The end of my last ever term at Lancaster along with Lewis’ final week of paid leave meant one thing: our first holiday together! Lewis was adamant that we went to a Francophone place for me to practise my French, so what better place than the city of love? I’d been before as a child and I don’t remember being particularly wowed, but I thought that it must be better as a romantic trip, so I thought, “Why not?”
Admittedly, the trip did not get off to an amazing start; Lewis’ friend Matt kindly offered to drive us to the airport (at 4:30am, might I add!), but his car broke down. He’d had the car repaired a few days prior, but it refused to get back up to speed whenever we slowed down. I was sitting in the back of the car, jittery and catastrophising that we’d miss the flight, yet Lewis was surprisingly calm. We thankfully arrived 15 minutes before bag drop closed, which meant we had to scamper across the airport!
Day 1
Once we arrived at Charles De Gaulle, we ordered an Uber to our accommodation. We technically could have used public transport, but we were so tired that we couldn’t be bothered. After an hour or so of driving, we got to our AirBnb, which was tucked away in a lovely little courtyard in the third arrondissement. Though smaller than expected, I found it reasonable considering the price of Paris.
We unpacked and lay down for a while after a long morning of travelling. Eventually, we ventured out to explore the area. My first priority was the supermarket to get some milk for my morning coffee, where I found my all time favourite cereal: dark chocolate Special K. I tried it for the first time in 2019 on a French exchange with Fosbrooks, and it’s never left my mind since. Needless to say, I brought home a box of the little clusters of joy. They sadly don’t sell it in the UK, but I found out last night that we do have a milk chocolate version which may well be nicer. Oh well!
Since we were in France, we obviously had to try the bakeries. The first one we visited was Land & Monkeys, where I ordered a foccaccia and a browkie (a cookie/brownie hybrid). We walked a few minutes to Place des Vosges, one of the city’s five royal squares, to enjoy our feast. It was very serene to sit by the fountain since the weather was nice and warm. We noticed that there were also some market stalls surrounding the square, where I bought a bracelet and I went halves with Lewis on a new jacket for him.
We happened to be staying around the corner from the Pablo Picasso Museum. I think some of the exhibitions were sadly closed, but it was nevertheless interesting to have a look. To my upset, we learnt that the museum had hosted Georges Bataille (the philosopher whom I’m writing about in my dissertation) exhibitions that had passed us by. Lewis and I commented on the huge range of Picasso’s work, as we never even knew that he made sculptures as well as paintings. Every day’s a school day.
Since we’d already eaten from the bakery, we weren’t massively hungry for tea. Instead, Lewis went to Carrefour for a baguette, cheese, and some other snacky bits. We then spent the night grazing and watching French TV. We were especially interested by French game shows because we love watching them back home, and it was good language practice for me to translate the questions. We were soon tired after our busy day, so it was time for bed.
Day 2
We’d booked tickets for the Louvre, for which we purposely chose a later slot to give us time to mooch over. It was a 30-minute walk from our apartment, so we took a leisurely stroll and stopped at another bakery en route. I chose this one because of the name: French Bastards, which I found comical. I had a pistachio babka, which I’d never heard of before yet thoroughly enjoyed. We also had time to look in some shops, so I bought a jacket from Uniqlo; the leather jacket I brought was making me way too hot.
1:30pm was the time we chose for the Louvre, so we went and we were in complete awe at the size of it. Truthfully, we only looked at a small proportion of the hundreds of works on display, including the Mona Lisa. We found the map very confusing, so it took us a while, but we got there eventually. I’d heard people say this before, but the Mona Lisa is much smaller than you’d expect! We found the museum fascinating, but we knew we’d go mad if we looked at everything.
After a quick bite in a nearby café, we walked towards Galeries Lafayette, while making stops at a few other places. We went to a jewellery shop called L’Atelier d’Amaya, where Lewis bought me a ring. Although it isn’t an engagement ring (yet), I’ve placed it on my ring finger and we’ve called it a promise ring.
Galeries Lafayette, a huge department store in the 9th arrondissement, was both breathtaking and overwhelming in equal measure. The ground floor housed the shop’s frangrance section, where we spent a while smelling all manner of perfumes. Before long, though, we had become nose blind and couldn’t even stand to look at another perfume! The reason why I wanted to visit the shop, was because it’s also home to the Jellycat Patisserie. They were definitely overpriced, but I still walked out with Philippe Palmier, or Pip for short.
The shop also has a rooftop terrace with an amazing view of the city:
On the way home, we stopped at yet another bakery, as well as an ice cream shop for an impulsive nighttime treat. Our nutrition was practically nonexistent, but that doesn’t matter when on holiday. We also stopped at Monoprix for ingredients for the following day’s sandwiches as we had a big day ahead; we were going to Disneyland!
Day 3
We chose not to rush getting to Disneyland since holidays are for relaxing. Lewis wasn’t massively sold on us going to Disneyland because “it would be a waste of a day”, but I disagreed. We needed to get an hour-long train, which was fortunately about €2,50 each. I love the fact that pretty much every country besides ours has very cheap public transport, particularly trains. Thank you, Tories!
We had to wait for quite a while in the queue, but we made it eventually. I’ve been to Magic Kingdom in Florida twice, so I found it looked quite familiar besides the fact that Paris has Aurora’s castle instead of Cinderella’s. Upon entering the park, you’re instantly bombarded with lots of gift shops that mostly sell the same things, making it quite same-y. The first thing we did when we arrived, was buy a cake pop for €5 to fuel us for the day. Yummy but dear.
We started our day of rides with Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Quest, which we both enjoyed. An interactive ride where you shoot targets to defeat Zurg, Lewis scored far higher than me, leading me to question whether my gun was broken. Lewis then suggested that we went on Hyperspace Mountain, which I only realised while queueing was a rollercoaster. I’m not a fan of big rides, but I wanted to do it with him, and I’d noticed there were young children in the queue. So, I reluctantly went on…
Sorry to leave a cliffhanger, but this post will be in two parts. That’s because we only got back four days ago, so I haven’t yet had time to write the whole recount. Part two will be coming out a week today, on the 5th April, so come back next week!
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