The first time we landed in Paris, Chris and I knew that we’d be back. After all, who can land in Charles de Gaule without wanting to explore this gorgeous city? We were on our way to Croatia and didn’t have the time to head downtown, but we promised each other we’d come back.
Then a few months later, I asked my sister if she wanted to visit us in Europe and told her she could either join us in Sofia for a week, or we could meet her in Paris and spend a week there. She had already made her choice a decade ago. It was Paris, Paris, Paris. Always Paris.
So, Chris and I packed our bags, changed a flight and headed to Paris. We knew we wouldn’t spend a second on our computers, as we’d be visiting for a whole week―something we don’t do very often―so we made sure everything on the internet was taken care of. For once in a long time, we didn’t have to think about blogs and books and money and coding. We’d spend a mind-rejuvenating week in Paris while absolutely destroying our feet from constantly walking. We were looking forward to it!
Our first day was absolutely lovely, starting with a quick metro ride to the Concorde Station, and then walking around to find pastries for breakfast. We were all starving, as neither of us had time to go grocery shopping the day before. That’s when we found a Ladurée store, which looked like heaven between all the Guccis and the Chanel stores. As you can imagine, it breakfast wasn’t cheap, but it was delicious.
If you don’t know Ladurée, they’re basically the most known macarons maker. They have the reputation of making the best, so we had to try them out. Each macaron was around 2 euros each, so we decided only to pick a few flavors. Our favorite? Vanilla! It’s such a boring flavor in most cases, but it happened to be the one we all wanted to eat!
Our second (and only other) stop of the day was the Louvre, where I planned to spend a few hours. We had fun walking through the Tuileries Garden on our way there, admiring the beautiful autumn leaves. It must be lovely during the summer, but I bet it’s even prettier in October! I love fall, in general, so I was happy to visit this gorgeous city during that time of the year. 1) Fewer Tourists. 2) It’s even more beautiful! The drawbacks? It’s usually a bit more cloudy, and it might rain more often.
The only thing I expect from the Louvre, before going there, was that I would feel like I’d only seen 5% of it when I left, as it’s supposed to be gigantic. Well, I didn’t run through the whole thing, but left feeling satisfied with my visit! The old palace is indeed huge, but it’s definitely possible to visit it in less than four hours and see most of it (expect if there was a magical floor I didn’t see?). We waited an hour outside, to buy our tickets (which I hadn’t been able to find online beforehand). After hearing stories of people having to wait four hours to even get in the museum, I was pretty satisfied with how (relatively) quickly we got inside. Once we were there, we bought our tickets and rushed to see DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. After all, isn’t that the only reason people go to the Louvre? We were able to get as close to it as you can, pushing a few other tourists on the way. To be honest, there wasn’t that many of them, so anybody could have gotten to the front, really. There was a good enough flow of people coming and going that it was easily reachable. I guess that’s another perk of visiting Paris during fall!
We walked through the rest of the museum, checking out the expositions that seemed the most interesting to us. No, we didn’t see every single piece there is in the Louvre, but there are things I wasn’t that dying to see. And there’s more to Paris than one museum, so we all agreed to finish the afternoon outside.
The sky was clearer in the afternoon, and we could even take our jackets off a bit! Getting dressed in the morning was actually a very hard task, as we never really knew how hot the day would end up being, plus we didn’t want to have to carry a heavy jacket all day.
Buuuut, taking our coats off didn’t last very long. As the day ended, I was freezing so bad my sister had to lend me her scarf so I would warm up my face. That’s what happens when you haven’t seen a winter in over a year… Not that I’m complaining, really. 😉
Stay tuned for more posts about our week in Paris!
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