Paris

Paris was a jumble; a blur and made up of so many emotions that it becomes hard  to explain and try and describe what we did for the two weeks that we were there for.

It seems to me when I look back on it, to be made up of smells, colours and moments of strong emotions but to tell you what we did day to day seems a little bit difficult so we'll see how I go shall we?!

Arriving in Paris we had the misconception of the french being a little snooty as one might say; but let me set the record straight. From the minute we stepped into france, well we got carried but a bus on a train in a tunnel under the sea, but that's beside the point...

Moving swiftly on... where was I... Friendly french people that's right...

We only encountered the nicest friendliest people you will ever meet. We arrived late in the evening, having no idea where to go and without even having to ask for directions was told what bus to catch and where to get off at; and the guy who was helping us pressed the button for our stop so we knew which stop to get off at. Then we met this wonderful french lady walking her dog ( it was now 11pm) who, although she didn't know where the address was that we showed her, took us around asking all the locals in french where this place was for 15 minutes until we found it, and stood with us to make sure we could get in to the apartment block; so to start with I just want to say a big Thank You to all those kind souls that helped us. xx

Paris is amazing, our first evening out we ate chocolate crepes while walking along the Seine next to the Notre Dame in the dark while the river and Islands were lit up with lights.

In the day we saw the eiffel tower, Sacré Cœur, ate Berthillon icecream, walked the streets of Paris, to be honest I can't quite remember. We had a lovely little apartment all to ourselves which was amazing just to have to ourselves.

We went to the Palace at Versailles, got drenched in a thunderstorm, ate a lot of icecream and drank quite a few Mojitos.

One thing that I will remember is that isn't quite as pineapple and basil icecream overlooking the Seine at midnight, is the smell of Urine. I'm sorry Paris but a lot of the time your train stations smelt like a rundown men's toilet.

On our last night in Paris we walked past the famous, once a month rollerblade through Paris which looks like a hell of a lot of fun if you're good at staying upright on rollerblades but, if you're not an expert if probably pretty scary! It was hectic.

Two weeks was spent in this wonderful place and to my utter joy a couple of nights before we left we managed to stumble upon the Bookshop Shakespeare and Co. which is probably the coolest and most amazing bookshop I've ever been to. I can't really explain it, and I'm guessing most of you know or have heard of it; but it is something that has to be experienced. I sat up on the second floor which is (apart from the children's books) a old collection of books that you can sit and read every day of the week. If you ever go to Paris go there, I think it was my favourite place in all of Paris!

We also went to the supermarket down the road with no bra of shoes on and bought lots of Haribo lollies and chocolate biscuits. So that was good.

We saw free movies in Parks and ate Sushi in quite parisian streets. We got blown kisses at by old, weird men.

We walked through paris from The Avenue des Champs-Élysées right to the main station of Paris at 4.30am in a lightening storm.

It was great, we sat in a fountain, on a statute of a lady in front of the Louvre and walked along the Seine.

I feel like I'm bragging.

Sorry.

We were going to hitch hike down to the South of France but even though we don't look scary we just got sore feet and tired shoulders, so decided to try and get a train ticket last minute on the busiest day of travel in Paris, the first Saturday of August. But we did and it was fine.

The Notre Dame at night

My first of many chocolate Crepes

Check out this hunky piece of metal

Sacre Cœur

The view of Paris

My first Parisian Macaron

The Notre Dame by day

Berthillion Icecream; Fig on the left and Pineapple and basil on the right! YUM

Beautiful mosaic patterns at the Louvre metro Station

Maria has her own little sections of the Louvre, just for her.

Perky

Maria being immature. BUT VERY FUNNY

Poses...

Beautiful ancient sculptures in the Louvre

Another Maria chill out spot... potentially in a cupboard...

More Poses...

A Surprised Wizard

Cheeky!

One of My fave statues..

More Poses...

Maria ( and myself) was not impressed by the size of the mona lisa, but also by the crazy amount of tourists that were there. You probably got that from her expression though..

All the Paparazi

I loved this, its such a beautiful little shrine, I wanted to take it home for my own room

Tree graffiti

Musée D'Orsay was originally a beautiful train station 

Tired Maria

Yummy Dinner

The Seine and Eiffel Tower not taken with the right setting, but it turned out alright 

It really is the city of lights

This is a lantern from an amazing little japanese Shop in  Montmartre. It was so beautiful and had some really gorgeous books about interiors but it was all in Japanese so I didn't get it, but now I wish I had.

Iona (click for her travel blog) and Tara (click here for her travel Blog) when you are in Paris you must go. If you head to the right from the bottom of Sacré Cœur if you are facing the cathedral and walk across (not directly uphill or directly downhill) there is also an amazing, reasonably cheap vintage shop right near it, on the same road further down, where I got this really awesome beaded knee length dress from the 60s or 70s ( I can't remember) for 20 Euros. Bargain!

Luxembourg Gardens

Beautiful but you can't walk on the grass

A little graffiti I found late one night...

This is pretty much what I had for breakfast every single day for the two weeks that we were in Paris

It was delicious

Antique Market

I found some Fruit Friends

Swimming horses at Versailles

Burpy Fish at Versailles

Macarons from the worlds best Macaron shop, Pierre Herme. Go there if you can, they have the most crazy flavours, I went with the yogurt, raspberry and rosewater.

I thought this was a funny sign but maybe it was just me...

I think this is my favourite bookshop in the world. We happened to stumble upon it late on one of our last evenings in Paris. I had read about it and really wanted to go but we couldn't find it when we went looking for it at the start of our stay in Paris, and I had sort of forgotten about it and then we just stumbled upon it. It was so amazing. They have a section upstairs, that has been covered over the years with messages on little odd pieces of paper from people all over the world, and an amazing collection of old books that you can sit and read. It's such a beautiful place. I want to go back there right now just writing about it.

More Luxembourg Gardens

Maria having a picnic dinner under the Eiffel Tower

Frozen Yoghurt dinner 

The Eiffel Tower ( as I found out) sparkles every hour from sometime in the early evening for ten minutes until one in the morning. We had a late picnic dinner under it and it was beautiful.

Oh and here's a little video that we filmed in varying states of exhaustion, that actually turned out to be quite funny. It sums up our experience in Paris pretty well.

So thats all for now folks, I'll see you on the flip side

Cheerio Chums

Love Katie G