Paris: the incredible city you must visit!

Hey everyone!

Hope everyone is doing good back home in all the snow and cold! I wish you could all be here on my adventures, and I hope you know that I miss you all so much. From February 9 to the 11, my friends and I had the amazing experience to travel to Paris and we had such an incredible time! So whether you've been to Paris before or not, I hope you enjoy hearing about our time in Paris and some of the sights I would highly recommend visiting!

Friday, February 9

At 7 am my friend Harry and I left from Perrache train station in Lyon on a OuiGo train headed to Paris. Now if you are planning on going to Europe in the future I highly recommend trying the OuiGo trains as they are a lot cheaper than the TGV trains. For a one way trip to Paris, we paid only 25 euros compared to the regular 80 euros other trains cost! To get this incredible deal, we had to train into Marne-la-vallee- chessy station, which is located just outside of the main downtown area of Paris. What my mom was excited to know was that the station is located right beside Disneyland Paris! I had a lot of fun taking pictures outside the park, so hopefully in the future I can get the chance to go inside!

Taking a metro into the city, we made our way to our Airbnb which was incredibly located by the Eiffel Tower! Our Airbnb host was so nice and had the cutest dog named Dorian that we got to play with for a little bit! With a cozy feel and a great view of the Eiffel tower from the living room it was a great, and not too expensive place to stay in Paris!

Once dropping off our stuff, we took a short 5 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower and met up with some of our friends. As many times as you can picture that moment standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, nothing compares to the actual reality of being there! The Friday we actually arrived, there was lots of snow falling which made the city into a beautiful white wonderland! Talking to some of the locals, they said how rare snow in Paris was. They said it was on average only 10 days a year that it snows in the city. I kept joking with my friend that of course the Canadian brings the snow to Paris, haha!

After spending some times taking lots of pictures, we headed on the opposite of the champs de mars, towards a building where the historical world exhibition was held. This building is where people would come from all over the world to see the newest innovations of the time and what the Eiffel Tower was originally created for! From there we took the metro towards the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees, other very famous places in Paris.

The Arc de Triomphe was created as a monument for those who died in the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and now stands as one of Paris' most iconic symbols! Past the Arc de Triomphe is the Champs Elysees, which is the long street of fancy and expensive stores, kind of like the 5th avenue in New York City. The Champs Elysees is also the final stretch of the Tour de France biking race. While walking down the stretch we found the shop Pierre Hermé which is suppose to have some of the best macaroons in Paris, so off course we had to stop and get a couple. My friend Meagan and I were having our girly moment, with all the cool and delicious flavours of macaroons! There were retail workers in beautiful white suits, little white balloon clouds hanging from the ceiling and dozens of different macaroon flavours and pastries.

After that we ended up at the Louvre, one of the most famous museums in the world! Some of you may not know that the Louvre at one point was the French royal families castle. So just standing outside and enjoying the beautiful architecture itself was incredible! Once inside, it was amazing walking around and seeing some of the most famous pieces of art, which included the Mona Lisa! So many people had told me not expect much for the painting as it is very small, and by many means it was, but it was incredible to see one of the most famous painting in the world. Fun fact: the only reason that the Mona Lisa is famous is not because it's an incredible work of art, but because of a theft in 1911 which created an overnight sensation about the painting. If you're interested, here a cool little video on that below.

However, the Mona Lisa isn't the only work of art that's worth noting in the Louvre. The painting across from the Mona Lisa is the Wedding of Cana, also the biggest painting in the Louvre! It is massive and impressive piece of art, and for some people who know the rapper Logic his latest album cover Everybody features an inspired cover from this painting! Again if you're interested in learning more about this painting, the video below talks a bit of the history of this masterpiece.

Overall, the Louvre was very cool to check out and explore! The one disappointing part was that they didn't have another famous painting I wanted to see called Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix, but it was all made up for with the great time with my friends Meagan, Harry and some new friends Kate and Lachie. Two hilarious highlights we had at the Louvre was recreating a popular Take on Me vine and my modelling debut, where I was copying this other girl posing in front of the Louvre pyramid! It was too funny, but made for a great visit!

After the Louvre, Harry and I said goodnight to our other friends for the night and headed back to our Airbnb, where we got ready to meet up with some of Harry's other friends for dinner. Although I guiltily got a burger at dinner, we did try our first set of escargots which were incredible! Once you get over what you're actually eating, the buttery/garlic favour is so delicious! Afterwards, we went out and visited some of Harry's Australian friends at their apartment and had a nice night of drinks and socialization to finish our first night in Paris!

Saturday, February 10

Second morning in Paris, Harry and I start with some coffee and croissants and headed to our first destination of the day le musee d'orsay. It was a gorgeous museum full of some of the most famous artists in the world like Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Delacroix, Degas and Renoir! My favourite collection by far was the Van Gogh exhibit with a couple of his most famous and valuable works of art! A couple years earlier I saw Starry Night in New York City, so in Paris it was incredible seeing his other famous paintings there. In the last year I've learned a lot more about Van Gogh, of the depression he suffered with, his unsuccessful career of never selling one painting in his life and of course the devastating "suicide" that ended his life. If you are a fan of Van Gogh or want to learn more about his paintings, I highly recommend watching Loving, Vincent, a film released in 2017 following the events after Van Gogh's death.

Included in the collection were Van Gogh Self Portrait, Portrait of Doctor Gachet (worth $151.2 million dollars!!) and Starry Night over the Rhone (this one he painted before the more famous Starry Night). It was an incredible collection and I loved every second of getting to observe these paintings up close!

(As you can see, Harry and I are very serious about art)

After the musee d'orsay, we headed over to the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris where along the way we made a quick stop at Harry's favourite crepe place. Eight years ago he had gone to this small crepe restaurant in the Republique area of Paris and swore they were the best crepes he had ever had, so of course we had to go for our lunch! After a bit of searching we finally found it wedged between some souvenir shops, and I have to say the crepes were amazing! The guy who worked there was so touched that we had come back after so many years and was nice enough to help me charge my phone and take a picture of us!

Following our crepe fix we headed to the Notre Dame that definitely did not disappoint! Having only ever seen the church in pictures and movies, it was incredible to finally get to see it up close! The one thing I would recommend is that if you are visiting Paris, the Notre Dame is more impressive on the outside than the inside, so there's other churches I'd definitely recommend visiting.

Following our visit, we did some more exploring of the city and ended up coming across a little place called The Great Canadian Bar. So of course we had to stop in, to make me feel a little more at home! It was so funny looking around at the "Canadian" decorations, with hockey sticks as door handles, only had a single Habs jersey hanging up and sold no Canadian beers at the bar. Although it felt nothing like home, it was nice to at least have something close to it.

For my Canadian beer lovers, thought I'd attach this hilarious beer menu, which had NO CANADIAN BEERS, even though they said they were a Canadian bar! Thought it was just too funny!

Than for dinner we ate at a cute little Parisian bistro, called the Café Republique, where we ate very delicious french food. We had risotto, duck, escargot, and delicious french wine. It was a great way to end our second day in Paris!

Sunday, February 11

Now what is the best way to spend your last day in Paris? Get a gorgeous view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, of course! My friend Harry and I got up early and waited in line to get to the top, and the wait was so worth it! It was very exciting to think that it was another item I could cross off the bucket list! Although it was a little cold at the very top, it was so cool to be up there over the city. So if you're planning to go to Paris in the future, I would either recommend buying your tickets online before your trip to the Eiffel Tower or line up before 9:30 to be the first ones to the top.

Then after the Eiffel Tower, what could be anymore french than going to another little French café and eating some croissants and cappuccinos! Following, Harry and I met up with Nick, Harry's friend, where we went to one of the most beautiful churches here in France (WHICH IS THE ONE I'D HIGHLY RECOMMEND!) We visited the Sainte-Chapelle de Paris, which is well worth the visit! It is a gorgeous church that in the main sanctuary has tall stain glass windows encircling the whole hall, filling the room with a beautiful purple light! It was breath taking, and well worth the wait!

After visiting this beautiful church, our group of three went across the city to meet up with our other friends Megan, Kate and Lachie for a little American style brunch! Now as much as French food is delicious, it was so nice eating some of the amazing food from home like pancakes, American style bacon, home fries and freshly squeezed juice. It was a great morning of awesome food after a busy weekend, but even better than that was the great company to end our trip!

(My delicious breakfast, which reminded me so much of home!)

Finally after a bit of walking around, we had to head to the train station to head back to Lyon. Overall, I would highly recommend visiting Paris! Before visiting, I head people call it a dirty, stinky, okay city, but in my experience I absolutely loved Paris and would highly recommend people to go!

Stay tuned for more posts very soon, as I have quite a few trips to catch everyone up on!

-Tori