It's not often my family make impromptu trips to Paris, in fact this being our first. Having never been to Paris (besides Disneyland Paris) this was a bit of an adventure for us. An adventure that took us a little while to get use to. Having to catch a 6am flight to Paris was difficult for a family that always appears to run late! Leaving the house at 3:20am in the morning we thought we had plenty of time to just sit around and have BURGER KING for breakfast. Yes, since when did Burger King do breakfast? At 5am in the morning it does not sound too appetising, but their sharing their double sausage sandwich with bacon with my sister seemed totally fine at the time. The hash browns however were delicious. Maybe that is my 5am brain talking, but it really is better than the beloved McDonalds larger versions. So there we are hanging about, eating breakfast casually and what happens? We end up running for the gate as the final call, calls.
Once we arrive in Paris my tired and clueless family decide the easiest option to the centre of Paris and Eiffel Tower is a taxi. This is not the cheapest option I must add. A 20MIN or so journey for $75 euros for 5 people. Once we arrive the queue for the lift up to the Eiffel Tower is ridiculous, it's 9am in the morning! Lazy and tired we decide to avoid the queues and head for the tourist boats instead! These are not extremely expensive, however for a 50min journey along the river for $14 per adult it is not the most purse friendly. The boat we chose did not even have excursions, there is another option where you can!
When in Paris be sure to make lots of pit stops! Touring Paris is extremely tiering especially if you spend the whole day on your feet! Our first pit stop was a restaurant right opposite the Eiffel Tower where the staff are extremely helpful and friendly! They even directed us to our dinner stop in the evening, their version of China Town! They pointed us to the clearest metro stops and even circled and gave us a map. They were definitely our saviours!
After this we made our way to the Metro and went to the famous Arc de Triumph, this was rather beautiful, especially as you come out there is an entertaining group of dancers! This mean't a lovely picture for me to post onto Instagram! What was more exciting for my sisters was the shopping avenue called Avenue De Champs-Elysees, where we came across Laudree. Well actually embarrassingly we asked another tourist who could not understand English, but he still manage to slightly direct us in the right direction. This was incredible building, and the cakes and macaroons even more incredible! The pictures below will show you just how beautiful they were. Despite it not being cheap there was a long queue, and we could not resist. Buying 80 macaroons probably was a little excessive along with two of their cute cakes! However what is one to do in Paris if not splurge on food.
The next stop was Lourve, and guess what lazy us decide to take a tuktuk. The guy driving this was extremely friendly and English excellent, well he was originally from Chelsea so he says. The Lourve looked lovely on this beautiful day, but the queues for these tourist stops are immense. Therefore.. we do we choose to do? Skip going inside.
By this point we had become quite well known with the metro, the system was easy to understand and if you are use to the London Underground System it was not much different! So from there we head off to De Italia where a few asian restaurants were and very close to the the Metro exit too! Our foodie brains should have directed us into an authentic French restaurant but having not had much food throughout the day we decided we wanted Vietnamese. And Oh my, were we starving we ordered 4 starters, and 6 mains between us, finishing most of it off! The pictures below will show you the presentation but unfortunately not the amazing taste it gave. Seriously one of the best places that serve vietnamese that I have tasted, almost competing with my favourite restaurant in Hong Kong.
After dinner and by this point it is 8pm and still light outside we decide to head back to our hotel, this was quite the journey having to make it back towards the airport and taking a bus transfer. Once we arrive we breathe a sigh of relief. Arriving at the Novatel Convention & Wellness Roissy CDG we just all want to get to our rooms and relax, and having saved our bag of macaroons till we return to the hotel we indulge in them. Oh my were they delicious, my favourite pistachio flavour did not disappoint either. As we nodded off to bed we missed exploring the hotel and the various games in the lobby and the spa, however bed was calling and we could not resist.
Here I leave you with a picture of me and my sister!
