I have always wanted to visit Paris. Well, technically I had been to Disneyland with my family when I was little, but not being able to quite remember I’ve always counted it as a place that I’ve never been to. As it turned out, some of my friends were starting their Interrailing adventure in Paris, and as I could only join them for a few days I couldn’t think of a more perfect place to accompany them to.
For anyone planning a short, cheap getaway at this time of year I would definitely recommend Paris. Staying for three nights and having two full days was just the right amount of time to fit everything in, and of course to completely wear yourself out after you’ve walked what seems like the entirety of Paris in those 48 hours. Return flights were reasonable too. It cost me £120 for two flights without checking a bag in. Airlines like Jet2 allow a 10kg hand luggage allowance, and if you’re only going for three nights you would have to be a serious hoarder to need all that.
On the first full day we were up bright and early to make sure that we could fit in everything that we had planned for that day and first on the agenda was getting to the top of the Eiffel tower. A word of advice though; you can plan and plan and try and devise the quickest route, but chances are you will probably get lost anyway. That is exactly what we did by getting of the metro slightly early. Yet getting lost on that day led us to an unexpectedly pleasant surprise as we ended up very near to the Arc de Triomphe.
Something that I didn’t expect was that most of the attractions we visited were in fact free! For a student, of course, this is a dream come true. You’re telling me I can look around the entire Louvre all day, pop into the Notre Dame and climb the hundreds of stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and not pay a cent? Thank you very much France. The only exception to this ‘European citizens aged 18-25’ rule was the Eiffel Tower, but even that had a discount for this age range, totalling the extremely cheap price of 13 euros to get all the way to the top! This attraction is a must by the way, before I went I personally wasn’t that fussed about making it all the way up, but the view is unbeatable. It also helped us track down certain landmarks: we did not have a clue where the Notre Dame was until we spotted it from high in the sky. This didn’t really help us that much though; things are a lot further away than they look when Paris is laid out below you.
Paris was everything I imagined it would be, beautiful, rich in history, romantic and had mouth-watering croissants. It certainly did not disappoint.
