This year for my 27th Birthday I decided to go to Paris, I had never been to Paris and always dreamt of going. I had such a beautiful time despite the culture shock, Paris is such a beautiful city to visit and definitely can say if you want to start traveling all around Europe. Paris is definitely the city you want to start with. I can definitely say Paris is a very touristy city so do make sure that you get your comfy shoes on because there’s a lot of walking and exploring to do. Also, I would suggest learning a few sentences in French because everyone mostly speaks French and it may difficult when trying to ask for directions or even telling the waiter what you would like to eat.
I fell in love with the Parisian buildings and architecture and I can understand why it’s the most visited city.
My and my best friend stayed at Hotel Val Girard, it’s a 4* star rated hotel it’s very convenient, comfortable and very clean. It's a central location to getting around to the Eiffel Tower, a train station which is almost as fast and efficient as getting round in London with the Tube and Charles de Gaulle Airport. The hotel offers bed and breakfast which is super great because you don’t have to worry about finding places to have breakfast. Around the hotel surroundings, you can find cute intimate restaurants to grab dinner and have quiet time that’s something I loved. You can also find a lot of bakeries and dessert shops if you are craving something sweet.
What to do:
Paris is a city to explore tourist attractions and architectural sites like the Eiffel Tower, Palace of Versailles, Louvre Museum, Notre Dame de Paris, and Arc de Triomphe. Paris is literally the fashion district city so if you are a fashion guru there are so many fashion boutiques and designer stores to shop till you literally drop, I enjoyed going to Champs-Elysees it's such a beautiful avenue with well-known shops like Zara, Bvlgari, Sephora, Chanel and many more I would definitely recommend you all to visit.
Places to eat:
In terms of food and restaurants; Paris genuinely has really cute intimate restaurants and cafes literally on most street corners; I really enjoyed eating at Bistrot Le cap Restaurant food was really delicious and amazing service the recommended choice of wine tasted pleasantly nice it was sharp at first but as we drank the glasses of wine it actually grew on us, the atmosphere was cozy and relaxing. I highly recommend this restaurant for a quiet night and romantic dinner for 2. It was literally 5 minutes of walking distance from our hotel Hotel Val Girard.
These are some of the other Restaurants you may want to try :
Ferdi - they serve amazing cheeseburger and fries and if you are a meat lover this is the place for you
L'avenue - much more suited for Private dining and very upper scale vibes, and offer a variety of different dishes that are suitable for dietary requirements.
If you have Sweet tooth like me there so many Pastry and French Bakery shops on every street depending on where you are staying like La Duree and many more to fix your sweet tooth.
I really enjoyed the Macarons and French pastries, they are so delicious.
Getting around Paris
Initially, when I and my friend go to Paris we thought that the hotel we were staying at would be within walking distance to most of the places we wanted to see but after arriving and looking at Google Maps and trying to navigate ourselves we realized that it would work out better us using the Metro because it would be more efficient and faster to get around.
Also, we considered getting the Uber but we worked out that getting a driver would be way more expensive and longer than getting a Metro, so when we arrived at the airport we asked the ticket officer where to buy the metro tickets, and we were advised to go and take photos at the photo machine and then queue up to purchase a metro card called Navigo. This metro ticket allowed us to go around to most of the attraction sights we wanted to see for the duration of our trip in Paris the ticket cost us €18.40 which is equivalent to £18.00 so it worked out cheaper and also turned out to be perfect because we got to explore the Metro and navigating ourselves around Paris.
