Strolling in Paris - January 2015
As a British National I had always felt a little ashamed
that I had never been to Paris before, it is so easy to get to and has so
much to offer. Even if you do not go with family and friends, there use to be school trips or in my case a 'near-trip', this was in secondary school but sadly it got cancelled at the last minute as there was not enough interest. 9 years later I
finally got to visit Paris in January 2015.
Train: Me and my friend travelled using Eurostar which is
a 2 hour journey from London St Pancreas to Paris Gare du Nord. Going through
check-in and security was fairly simple however there was a 10 minute delay
with our train. The seats are quite spacious and there is a shelf on top for
small luggage. There is also a space for bigger luggage near the entrance
doors.
Stay: We stayed at Comfort Hotel however since then it has been sold to another company and is now known as Hotel Brady Gare de l’Est. The hotel is only 10 minutes’ walk away from Gare du Nord station and was easy to find. It also has 2 metro stations about 3-5 minutes’ walk away which is very convenient however the area itself is quite ghetto. When we first arrived we saw a women sitting distressed on the floor with a policeman and then a few steps ahead another women walking with blood dripping down her face. What a sight to welcome us to Paris. It is a budget hotel so you get what you pay for, the room was tiny but the bathroom was fairly spacious and there was no kettle or tea available in the room.
Do: Les Café des Chats or Cat Café. There are 2
branches in Paris and they use to take reservations so guess what… Yes it was
already fully booked when we went. However now they have taken out the
reservations system (yay) so you can just stroll in whenever, to have a spot of lunch or a drink with the cats roaming about.
Stay: We stayed at Comfort Hotel however since then it has been sold to another company and is now known as Hotel Brady Gare de l’Est. The hotel is only 10 minutes’ walk away from Gare du Nord station and was easy to find. It also has 2 metro stations about 3-5 minutes’ walk away which is very convenient however the area itself is quite ghetto. When we first arrived we saw a women sitting distressed on the floor with a policeman and then a few steps ahead another women walking with blood dripping down her face. What a sight to welcome us to Paris. It is a budget hotel so you get what you pay for, the room was tiny but the bathroom was fairly spacious and there was no kettle or tea available in the room.
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Visit Pont des Arts (bridge). Even though the ‘love-locks’ do not exist now, the views from here are beautiful.
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Notre Dame Cathedral is free to visit for
everyone but for me the main reason to visit, was to go up to the towers. The queue
for the towers is on the left-hand side of the cathedral and it is free entry
for EU citizens under 25 years old, otherwise entry is €10. Groups of around 20
people were being let in at a time and the leaflet that staff hand out to you
as you are queuing, suggest the tour can take up to 40 minutes.
It is somewhat silly but I have to admit we
were not mentally prepared for the amount of steps that the tower has (422
steps), spiral steps nonetheless. It was actually quite funny because it seemed
that the other tourists were not mentally prepared either, most of our group
were all huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. One lady did really
scare me though, she had to stop several times but the sweet thing was everyone
was encouraging and cheering her on to continue. Once you get to top, you will find that it was all worth it, the view is absolutely stunning. There
were 3 checkpoints, first is the souvenir shop, then to the gargoyles and
last is the very top. As a person with acrophobia I had to waddle around
the last checkpoint but I done it!
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Last but in no sense the least is the Eiffel
Tower. I actually did not have high expectations for this monument because it
is so popular but getting up close to it I could see why people would be in awe. Originally I had wanted to visit at sunset but at night with all the
lights on, it showed another side of its beauty. Also the view from the Eiffel
Tower is now one of my favourite night-scape views.
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Eat: Zenyama, is a Japanese restaurant close to Notre Dame Cathedral. One of the things that people always comment on Paris is how expensive it is but this restaurant was such good value! They had a number of set menus starting from €8 which included miso soup, radish salad, rice and then your main dish (but my set also had sushi). The sushi rice was slightly sweet but everything else was lovely.
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You cannot visit Paris without trying escargot
or snails. In Chinese cuisine we also eat snails but they are usually chopped
to smaller pieces and cooked in a curry sauce so even for me pulling out the
whole snail from its shell was new and a tad scary. The meat was so much bigger
than I thought, I could not look at it in too much detail otherwise I would not
have put it into my mouth. The sauce was quite buttery and as usual the snail
is chewy but at least I can tick that off my list now.
I was researching for places for dinner and found Big Fernand which has amazing reviews for its burgers and it was only 5 minutes away from our hotel! We did have to walk through a dodgy alleyway which is full of Indian restaurants and had waiters cat-calling us because apparently that is a sure-fire way to entice customers but we got there in the end. The restaurant is very small so there was a queue but a staff-member stands outside to greet you in whatever language you speak. We were not sure of which burger to choose so he recommended the Le Bartholomé burger (beef and bacon) which is what we got plus chips and a drink. We were not disappointed! The burger was packed with flavour, was not overly-greasy and that bun! The service too was absolutely amazing, so friendly and fast. They also have a branch in London now, which I have yet to visit.
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I have heard many times that the best macarons
are by Pierre Hermé so when I saw the store in Galleries Lafayette, I had to
try it for myself. Verdict is, I disagree, I actually prefer Ladurée but each to
their own.
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On my research on Paris I had found Sadaharu
Aoki, a patisserie selling matcha desserts so of course I had to make a stop
there. I got the earl grey macaron and the matcha maracon, the matcha macaron was
strong in flavour which I absolutely loved. I also pigged out and got the
caramel matcha tart and the sesame slice. The tart had too much caramel for my
liking which made it much too sweet for me but scrape that out and it was
perfect. The sesame slice was delicious, I think it was made up of vanilla mousse, matcha
mousse, sesame mousse and then a sesame seed cracker on the bottom.
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That is all from my Paris trip, au revoir for now ₍₍ ( ๑॔˃̶◡ ˂̶๑॓)◞♡
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