For my 25th birthday, I finally visited the French capital of Paris. The city of love, baguettes and frog legs!
As someone born in March, I haven’t been able to celebrate my birthday for the past two years.
I turned 23 in my New York apartment while quarantined, so was delivered a birthday cake to my front door and had a corridor party with the mister and two friends. Not quite what I had in mind when I moved to New York six months prior, but it was definitely one to remember, that’s for sure.
And then fast forward 12 months and I was back living in Liverpool and the UK was going through another lockdown which meant no visitors, nowhere open, and a party for two in my flat, once again.
So you can absolutely bet your ass that I was going all out this year for my 25th since I had lost the previous two years. Himself purchased Eurostar tickets to Paris and took me off for the weekend to celebrate my halfway to 50 in style.
Related blog posts to read:
- 15 Paris Books for Those Who Love Paris
- Beyond the Glitz: Day Trips from Monte Carlo to Explore the Enchanting French Riviera
- How to Spend 48 Hours in Vienna, Austria: Travel Guide
- Rome, Italy: How to Spend 48 Hours in the Most Romantic City
- 12 Things You Must See & Do in Krakow, Poland
I also vlogged the entire trip, so if you’d like to watch what we got up to, where we ate, where we stayed and more, make sure to check out my YouTube video below!
I also have a more up to date YouTube vlog when I visited Paris with my best friends in October 2023, which you can watch here.
Getting to Paris
As I said, we took the Eurostar to Paris from London St. Pancreas (my first time on the Eurostar and my first time in Paris) which took around 2 hours, getting into Gar du Norde station in Paris.
I wouldn’t usually say I’m a nervous flyer, but I do always wish my time in the sky away until I’m back on solid ground and flinch at any strange noise or feeling when in the air. So when it came to getting the train, I thought I may be a better traveller.
But then I started to think about the train being in a tunnel underwater and I didn’t like it. I think it’s only all of 20 minutes but the thought of the roof of the tunnel giving way was in the back of my mind the entire time.
We arrived at St. Pancreas around 12.30pm, two hours before our train and queued for quite a while. There did seem to be a lot of missed trains, long queues, and delays. On the plus side, they were very lenient with luggage and how much you took on the train with you.
Traveling wise, I think I would prefer the airport experience over the train.
Where we Stayed in Paris
We stayed at the Hotel Le Relais Saint Charles near the Eiffel Tower. Our room had a view of the top of the Eiffel Tower, which was incredible when lit up at night time.
The hotel was also across the street from the Metro, so couldn’t have been in a better location.
We walked to the Eiffel Tower area both mornings and made our way around the city from there, but it was always an easy place to get back to because of the Metro.
The hotel was small and basic, but the staff were great and it had everything you needed. We were able to leave our luggage there all day on the Sunday as our train wasn’t until 9pm on Sunday night.
Our First Night in Paris
When we arrived in Paris around 6.30pm, we headed to the hotel to check in and then walked to the Eiffel Tower to see it up close for the very first time.
We then walked to Giraffe, which is a famous restaurant with a plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower, in the hopes they might have a reservation but it turned out their plaza was closed for renovations, so it would have been a very expensive meal with no view.
We headed to a restaurant called Les Philosophes in the Marais district which was highly recommended. It was really tasty and the service was amazing. Of course there was an Irish couple at the table next to us as you can’t go anywhere at all without bumping into other Irish people. But otherwise, the restaurant was full of locals.
After a glass of wine or two and some steak frites, it was back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep for the full day ahead on Saturday.
French Breakfast
First thing on the agenda on Saturday morning was locating a French pastry. Luckily there was a bakery directly opposite our hotel, so this ended up being our first port of call on Saturday and Sunday morning.
I grabbed a pain au raisin while himself opted for a pain au chocolat (French accent recommended).
Eiffel Tower
We then walked the quiet streets around the Eiffel Tower before getting to the beast itself. It was eerily quiet around this area for 10am on a Saturday morning. The Eiffel Tower area itself was also quite quiet, but we luckily had amazing weather for a weekend in March.
We had a chilled approach to traveling around the city and grabbed a cappuccino and walked everywhere.
Coffee Break at Cafe Kleber
We walked up to Cafe Kleber which is next to the famous Carette that serves the hot chocolate that you may have seen on Instagram.
Arc de Triomphe & Champs Elysees
After some people watching we headed to the Arc de Triomphe, then walked down the Champs Elysees, calling into Laudree to purchase too many macarons of every flavour they had.
We sampled these whilst walking along the Seine and please tell me a more idyllic Saturday afternoon, I will wait.
Being a Laudree connoisseur and having sampled the selection from the store on the Upper East Side of New York, I can confirm that the Paris selection was a lot better. So would recommend if you’re visiting!
Exploring the Latin Quarter
We walked some more Parisian streets, coming upon Cafe Flore which is an Instagram hot spot. It’s very pretty but had around an hour’s queue to get in, so we kept on walking.
We headed instead to the Latin Quarter which was bustling with people and outdoor eating and drinking. Perfect for us.
We stopped off at Cafe Atlas. Enjoying oysters and steak frites whilst baking in the sun and watching the incredible fashion of the Parisian people.
Book Shopping in Paris
We then traipsed to Shakespeare & Company, a famous English bookstore in the city. We queued for around 10 minutes to get into the store.
Of course I made the wait worthwhile and purchased a tote bag and a copy of Luster by Raven Leilani. You can find my rating and review in the March book reviews blog post.
The Notre Dame
After some book shopping, we headed across the street to see the Notre Dame up close. Someone was playing a beautiful piano melody that set the scene perfectly.
After walking all 50,000 steps it was time to stop at an Irish bar for a drink while people watching. Before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.
A Night at the Moulin Rouge
In the night we were off to the Moulin Rouge! We had tickets to the 11.30pm showing and got all dressed up to sip some champagne and take in the evening’s entertainment.
I would highly, highly recommend going to the Moulin Rouge if you can.
If you’ve seen the West End/Broadway show, you should know it’s nothing like this but more of a variety performance. An incredibly enjoyable evening that I would very much recommend.
A great spot to turn 25!
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