PARIS | Day 1

We got to Paris at lunchtime on our first day after a smooth journey on the Eurostar (with only one cardigan left on the train…) followed by a couple of metros that took us to our hotel.

The hotel we stayed at was ‘Lux Hotel Picpus’ which is located in the 12^th district, slightly out of the way from the busy centre, which meant it was more affordable and the area felt a lot safer. I would thoroughly recommend staying here as the metro station was just across the road so it was easy to access any parts of the city and Picpus was a lovely area. The hotel itself was also very nice, I shared a double room with a friend and we found it very comfortable and clean and would definitely stay there again!

After exploring Picpus to make sure we knew our surroundings (to avoid getting lost later in the dark), we then headed to La Galeries Lafayette. This was honestly the most spectacular shopping centre I have ever been to, and as you can see from the photos it had the most incredible ceiling. Unfortunately, by this point we were all pretty hungry so trudging around a busy store looking at items that were most definitely out of our budget wasn’t the best idea. We ended up escaping the crowds and after much deliberating over various French menus (and even leaving one café we sat down in after finding out it was not how we expected it…), we got a crepe from a man on the side of the road, which put us all in much better moods!

We then headed back to Picpus and decided that rather than traveling more to find a restaurant elsewhere, we would try the Italian just down the road from our hotel. It seemed strange to go to an Italian restaurant whilst in France but as vegetarian options were definitely lacking in a lot of places, we thought it would be better to play it safe! We absolutely loved ‘Restaurant da Pippo’, so much so that we almost went there the second night too! Our waiter was so friendly, the food tasted great and was inexpensive, and it was such a convenient find as it was pretty much next to our hotel!

After mountains of pasta, and our energy refuelled, we decided to head out to see the Eiffel Tower! If you’re planning a trip to Paris, I would definitely recommend your first viewing of the tower to be at night because honestly the lights are what make it look so special. We were all in absolute awe at it (so much bigger than I expected it to be!) and took the obligatory photos before getting the metro back again and crashing out in our hotel beds.

I hope you’re enjoying this little series of posts documenting my trip, and Paris days 2 and 3 posts will be up very soon! I’m always interested in new places to visit so please let me know in the comments your favourite holiday destination or if you’ve also been to Paris, what was your favourite thing that you did?

Thanks for reading!

Poppy x