France

  This past Monday we made it to Paris. We were staying for only 3 nights because our 90 days in the EU were almost up. Only my dad had been to Paris before, and it was a long time ago, so this would be a new experience for us. 

Our train was from Bordeaux without any stops, so it only took us 2 hours to get there. Our hotel was a little removed from the center, so we had to take the metro to get there. The first thing we did was start heading towards the river to try and get a glimpse of the Eiffel tower. 

We wandered on the other side of the river until we got to a bridge near the Louvre. We crossed back over to our side of the river to get our first looks at the Louvre. We had tickets to go on Wednesday morning, so we didn’t go inside yet. 

We were all pretty hungry so we got Italian food at a restaurant near the Louvre. This was our 4th Italian dinner on our 5th night in France. The best Italian food in France that we had was at Giulia in Bordeaux where we had pizzas. This meal was good, but not as good as that one. 

The next morning we had a classic French breakfast of a croissant, juice, and a warm beverage. The night before we had decided we would take the metro towards the Eiffel Tower and then walk to the Arc de Triomphe, and that is exactly what we did. 

The metro stop was a few blocks away from where you could see the Eiffel Tower. On our way there we stopped at a souvenir store. We got a bunch of little Eiffel Tower keychains that my sister wanted to give her friends, and then continued on towards the tower. 

I’m not sure what to say about the tower itself, because everyone has seen it. I thought it was still pretty cool to see in person though. You can’t really get the size of it from a picture. There weren’t too many people around because it was a random Tuesday in December, but there were also a lot of blocked off areas and netting on the tower because it’s not the prime tourist season. We walked through the Champ de Mars and then across Pont d'Iéna to get all of the views of the Eiffel Tower. 

After we decided we took enough pictures we walked towards the Arc de Triomphe. The arch is on an island in the middle of an intersection of a bunch of roads, so we had to go underground to get there. The statues on the arch are pretty impressive. All of them had lots of detail, and looked like they would be hard to make. 

When we left the Arc de Triomphe we started walking back towards our hotel down Avenue des Champs-Élysées. On my list of soccer jerseys I wanted to get before we left was a PSG (Paris Saint-Germain) Messi jersey, and the PSG store was on this street. The store had a ton of random merchandise, but we found what I wanted and made it out with the shirt.

It was still pretty early in the afternoon so we headed towards Notre-Dame because my dad loves looking at churches. Since there was a fire at the church in 2019, we couldn’t go inside. We were still able to get pretty close to the building though.

We eventually made it back to the hotel and took a little break before dinner. My mom really wanted some Thai curry, so we decided we would go out for Thai food. This was our 2nd Thai dinner on the 6th night in France. We ate a lot of Thai and Italian food, but not much French food.

The next day was our last full day in the EU. We had tickets to go to the Louvre at 10:30, so we took the subway from the hotel to get there. The first thing we did inside the museum was go look at the Mona Lisa. It was a good decision because the crowds weren’t too bad yet. They were much worse when we walked by later around noon. The Mona Lisa looked exactly like the pictures, and you weren’t really allowed to get that close to it. Overall the museum was just like any other art museum, so I didn’t love it.

After the museum we went to an Italian restaurant that was recommended to us. If you couldn’t tell, we like getting Italian food a lot. I got a pizza with spicy salami, and it was probably the best pizza I have had since Italy.

The one last thing my dad wanted to see was Sacré-Cœur, a church a little removed from the center of Paris. We had actually seen the mini version at Mini Europe while we were in Belgium. Even though we took the metro to get to the church, we had to climb a lot of stairs to get up to it, which my mom and sister didn’t enjoy. The church was pretty cool from the outside, but the inside wasn’t as cool. 

Since it was our last night in France, we finally decided to get French food. We asked for a recommendation at the front desk of the hotel, and they gave us a card for a free drink at a place right across the street. Since it was in a convenient location we decided to go try it out. We all ended up getting free drinks, and they gave my sister and I a lemon soda tasting drink. I had a sausage with fries which was way better than the sausage I had in Narbonne a week ago.

Overall I enjoyed our time in Paris. My least favorite part was the Louvre, but that’s just because I don’t like art museums. If you do then you would probably love the Louvre. 

I can’t believe it’s our last week in Europe. My next blog will be from home! We’ve been in London for 3 days and it’s been fun. I’ll probably tell you about it in next week’s blog. 

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