France

I went to Paris, France in December 2022. This is my story.

This is the second half of a two part trip. You can find the first half on the England page, here. I took a trip with EF Ultimate Break, a group of mostly solo travelers in their 20s led by a Tour Director.

My entry into Paris went smoothly after boarding the Eurostar in London. I had a window seat, so I was able to watch the countryside pass by. After exiting the train, we took the Paris metro over to our hostel (The Generator Paris), and we had 4 people in our room this time. A friend and I were really hungry around 3pm, but nothing was really open for food. We did find a cute little café that had some sweets we could buy and coffee. Their food menu did not start until 4pm. After meeting up with the group outside the hostel, we had a quick walking tour of the the area with a stop by Notre Dame. Most of the group made it onto the boat for the cruise, but a few people got left behind when they didn’t move fast enough to make the train connections. It was a good cruise with a tour guide explaining things about the city and other fun facts. Fun fact: the Eiffel Tower is now 20 feet taller due to a newly installed antenna. The cruise was so well timed that we were right next to the Eiffel Tower when it does its sparkly time thing.

After the cruise, eight of us went out to eat dinner at a cute restaurant. I had a nice cider and a great dessert, but molten lava cake is hard mess up.

For our first full day in Paris, we took a bus tour around the area with a tour guide. We saw a few sights from the bus, and we stopped at the Eiffel Tower during the day for photos. Just like any big architectural masterpiece, there’s tons of dudes walking around trying to sell you miniature copies of said masterpiece. The Eiffel Tower has a lot less than expected (perhaps due to law enforcement?).

We ended the bus tour by the Arc de Triomphe and let a few people off the bus before continuing on to Versailles. Versailles was great. We had a small break after we got to the area for lunch, and I learned for sure that I don’t like baguette sandwiches. Our tour guide was so great and entertaining throughout the palace. He told us this tragic story about the Kings Royal Artist, the man who painted the largest ceiling painting (in the second photo below). I mentioned it was tragic, so highlight the next paragraph at your own risk.

This man’s dream was to be the Royal Artist ever since he was a little boy. He had a family and did work for the King, but at a lower level. One day the King came to him and told him he could have the job if the King liked what he did with this ceiling. The man spent years working on this painting, and when he was done he knew he had made his greatest masterpiece. The King made him the Royal Artist, but he never painted another thing. He knew he couldn’t do any better than that ceiling, and he fell into a deep depression. After a few months he killed himself rather than paint something he wasn’t proud of.

Anyways, after the tour and other sad or wild stories about the people who lived and worked in the palace we had a some free time in the gardens. These gardens are so grand that I didn’t make it very far into them before I had to head back to the bus. They are capable of running all the fountains at the same time now, but back when the King lived there the pipes couldn’t support it. There were so many staff that whenever the King was walking through his gardens the staff would sneakily run up and turn on the fountain right before the King turned the corner. They also had to turn off the previous one. This made all his guests think he was rich/fancy/advanced enough to have all the fountains active at the same time.

It took 30 minutes to get to Versailles, but 2 hours to get back! We barely had time to freshen up before heading out to a fancy Parisian dinner. I had Escargot, Shrimp, and Molten Lava cake to eat and Champagne with Black Current to drink. I also traded an escargot for a frog leg.

The next day was entirely unplanned, so I went to the Louvre! After admiring the inside of the pyramid, I, of course, went for the Mona Lisa. It was small and far away. Then we had to find that one painting when Napoleon crowns himself King and crown his wifey Queen instead of letting the Pope do it. That was a big scandal, so it needs a BIG painting. After that I had fun navigating through the maze that was the Louvre to find the oldest thing in the building. Along the way I had to stop and take a photo of this statue that had a HUGE crowd around it taking photos, so I figured, “better snap a photo.” Then I found a nice wall that I’d like to use as inspiration if I ever have a house that has a large wall around it. It really was a maze with so many random stairs that it was difficult to keep track what floor you are on or if you aren’t really on a whole floor but instead are on a half floor that not fully on the map. Took me about an hour, but I finally found it…

I give you…the oldest thing in the Louvre! This statue is 9,000 years old. I cared enough about it to take a photo of the large banner hanging next to it. This statue was buried in the basement of the Louvre in a corner that not many people make it to. It’s just wild that something this unique wouldn’t have crowds, but the other, much newer, statue without arms had huge crowds.

After a satisfying conclusion to a riveting quest, I met up with some other people for lunch (after getting some fancy chocolates to take home). Lunch was very French in terms of experience. I just had Linguine with Asparagus and Parmesan. After lunch, I set off to do some more shopping, but had the same problem of only finding expensive places. I finally found a silly little touristy shop near the Arc de Triomphe to get my souvenirs. The Arc is pretty cool, and large. You can pay to go up inside of it, but the line is long. There’s a traffic circle around it, so you actually have to go through underground tunnels to get to and from the Arc. The tunnels are one way, too, so make sure you know that before going in. Before going over, there’s a little median that lines up nicely with the Arc that silly tourists list to take photos next to. On the way away from the Arc I found a man selling “his buddy’s art” in the tunnel, so I bought a cute impressionist piece of a little French courtyard. IDKY I put that in quotes, but the guy was a little weird when I asked if he was the artist.

After getting back to the hostel, I packed up all my stuff and then watched another World Cup game in the hostel lounge area. That night we had our Farewell dinner. It was chicken and fries with some chocolate mousse at the end. I’m glad it was simple because I was running ragged by the end of the trip. I did manage to run over to a shop around the corner (and across a road and around another corner) to get some Macaroons to take home with me. They were very very good and much better than British Macrons.

It was a grueling 25 hour travel day to get back home, but at least I had friends during the layovers this time. It should also be noted that I HATE CDG (the Paris airport). They treat you like a criminal and check your passport over and over again. I had my bag completely unpacked and swapped for drugs or bomb residue along with my hands and feet. It was nuts. The lady at the gate checking my passport (for the 3rd time) gave me sass about having a backpack as my personal item even though I’ve never had an issue fitting it under the seat. There’s also nothing to do in this airport. They have like 4 vending machines stretched out over an entire terminal, and the chairs are uncomfortable. It’s like they hate travelers. 2/10: would not go back. Seriously, I’m sure flying in is just as bad at customs. Just fly in somewhere else and train over to Paris, then do the reverse on the way out.

To not end on a bad note, I did get my Global Entry interview out of the way on my layover in Chicago! Yay! So glad I did because it was super helpful during my next trip to Portugal.