It is dusk and Josh and I sit down in an open green space of the Champ de Mars park on our spare rain jackets that have become our temporary picnic blanket. We get out a 6 Euro bottle of delicious red Bordeaux wine and set it between us. Taking a pull right from the bottle (classy I know!), we check out our surroundings. The beautiful red, pink and yellow flowers next to us, exuding a wonderful fragrance; the small groups of people sitting nearby having their cheese spreads and various different bottles of French wines; men walking around selling roses, light up laser toys and wine, a pair of very well dressed Asian teenage girls having an extensive photo shoot of each other in every angle possible; and of course, the main thing we are all here for perched right in front of us- the massive metal phenomenon that is the Eiffel Tower. The sun tucks around the corner of the sky and slowly fades away, making it time for the wonderful glittering light show (every evening on the hour starting at 8 pm)! We relax and enjoy the glittering of the tower, the fine taste of our French wine, and feel the Champ de Mars in the evening. We take it all in thinking- this is the life. I feel perfectly content, and perfectly in love with Paris…
But I didn’t always love the ‘City of Love.’ I had come to Paris eight years ago on my first backpacking trip with my best friend Mel. Paris was a ‘must see’ on our travel itinerary, and we made it there. But everything seemed to have gone wrong for us. We missed our overnight train from Rome to Paris, we couldn’t find a good hostel, our hotel (more expensive than planned) was located a shady neighborhood surrounded by adult stores, the attraction lines were long, and there were more pick pockets than we realized. Overall we actually saw an incredible amount of the sites and beauty of Paris in the 5 days we spent there, but we definitely struggled a little bit with the grit of the city, and didn’t feel it was too kind to us. I left feeling ready to get out, and feeling that the Paris everyone spoke so highly of was overrated.
Fast forward eight years, and I now realize that part of my past struggle with Paris was being a new traveler, and my state of mind. Not knowing how to use metro systems well, not realizing that you will have to pay money for water while eating at a restaurant (and it might cost more than a beer); that public bathrooms are not free in France, and that you need to at least try to speak some basic French as you ask people for directions. And, it is expensive. So many entrance fees, and high food costs. I was also much more skittish about travel, and messing things up made me nervous. Josh and I both saw Paris as college travelers, and both felt similarly about it. We decided that on this trip we needed to give it another chance.
We went into it knowing it would be on the higher side of our budget and that we would need to be smart about our money, but that we also wanted to experience it too, so we would have the occasional splurge. Our lodging ended up being really economical, and was really nice! We did a lot of research about the different Arrondissements (or Districts) and decided we wanted to stay in Bastille (11th Arrondissement). It has good access to the metro, a local neighborhood vibe, but also has a great nightlife scene. We booked a flat on Airbnb and got an awesome deal on it, and we also used a voucher we had from Airbnb so it ended up making our cost per night around $55 USD- it doesn’t get any better than that! Especially considering the average costs of hotel lodging in Paris is in excessive of 250 Euro per night! Our host Marie was super nice, but definitely hard to understand. She didn’t speak any English, so we were playing a lot of charades with her as she helped us troubleshoot our wifi troubles, but we eventually got it all working. We loved the area, and the flat had a kitchen as well so we could cook some meals.
There was a bakery right by our flat that we (especially me) became obsessed with, and went to daily. It had the BEST quiches, breads, and treats I have ever seen!! Two ladies who appeared to own the place worked each day, and behind them you could see two men kneading the dough and making the bread fresh as you ordered. Stereotypical French- and absolutely awesome!
We did a free walking tour of Paris, to get the lowdown on the history, and it was led by Connor, a young and energetic Scottish guy who’s been in France a couple years. It was extremely good, and gave us both a refresher of everything major throughout the city and how it came to be. We walked for a little over three hours and covered the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the ‘Love Lock’ bridge, The Tuileries garden, and so much more. We love the walking tours because you learn so much more than you’d learn if you walked to the places yourself. After that we kept on walking! Onto the famous street of Champs Elysees, and to the beautiful Arc de Triomphe.
Louvre Museum
Arc De Triomphe
What was great about our days walking is that we got to see all the beautiful places again, but didn’t feel the need to go into a lot of them since we had already done that in our previous trip to Paris.
That night we went out in the Bastille area. It was absolutely hopping. There were tons of little cafes, bars, pubs and clubs lining very narrow old streets, and everyone basically got their beers and hung out in the street to drink them. It was a lot of fun, and definitely a pleasant surprise! We thought the area would be pretty fun, but it was more interesting than we imagined.
On our second day in Paris we did even more walking (surprise!). We decided to head up the hill to Montmartre district and see the artsy side of Paris where many of the greatest artists (Picasso, Degas, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir) lived, and the incredible view from Sacre Coeur (The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris).
I love this area with its winding hilly cobblestone streets, bohemian style, artists painting and musicians playing everywhere as you walk by. It has so much life to it. After exploring on our own for a bit we decided to do an evening walking tour of Montmartre to learn more about it’s past. It was incredibly interesting. We saw where Vincent Van Gogh lived, Paris’ last surviving windmill, Lapin Agile (the cabaret where Picasso often exchanged painting for food), La Place Dalida, Picasso’s studio, and of course the red light district and Moulin Rouge (which means Red Windmill- I never knew that!). Our guide was really cunning, clever and made us feel like we were swept back in time. One thing I never knew about the area was the name ‘Montmarte’ dates hundreds of years, when Christians were being persecuted for their beliefs.It is said that it was the ‘mountain of the martyrs’, and was where Saint Denis was decapitated on the hill in 250 AD for being Christian. He is now a patron saint of France.
After the tour we continued walking through the streets and headed to a quaint café to grab a crepe. Since we were in Paris, it had to be done at least once. We actually found a place that had crepes with egg, ham and cheese, which was great, so we weren’t eating only sugar. We had one with substance, and one with nutella and chocolate ice cream. They were both fantastic, but of course the chocolate won.
After the crepes we headed back to Sacre Coeur, to see what the amazing view was like at the top of the hill at night. It was apparently the place to be! The stairs we lined with people, and everyone was just hanging out. It had a great view of Paris lit up at night. We found a place on the steps near some incredible street performers who immediately caught our attention (among many others). There was about 6-8 of them, performing a fire show with numchucks, hula hoops, and giant batons. It was the best street show I’ve ever seen, and we both couldn’t get enough.
We stayed for probably an hour until it ended. Afterwards we went out and enjoyed some awesome live music then called it a night.
We didn’t go inside the Louvre or the Museum D’Orsay. We didn’t see a show at Moulin Rouge, nor did we go to the top of the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame, which probably sounds crazy. But since we had done all these things before it gave us a different, relaxing version of Paris that I absolutely adored. I felt like we got to see more of the spirit of the city, without a stressful agenda of what we had to do next. We had a wonderful time and my only regret is that we didn’t stay a couple more days. But we had more of France to see- castles to bike to, wine to taste, and more interesting historic towns to visit!
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