Parisian views and food

Ok grab a coffee or a glass of something stronger to enjoy while reading this, its turned into a long one!

Upon arriving at Paris the instructions to our hostel were simple; '3 minutes in a straight line from the train station to the hostel' - yea that's if you take the correct way on exit from the station. 30 minutes later and soaked from the rain we found it!! (We've got lost so much on this travels, my geography instinct should've packed a compass, life would be so much more easy!).

Hostel room was nice, we even had 2 pillows each so we were happy about this seeing as we've had to cope with one each in all our other accommodation resulting in stiff necks! Only issue was our curtains had a couple inches gap. We solved this by tying them together around the window handle with one of my hairbands!

After a good night sleep we headed down for our continental breakfast then went out sightseeing. Trying to save money where we can we aim to walk as much as possible. We headed for the Eiffel tower but found ourselves in the queue for Notre Dame Cathedral! I was very impressed we didn't have to pay an entrance fee :) If I'm honest I was expecting this cathedral to be more impressive and big. The size reminded me of the size of Gloucester Cathedral. Wikipedia clarified this for me - they have very similar dimensions. I'm not religious, so cathedral visits arent normally on my to-do list, however i did enjoy the architecture and stain glass windows. I also enjoyed sitting inside the cathedral listening to the organ music while people watching :) Afterwards lunch was needed so we settled for traditional French food of McDonald's (shock horror).

Percy enjoyed Notre Dame Cathrdral

We then continued the long walk towards the iconic Eiffel tower. The closer we were getting the more excited I was getting, singing made up stupid song lyrics like 'I'm soo excited, we're going up the Eiffel tower, it is chucking it down, we might not even see anything' (definitely a number one song coming along there). We decided that we would walk up to level 2 of the Eiffel tower, then get the lift up to the top. Well after about 2 minutes I was regretting not getting the lift the whole way! Needless to say the views were incredible even in the horrible cold, rain, fog and wind. We spent a good two hours admiring Paris from above! On the descent we decided to warm ourselves up with hot chocolate on the second floor. By now it was getting dark. My friend Christie gave me the heads-up about the Eiffel tower sparkling on the hour for 5 minutes once dark. At half 8pm we made the final descent down the Eiffel tower to get a good view on the ground for the 9pm light-up. Well annoyingly the stairs were closed so we had to queue for the lifts. We jumped off the lift literally as time struck 9pm and the lights started glittering. We ran backwards away from the Eiffel tower to a better spot for some obligortory selfies! I loved this, the Eiffel tower lit up is beautiful!! The Eiffel tower is a must for anyone visiting Paris, it doesn't even cost a great deal!

Looking down onto Paris

View from top of the Eiffel tower

Eiffel tower at night from below

Then was the realisation that our hostel was located on the other side of Paris, a good hour+ walk away, it was pouring with rain, dark and both our phones were about to die. This meant we opted to catch the metro back. 10pm gone, with wet clothes and very tight legs (walked miles/hours), we got back to our hostel where I collapsed into bed. I was then awoken at 5am by horrendously loud cheering/shouting/screaming from the sports bar downstairs. Apparently there was some important boxing match on. This experience reminded me of living in uni halls with being awoke by drunks and other loud noises. Ironicly this hostel was called 'St Christophers Inn' and the halls i lived in during my second year of uni was called 'St Christophers court'.

Paris day 2, we washed our clothes while eating breakfast while deciding who we were going to vote for in the UK election. With rain still pouring we headed off on our walk to Sacre Coeur. The views here were just as impressive as those I witnessed on the Eiffel tower, however here it was just a smaller viewing radius and from less high up. We wandered around the back streets into souvenir shops looking for our Paris shot glass memento (we collect shot glasses from our travels, we have for many years). We also stumbled across a cute little quaint French patisserie. I had a pain au chocolat, chocolate cake and hot chocolate while sitting in the seating areas watching little birds fly above our heads. Very friendly they were with one even getting close enough to knick some of my left over crumbs - cheeky thing! We then went on another very long stroll to the arc de triomphe. I loved the architecture engraved on the arcs stone.

Sacre Coeur

Arc de triomphe

By now it was late afternoon/early evening on a Sunday. We planned to walk back to our hostel along the river but half way back our bladder's had other ideas. With it being Sunday everything was shut so the metro came calling again to get us home quicker.

We spent the evening having dinner in the sports bar, writing out 22 postcards and then went back to the sports bar where I had my first alcoholic beverage of the trip :)

Monday morning I packed my bag up yet again and caught a couple of trains to my next destination...

On a side note, annoyingly I bought a pedometer for my travels to see how much i was walking but after it claimed I had only walked 3 miles for each of my first 3 days of my travels, which was blatantly inaccurate ive stopped using it. I'd love to know what I walked these last few days in Paris!

Amester x