Europe: Paris

The bf and i were browsing through our Europe trip photos the other day and it dawned on me that after 4 months, i have only blogged about our stay in Lyon.... so here i am, updating about the time we spent in PARIS.

Took a short flight (around 2 hours?) from Lyon to Paris CDG airport and it was such a long journey to where my brother and his friends (An hour plus of train ride) were staying. What's worse was that the train was so compact and there wasn't any space for us to put our luggage while we were seating so we had to squeeze even more.

So anw, after the long travelling time, we finally reached Trocadero (the nearest station to the airbnb apartment which my bro rented). I must clarify that after 4 months, i can't really rmb the exact places/malls/stations i went to so i'll just include the names of the places if i rmb! Ok but anw, my bro came to pick us up from the station and i rmb being super happy and excited to see him hehehe just thinking about it makes me miss the times in Paris so much D: 

Couldn't resist taking photos of their (common) buildings cause i loved the architecture and just how it all looks. Why doesn't Sg have houses/buildings like these 

Dropped off our baggages at the apartment (which was so pretty btw but i forgot to take photos boooo) and headed to the Arc de Triomphe, which was only 10-15mins walk away :) 

And that's when we did smth SUPER EMBARASSING. We saw the arc and we were so excited that we started taking LOTS OF photos of/with it..... then we realised.... that we've been taking the SIDE of the arc all along, not the front view..... hahahaha and there i was, wondering why the arc looked so narrow (bottom pic)

But anw, we realised our silly mistake (after taking lots of photos) and proceeded with our second round of photo taking at the front view xD

 

Met up with Zhiwei and Wendy (bro's friends) and went to look for a place to have dinner at! Settled for a cafe which looked promising but the food was really.... quite bad lol. I vaguely rmb not liking my pasta, and the soup was a tad too salty and everyone agreed that this was the worst place we had eaten at in Paris haha. 

Went to roam around after dinner and i'm so glad that we decided to travel during the winter/xmas season because........... XMAS MARKETS!!!! ROWS AND ROWS OF AWESOME STALLS SELLING REALLY COOL SHIT OMG I WAS SO STOKED.

Pretty lights

It started raining while we were walking halfway so we had to make a U-turn :( But we walked for quite a bit already so i wasn't that bummed. Decided to go try the macarons at an authentic Laduree restaurant.

I would say it was not bad but nothing really special about it? My favourite has got to be the truffle macarons that we tried from Pierre Herme : )

Decided to climb up the Arc de Triomphe afterwards and boy was it tiring, the spiral staircase seemed like it was never going to end lol.

View from the top of the arc :) Photos didn't turn out quite as nice, especially the one of the Eiffel tower from afar because the weather wasn't that good and there was mist just everywhere

The 2nd day in Paris was when we experienced the best weather - cooling with clear and bright skies. 

Went to visit the Notre Dame cathedral! Before anything else, i would just like to say that if you're going to Paris, please do not try to cheat by getting child tickets, because that's exactly what we did and we got caught and had to pay fines of SGD $60 each sob sobs. Lesson learnt. But in our defence, we were not being kiam siap or anything ok it's just that the train fares are really expensiveeeeee :(

Ok back to the Notre Dame!

Absolutely loving my building-against-sky photos : )

Went to La Vallee Village in the evening for some outlet shopping hehehe i went crazy there ^^ Took us quite some time to find and travel there, like 2 hours? And there was a ginormous mall right beside it but we had no time to shop at the mall cause it was too late already boooooo  

The third day in Paris was spent at Lovelock bridge, Louvre (went there solely for photo-taking lol) and went shopping for the rest of the day at.............hmm i forgot where it was haha

Didn't manage to go inside the Louvre to see Mona Lisa because it was CLOSED. Of all dayssssss, it chose to be closed on the day that we went..... But anws, was not too sad about it 'cause i wasn't that keen about looking at art pieces in the first place. 

Walked to the Lovelock Bridge afterwards, which was just opposite the Louvre? If i rmb correctly... 

The Bridge was a tad disappointing though. I expected a much nicer bridge but it turned out to be so ordinary and the railings where people locked their locks looked just like rows and rows of ugly gates D: It looks so much more romantic in pictures.

Locks of all shapes and sizes

The bf locking our lock on the bridge heehee

Threw the keys far far away so our love will be locked FOREVERRRRRR 

Spent the fourth (and last) day visiting the Eiffel Tower! As you can see from the photos, the weather was not in our favour.. It was so dark and gloomy and it just kept drizzling the whole day :(

Oh but anw, we booked our tickets in advance online so we didn't have to join the queue :) Queue wasn't that long when we went though, probably because of the relatively bad weather. 

Waiting for the elevator 

The elevator stops at 2 different points: Halfway and at the top. 

So this was the view at the halfway mark, where it was still enclosed (explains the raindrops on the windows)

And this was at the top of the Eiffel tower, where it was open-air. There was such a huge difference in the temperature when we stepped out of the indoor area. The wind was so damn strong, like it probably could have pushed me backwards if i didn't resist? Hahaha i was so afraid that i would get blown away xD

A few artsy fartsy shots before we left the Eiffel tower

Just look at how grey the skies were

BEST CREME BRULEÉ EVER