Why I wanted to visit Paris

I can’t tell you how long I’ve had Paris on my bucket list. I remember seeing it on TV when I was young and thinking how beautiful the Eiffel Tower was. For many years, that is all I thought Paris was about. That is all I cared about seeing if I ever went. Little did I know there was much more to see.

I was planning a two week trip to visit different places, so the time in Paris was just a couple of days. I stopped in London first for a few days and then took the train to Paris.

When we left the train station in Paris, I was anxiously waiting to see the Eiffel Tower. I was turning my head every direction to see if I could just get a glimpse of it. Then it happen, I saw the top of it for a split second. I think I could have been happy with just that much. The first time I saw it, I thought my heart was going to come out of my chest. It was just a quick glimpse, but still so exciting.

I’m usually one of those people that put a tight budget on accommodations, but this time, I loosened the belt. It was still tight, but I was only two blocks away from the Eiffel Tower and I could see it when I walked out of my hotel. This was worth every penny.

We stayed at the Le Derby Alma. It was a very nice hotel with a friendly staff. One of the things I liked most was that they provided you with a cell phone you could use to locate restaurants, shopping, and also use for directions. The first thing after checking into our hotel was to go up in the Eiffel Tower. I bought our tickets before hand to go up into the summit, so I didn’t have to wait in the long lines. I would recommend to do this. It saved a lot of time.

We went up to the first landing for about twenty minutes and explored. The view was beautiful. While you are up there, enjoy a glass of champagne and the macaroons.

The view was nice, but it only gets better at the top. You could see so much. I could have stayed up there all day. The only mistake that I made was not choosing a later time to enjoy the sunset.

Notre Dame in the distance

Arc de Triomphe

The Louvre

After we left the Eiffel Tower, we were looking for a place to eat. Keep in mind that Paris has a different schedule for restaurants. They close in the afternoon and open back up in the evening. I would make sure you keep snacks with you. So after we ate that night, we decided to take a walk to the other side of the Seine River. Oh, what a sight. It took my breath away.

We probably sat here for about an hour and enjoy the view and of course, took a lot of photos.

On our way back, we stopped at a crepe truck and had to try it out (get the Nutella. Yum!). We noticed this little area with pictures and flowers and had to take a look. It was pictures of Princess Diana. It was right above the area where her car crashed. It was a sad tragedy. I remember watching the news when I was younger.

Since we were going to Paris, we had to go to Disneyland Paris. We try and go every chance we can go to Disney World at home and hopefully one day be able to go to all six parks. So, this was a must when we went. We took the train to the park. We only had to switch trains once, so it wasn’t too bad. Fourty-five minutes later, we were at the parks. It was also the 25th anniversary for this park.

We chose to do both parks in one day. I was a little disappointed at first because I was comparing it to Walt Disney World and you can’t do that. Each park is unique. I appreciated it more later on. I did like that you could go back and forth between the two parks and were in walking distance. I do recommend you ride the rides that are not at the other parks and then ride the similar rides after. I would also take advantage of the single ride lines if you don’t mind riding with someone else for just a few minutes. We did this and was able to get on some of the rides faster. I loved the castle here better. You could explore and read all about sleeping beauty and you can also see the dragon that protects the castle. If you have any questions on the parks, leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer it.

After a long day, we were exhausted. It seemed like the train ride took forever. The stations confused me more on the way back and got off at the wrong station. It ended up working out great, because I was able to see the Arc de Triomphe at night. My feet were ready to turn in after the long day.

On our last day, with tickets in our hand, we were finally able to see the Louvre. This is another place I recommend to buy tickets ahead of time. It took us about ten minutes to get in with our advance tickets. Trying to find the Mona Lisa was a maze. There are so many different artifacts to see. We could spend hours in there, but was on a time crunch.

Mona Lisa

Stone Moai statue from Easter Island

Visit the Mummy Exhibit

We did the hop on/ hop off bus to see what we could before we had to catch our plane to our next destination.

Did some last minute shopping and off to Venice we go.

I’m going to Paris again in December and hope to see what I didn’t get to see last time. Please leave a comment on some must sees and I will try to see next trip. Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed.