Fleur Bernadine

mostly london, sometimes hampshire

Paris | Interrailing


In the summer between the first and second year, I went interrailing across Europe for seventeen days with one of my closest friends. We would be travelling between Paris and Budapest stopping off in Brussels, Berlin, Prague and Vienna.

We flew from London to Paris as it ended being cheaper to do so, arriving at about midday we dumped our stuff in our hostel before heading off in search of lunch. We ended up getting a baguette, salad, hummus and a bottle of Paris’ finest €5 white wine and had an alfresco picnic by the Seine. The afternoon was spent pottering about the streets including a visit to Shakespeare and Company and also stopping by the Notre Dame. We had a quick look round Palais Royale and also at the Louvre, to which we had tickets to visit the following day. By this point, we were pretty knackered as we’d been up since the crack of dawn travelling so we decided to head back to the hostel for dinner and a drink at the hostel bar.

On our second day in Paris, we packed in a lot. We started the day early with free breakfast at our hostel before walking down to Palais Royale where we spent an hour exploring the grounds. Shamefully, we’d pre-planned our outfits and we both wore stripes so we could match the columns…We had pre-booked tickets to visit the Louvre, so we headed on over there next. Now, I hate to moan but I was slightly disappointed by the museum. It just felt a little rundown and like it needed some love, but hey we got to see the Mona Lisa…over a sea of heads and selfie sticks. We had anticipated that we’d spend more time at Louvre which meant we had been left with an afternoon to fill. We decided that we’d head to the Eiffel Tower and sit here for some lunch. This was a lovely way to spend some time and it’s a great place to people watch! We decided to splash out and bought tickets to go on a boat down the Seine. It was cool and managed to get a great look at the city from a different perspective. Once we set back on land, we were starving so headed to get food and some evening drinks before heading back to the hostel for the night.

On our final day in Paris we started with heading to the Sacré-Cœur, we loved the area here and spent a long time marvelling at the view and people watching. We then explored this area and went into all the little touristy shops, we found some very classy souvenirs! We then went to a small museum called Musée de la Vie Romantique, it’s a really small museum but it has the nicest little coffee shop/garden and I’d very much recommend it on a nice sunny day. As we had done so much the day before we decided that we’d go spend the rest of the very hot sunny afternoon in Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Late afternoon we decided to head back to the hostel, shower and get changed before going out for dinner. We went to a vegan restaurant called Hank Burger and oh my gosh, it was so good! So filling and bloody delicious. After dinner, we met up with my cousin who lives in Paris as an au pair and sat riverside drinking wine with her. Our third day in Paris was my favourite and I’d love to go back to Parc des Buttes Chaumont.

0 Comments

Contact Form (Do not remove it)

back to top