Oh la blah - Disappointing Paris!

Hi everyone,

It has been quite a while since I've last written a post, so the plan is to write a 3-part post over the next few days about my holiday adventures from the beginning of this month!

First up: Oh la blah - Disappointing Paris!

So my boyfriend asked me a few months ago, what three places I'd like to visit most in Europe. My answer: Paris, Venice and Rome.

The outcome of this discussion was, that he booked a 10 day holiday weekend for us to go and visit all of those places. First up was Paris.

Now, my expectations of Paris were huge, especially since everyone says that it's 'One of the most romantic cities on earth'!

Upon arriving, we ended up in a rather rough area of the city. Picture army people walking around with machine guns, full grown men walking around kicking bins over out of anger, and a whole lot of alcoholics sitting on benches, drinking and gawking at anything that had legs. And that wasn't even the worst of it: the Metro had a constant smell of wee about it, which was rather unpleasant after a romantic dinner in the nice part of town.

Don't get me wrong, there were also a few nice moments in the city, like a boat tour on the river, climbing up the Eifel Tower, and seeing it glitter and sparkle every hour, on the hour, as it was lit up with shining lights. But was this my favourite place on the holiday? No!

The city has put me off of French food, one particular restaurant served something which resembled a mix between chicken, and pressed organs, but was actually meant to be fish - I still feel sick thinking about it now!
In another particular restaurant, the waiter was actually trying to tell us that a corking bottle of wine was, in fact, not corking at all but that the 2009 wine was just quite old...
On the bright side, I have quite a few funny stories to look back on, after stripping away the aggravation, aching feet (from hours upon hours of walking around the city, going sightseeing and more), and the smell of wee!

Other things that happened in Paris? I met my boyfriends cousin, who took us to some dodgy looking (and smelling!!) "underground" bar. The bar was covered in graffiti inside and out, but the cocktails (although strong) were pretty good.
I had breakfast on the Champs Elysees (which I've always wanted to do), I saw and climbed up the Eifel Tower, I went up the Arc de Triomphe, went to see Notre Dame cathedral, and saw various amazing views of Paris by day and night!

All in all, even though I didn't love Paris, it's still worth a visit and definitely an interesting experience.

Next on the 3-part post: Rome Wasn't Built in a Day - But Visited in Two!

As Always, Stay Tuned!

- A