Żaneta comes to France, Stop 1: Paris

On May 27th, I headed to Paris, where I met up with my friend Lucie! She let my cousin and I stay at her place, which was awesome! That night, Lucie and I hung out, and the next day, we met for lunch in town! I had to find Lucie in Paris, which surprisingly went pretty well! She lent me this awesome little book with all of the arrondissements and streets. We also had lunch in the Jardin de Luxembourg before I headed off to get my cousin, Żaneta from the airport. 

Lucie and I 

I took the RER to the airport, and found my cousin pretty easily! It has been 8 years since we last saw each other, so we had a lot to catch up on! :)

I decided to take her to the Jardin de Luxembourg first, since I had just come from there and I already knew where that was. 

Żaneta and I

That evening, I made some carbonara, and afterwards, we got on the metro to meet up at my friend Alex’s place! There we met up with some more UGA people, french girl, Sophie, as well as two americans, Tyler and Zack. What are the odds that they were in Paris at the same time as us?? :)

On Thursday, we had a busy day of sight seeing. We started off by visiting the place de la Bastille. Then, we spent the afternoon with Tyler and Zack. We met them outside the Louvre, then we walked around, they all tried their first crepe, and then we continued to walk back through the Jardin de Tuileries, to the place de la concord, all the way down the Champs Elysees, to the Arc de Triumph! We went on top the Arc and got a cool view of Paris!

Zack, Żaneta, Tyler, and I 

Next, we split, because one of my friends, Laetitia, was meeting up with Żaneta and I in Montmartre. The metro stop at Montmartre had so many stairs…lol. We didn’t realize how many until we got to the top… (overall on this Paris adventure, we quickly realized stairs were everywhere). 

Laetitia helped us find a nice restaurant to have lunch, and I had a croque monsieur for the first time!

Mmmmm food

Then, we walked up to Sacre Coeur, this beautiful church with a nice view of Paris! There were so many people there (and outside in Paris in general) because today happened to be another french holiday… lol.

View from Sacre Coeur

We walked around Montmartre, then browsed the souvenir shops. Next, we headed off to see the Moulin Rouge, and we walked around that area for a bit. 

Laetitia, Żaneta, and I outside the Moulin Rouge

After that, Laetitia showed us some famous bridges in Paris, like the ones with all of the locks! From the bridge, we saw a lot of boats passing through. People were having dinner on some, and we even saw one where people were exercising, lol. It was a fitness class on the Seine!

Fitness class boat!

So many locks!

Then, we went to Notre Dame, and there happened to be a fire performance there. This guy was tossing things that were on fire, and at the end, he had a little sparkler/fireworks display! It was awesome, and I am glad that we stumbled upon that performance!

Next, we went to the Eiffel Tower, so that Żaneta could see it sparkle! It sparkles every hour (in the evening), on the hour, for about 10 minutes. It was a great way to end such a nice day. Thanks again to Laetitia for hanging out with us and it was so great catching up!!

Lovely Eiffel tower!

On Friday, Żaneta and I started off the day with a french breakfast. :)

baguettes, croissants, butter, and jam!

Then we headed off to Notre Dame, where we met these two Brazilian ladies who were waiting in line in front of us. Talking to them made time pass by pretty fast.

After checking out Notre Dame, we tried to go to Saint Chapelle, but it was closed like most things in France during lunch time. So, we ended up first going to the Conciergerie, which was the prison where Marie Antoinette was held for about two months and where they held her trial. I hadn’t been here before, so it was cool to see a new place!

Replica of the room where Marie Antoinette stayed while at the Conciergerie

After this brief visit, we stood in line for Saint Chapelle. We tried getting tickets at the Conciergerie, but the guy there said it was impossible… there was a sign right there that said that you could buy them there… ohh some french people. Anyways, so we stood in line for maybe an hour, but at least there were some nice americans behind us that we chatted to. 

We didn’t spend a lot of time at Saint Chapelle, but it was worth the wait to show Żaneta the gorgeous stained glass windows!

Saint Chapelle

After Saint Chapelle, we headed off to find somewhere to grab lunch. We found this really nice restaurant where we had the best lunch ever! It was a nice balance of meat and veggies! 

Best lunch ever- lemon, thym, sesame grilled chicken and veggies!

Next we headed to the Louvre, where we easily spent a few hours. We saw the highlights, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo… but then we got a bit overwhelmed by all of the other stuff. We entertained ourselves by posing with many statues though, haha. 

This guy was taking selfies way ahead of his time, lol

Selfiess

Then we went home and chilled for a little bit before heading to the Champ de Mars to meet up with Alex and Sophie. Before getting there, we took some pictures with the Eiffel tower! 

Pretty twinkling Eiffel Tower!

On Saturday, we started the day by going to the Eiffel tower and we were determined to make it up by stairs! This whole trip has been preparing us for this, we had to climb 6 flights to get to the apartment, as well as hundreds of steps in all of the metro stations, etc. so we were ready! We waited in line for about an hour, and then the climb up to the 2nd floor took us about 10 minutes. It was not bad at all!

View of the Champ de Mars from the Eiffel tower

After spending some time up there, we got down, and headed to take more pictures across the bridge to get a nice view of the Eiffel Tower. Then, we headed to the Galeries Lafayette to meet up with Alex. We chilled up there on the 6th floor terrace.

Afterwards, we had a TGV to catch to Tours, so we headed out! 

Thanks again to all of my Paris friends who made our stay here so great! :)

Off to Tours,

Magdalena