Our Journey # 5 – The TravelFreaks go to Paris, the city of love, food, and history…

After our adventures in Bali we took a 20 hour flight to Paris to visit Ange’s family and for Nicole’s first experience of Europe. We only stayed a week in Paris because we had plans to move to Jersey, the Channel Island. It’s a beautiful little island between France and England.

To describe PARIS in one word we would say CRAZY!!! It’s alive, and buzzing with the vibrant French culture, it’s old fashioned and historical, yet modern and glamorous… you can feel and see that the city has been slowly getting bigger from the last thousands of years of history.

When we stepped off the plane we were met by Ange’s sister. She took us on the scenic route back to their beautiful little flat on the outskirts of Paris. While we were en route, her fiancé was busy preparing a true French breakfast for us.. We walked in the door and straight to the table for fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, and a multitude of French pastries like croissants and pain-au-chocolat. We felt like royalty after our couple of weeks on the road!

Ange’s parents and brother arrived in Paris shortly after we did so the whole family took us first to the Eiffel tower and damn it’s such a must-see for any first timer to Paris!!! It is 300 meters high and they build it in 1887, amazing!! So up and up we went.. up, up and up some more to embrace the magnificent view of the city. For sure don’t go up there if you’re afraid of heights.. or maybe do it anyway lol it’s so worth it!! The views from the ground are still pretty spectacular though, it’s a beautiful area and there are lots of cart stalls set up selling crepes with all kinds of delicious treats rolled inside like Nutella or you could go for a sandwich made on a delicious light and crispy baguette bread and picnic with a view of the tower!

In the afternoon we decided to get lost in the old part of town and decided to drink and eat our way through it..why not eh?! It’s freaking Paris!!!

So we drank the French beer Kronenbourg 1664, ate a true beef tartare the French way, appreciated a true “Soupe a l’Onion” (French onion soup), and of course, lots and LOTS of Fromage (cheese)!!!! OMG cheeses in France are unreal!!! A fun fact about cheese and French people, they’re actually the number one consumers of cheese in the world!!!.. How do they all stay so skinny?! We finished off our afternoon of snacking and sipping with a few petit French Macarons, and hopped back to exploring the city.

Nicole was amazed by how beautiful Paris is but was also shocked by how the capital was so dirty. The root of the problem is that French people don’t pick up after their dogs lol. A funny fact about Paris is, about a dozen people every year end up in the hospital because of slipping and falling in dog shit HAHAHA!! A truth we learned from a book, “A year in the Merde,” a hilarious book, it’s full of funny insights about life in Paris for an outsider.

We made a trip to Notre-Dames Cathedral and it’s an absolutely incredible sight! It is one of the biggest and most stunning cathedrals in the world and the details of the stone work and the stained glass are breathtaking.

We obviously couldn’t leave Paris without also seeing le Louvres, perhaps the most famous museum in the world. Collected there under one roof are thousands of history’s most coveted paintings, statues, carvings, sculptures and jewellery. They say that if you spent 30 seconds at each piece at le Louvres, you’d need a decade to see it all. Clearly, there’s a lot to take in. There’s always a massively long line to get in to the museum.. The true French people hate to wait in lines so you know it’s mostly tourists in that line.. Ange decided to put on his French hat for a few minutes and pretended to take a pictures close to the entrance.. Next thing we knew, we’d snuck in behind a group of Asian people on a tour.

We spent a bit more time touring around the sights of the city. We went to see les Champs Elyse and Le Sacrer Coeur, a beautiful church on a hilltop. It was a bit of a hike up a ton of stairs, but when you get up to the church, the views of the city are absolutely stunning! This was all well and good, but the finale of our historical adventures through Paris HAD to be the Palace of Versailles!!! What a way to end the trip!!!

They started to build the palace in the 11th century, Versailles was the seat of political power in the Kingdom of France from 1682, when King Louis XIV moved the royal court from Paris. It is most famous for its unique Hall of Mirrors (see pics). The Palace of Versailles is the perfect representation of the finest of French artistry, history, and culture. You truly feel in awe of the beautiful workmanship everywhere in the palace. It’s like you have stepped back in another time when you wander there, just amazing!

Our final mealtime adventure in Paris was to an all-you-can-eat medieval restaurant for traditional French cooking.. That definitely took a few years off our lives!! Ohhhh man, so much food! The restaurant is very Lord of the Rings style, with all of the furnishings old-fashioned and made of wood. Dry meat and vegetables hang from the ceiling everywhere. Among other things, the menu included dry sausage, terrine, pate, and jerky made from a variety of different meats such as donkey, boar, pig, and goose and we ate from bowls made of hollowed out French bread.. Delish!!!!

Et Voila after a week of discovering, eating and drinking our way through the city of Paris, we were ready to get back to reality and have another new beginning in a foreign land!!! Our next destination is Jersey Island for a fresh new adventure! Stay tuned for the story of the prettiest little island in the English Channel with the TravelFreaks.. Bonne Nuit :) :)