after having survived hosting not one but two Christmas dinners!), I thought I would peel myself out of the Shannon-shaped hole I’m beginning to form on our sofa; brush off the cheese crumbs and finally tell you about our trip.
One of the things I was most looking forward to about visiting Paris was, of course, indulging in as much French food and wine as humanly possible. Conveniently for us, the best place we ate in Paris was found just outside the doors of our hotel room: a restaurant called Brasserie Maison Rouge. It was a very quintessential Parisian restaurant, with an intimate outdoor seating area where we sat and enjoyed the most delicious dinner of beef bourguignon, duck, escargot and wine on our first evening in the city. If you’re ever in Paris, I can’t recommend this restaurant highly enough. Our hotel was also very conveniently located on the doorstep of some of the most delicious looking and smelling boulangeries (That’s bakeries to you and me. Can you tell I brushed up on my high school French before we went?) I have ever seen. We made the most out of them with croissants, pastries and hot coffee in bed every morning, and filled our hand luggage with all sorts of fancy macaroons for the way home. We bought crêpes from food vendors and made our own picnic from all sorts of breads, cheeses, pâtés, meats and wines. In essence: we very much made the most of the French cuisine whilst we were there.
When we weren’t busy indulgently stuffing our faces, we also managed to fit in a little bit of tourism. Below are some of the best places we visited and things we did whilst in Paris, that I would recommend to anyone planning a similar trip.
Try to spot Quasimodo at the Notre-Dame
Sadly, since the fire that consumed the Notre-Dame back in 2019, the cathedral is still in a state of disrepair and looking very much like a building site. However, you can’t go to Paris without visiting the Notre-Dame (those are the official rules), so after having dinner on our first night in the city, that was the first place we took a walk to visit. It’s a shame that I wasn’t able to see the famous cathedral in all its former glory, but I was still glad to be able to tick it off my bucket list whilst we were there.
Take in the culture at the Louvre
The next day, we went to visit the Louvre. My biggest piece of advice to anyone planning a trip to the Louvre is this: unless your favourite past time is standing in a queue, make sure to book your tickets in advance! I did not envy the people who didn’t follow that advice, but we managed to get in relatively quickly having done so. I have to admit that neither of us are the biggest art enthusiasts, but it was cool to get to see some famous pieces, such as the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. However, I draw the line at joining another massive queue just to get a small glimpse of the Mona Lisa. It isn’t even a finished painting, people! (I read so under a print of the Mona Lisa that nobody was queuing to see whilst I was in the same room.)
Go shopping on the Champs-Élysées
If you want to do a bit of shopping whilst in Paris, the Champs-Élysées is the place to be. Be warned though, you’ll have to be willing to queue for a long time to get inside any of the more famous designer stores. I was more than willing to ill-advisedly part with a few hundred pounds in order to be the proud owner of a French designer handbag purchased on the Champs-Élysées itself… but I’d be damned if I’d be willing to queue for it.
See the Arc de Triomphe
Of course, shopping isn’t the only worthwhile thing to do on the Champs-Élysées: it’s also where you’ll be able to find the famous tourist attraction, the Arc de Triomphe. We admired it from afar, but you can also pay to go up it if that’s something you’re interested in.
Walk along the Seine
The weather was lovely whilst we were in Paris, so unfortunately there was no rain for us to laugh in whilst we ticked this one off the list – but it was a lovely walk, nonetheless. Yes, I do get all of my life goals from 1980s Swedish pop songs. Why? Where do you get yours from?
Read poetry at Oscar Wilde’s grave
Okay, I realise how douchey this one sounds. I’m not even going to try and defend it. If you’re not a slightly embarrassing literature nerd like us, please feel free to move straight on to the next suggestion (especially if musicals and/or strip clubs are more your thing). Still here? Then lend me your ears. (Shakespeare reference. I knew you guys would like that.) Despite being an Irish poet who famously lived in London, Wilde died in Paris in 1900, where, having been bankrupt, he was buried in a pauper’s grave just south of the city. However, his body was later exhumed and laid to rest under a much grander tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery. The tomb was sculpted by Jacob Epstein, based on Wilde’s famous poem, ‘Letters to the Sphinx’ – which is the poem that Nick read to me as we sat on the kerb opposite the grave. I’d definitely recommend a visit to Père Lachaise Cemetery to any Oscar Wilde fans, or even just fans of cemeteries in general (you never know). Poetry reading optional.
Get dinner and a show at the Moulin Rouge
Growing up, the Baz Luhrmann musical, ‘Moulin Rouge!’, was my favourite film of all time, and visiting the actual Moulin Rouge has always been pretty high up my bucket list as a result. Getting to finally go there was a dream come true and one of the best things we did whilst in Paris. If you’re planning a visit to the Moulin Rouge, I’d strongly recommend booking the dinner and show tickets, even if just to ensure you have great seats for the show itself. We were seated at a table right next to the stage and served a three-course meal whilst musicians serenaded us and we drank champagne like it was going out of fashion. They even performed ‘Your Song’ by Elton John which was a personal pinch-me moment. The show itself was honestly phenomenal. I have never seen anything like it before and would struggle to describe it, other than to say that it was so much more than just burlesque dancing. Whilst the dancing itself was incredibly impressive, there were also acrobatic, escapologist and stunt acts that would give BGT a run for its money. All I can say is that it was spectacular, spectacular and I would recommend it to anyone (except for my more prudish readers).
See the Eiffel Tower at night
You can’t go to Paris without visiting the Eiffel Tower. That’s another one straight out of the rule book. After dining outside a restaurant overlooking the tower, we finished our meal with perfect timing to move closer and watch the lights get turned on as the sun set, which was one of the most beautiful and memorable moments. Then, as darkness fell, it was time to go up to the very top of the tower. As somebody with a very small (but very real) fear of heights and enclosed spaces, I have to admit that I didn’t necessarily enjoy this part as much as Nick did. Although the birds’ eye view across Paris, all lit up after dark, was incredibly beautiful and a sight I will never forget, I can’t say with absolute sincerity that it was worth the cramped and ever-so-slightly terrifying elevator ride it took to get there. Also, you can’t see the Eiffel Tower if you’re inside it – my personal advice would be to admire it from a distance.
Another thing that surprised me about the Eiffel Tower, as somebody who had only ever before seen it in movies and TV shows, is how very unromantic its setting is. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether there were more tourists (and street sellers peddling flashing tourist tat to said tourists) or more rats. To be honest, between the mats of flashing tat and the rats running over the tat (and the cow jumping over the moon), I couldn’t think of many places I’d be least inclined to get down on one knee. As someone who works in marketing, I would love to shake the hands of the PR team behind the Eiffel Tower’s romantic reputation as a proposal hot spot.
Having said all that, the Eiffel Tower at night is undeniably beautiful and the light show as dusk falls is very magical – something you have to see with your own eyes.
Visit Disneyland Paris
Speaking of magic… you can’t go to Paris without visiting Disneyland. That one isn’t actually from the official rule book but, hey, it’s my blog: I make the rules, and I say, “All Hail the Mouse”.
I had actually already visited Disneyland Paris before as a very small child, but I was too little at the time to now be able to differentiate my actual memories from the stories I’ve been told. In any case, visiting any Disney park always feels like a homecoming, and it was very nice to return, if only for the day.
We bought tickets to both parks for the day we were there: Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park. However, even though Hollywood Studios was my favourite park in Disney World, I didn’t think that Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris was anywhere near as good as its Floridian counterpart and we didn’t end up spending a very long time there. If you’re only going for one day or trying to choose between which of the two parks to visit, I’d recommend spending all of your time in the more iconic Disneyland Park.
Paris in the spring was everything I dreamed it would be and more and I feel like we did very well to cram as much in as we did during our long weekend there! It is definitely somewhere that I would like to return to again in the future (even if just being there does make me painfully aware of how horrendously un-chic I am compared to everyone else in the city!)
We’re already busy planning lots of exciting trips and adventures for 2023 and I will try my very best not to leave it until 2024 to tell you about them!
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