Off to Paris!

Our train to get to Paris was so easy! I booked our tickets using the app Trainline and I secured us seats on the EuroStar train from London St.-Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord. It was so easy to secure the tickets and to navigate the train station. We got on the train quickly and we were off to Paris!

Anyone who knows me somewhat well can tell you that Paris is my favorite city in the world. I went there 10 years ago with my family and I fell in love. I was incredibly inspired by the romantic architecture, the cafe’s on every corner of every street, the incredible fashion and the ability to roam the streets for hours. I hadn’t been back to Paris since, and my husband can 100% back me up on this, I dream about Paris… all day. every day. I follow these incredible bloggers based in Paris (Paris in Four Months is my fave!) and I would watch their Instagram stories just strolling the streets of Paris and I would have extreme envy and I wanted to be there so badly it hurt.

As we were on the train, we were still a long ways away and I was already looking as far as my eye could see for the Eiffel Tower. I was a jumping jelly bean, my feet wouldn’t stop bouncing! I felt like a little girl going to Disneyland for the first time searching for the castle. I had my chocolate croissant and latte from Pret, but I think it went cold before I was able to drink it because I was so distracted!

One of the things I love most about Justin is he is always extremely aware of his surroundings. He has trouble sleeping at night, so he is always researching things and learning about new subjects. He had seen online many times to be aware of all of the people crowded outside of the train station in Paris. The pick pocketers, the fake taxi scams, etc… He made sure all of our personal and valuable belongings were somewhere no one could reach. We immediately hopped off the train, kept our heads down and went straight to the taxi line. We piled in the taxi and were on our way to the Airbnb. Our flat was only supposed to be a 20 minute drive from the station, however, we were not aware that there was a very large parade going on on all the bridges that we needed to get on to get to the flat. €50 later, we were no where close. We were already so late to meet our Airbnb host and our driver was getting more and more noticeably irritated. He turned around and said to us “do you know how to use the metro? I can’t do this.” He basically kicked us out of his taxi. Luckily we were right by a metro line, so we thought it would be easy to get on. We thought wrong… We had no idea which line to take, we were so lost. It took us another hour to get to the flat after what should have been a 20 minute cab ride due to the parade.

When we arrived to our flat, we were greeted by our amazing Airbnb host, Isabelle! I had been speaking with Isabelle for a few months since we booked her gorgeous flat. Since our first Airbnb experience in London didn’t go so well, I was a little nervous, not going to lie! The second we met her, all of my nerves went out the window. She already treated me like family. She made me feel like I just arrived at my aunts house and sat us down to hear all about our travels and our wedding. She gave us a tour of the flat and was on her way! We had a whole plan to go explore the city, but after our long day of traveling and trekking through the streets of Paris with our extremely heavy suitcases (sorry Justin), we went across the street to the market, got a bottle of wine (a few bottles…) and some easy pasta to make at home. We were definitely not in the mood to explore the city quite yet as my feet were on FIRE. I made the horrible mistake of not breaking in my new tennis shoes before our trip, but I had never had a problem with this brand before! By the end of the first day I wore them in London, I completely cut up and bruised the back of my ankles in these shoes. Poor Justin had to deal with my limping and needing to adjust my band aids and socks every other block.

We were SO happy to be at the flat, listening to the rain, watching a movie and drinking our wine. Even though we were just in the flat and hadn’t really seen much of Paris yet, I was so happy to be in this beautiful city. I could already feel that feeling I had the first time I was in Paris, 10 years ago.

Justin and I cannot recommend this Airbnb enough. Isabelle was so wonderful and truly made us feel right at home. The location could not have been more perfect. It was a 2 minutes walk to the metro that could get you everywhere. We truly felt like we were in an authentic, Parisian home. It was also right across the street from a mall! My suit case was FULL of dresses that I had planned for a year from Anthropologie, Gal Meets Glam, Free People, etc, however, little did we know, the weather in London AND Paris was way too cold to keep wearing sun dresses… Luckily I brought a couple sweaters and a jacket to wear, but this mall really came in handy when I needed to purchase a few more sweaters!

See the link here for the Airbnb listing! If you are ever in Paris and prefer Airbnb vs hotel, please check out Isabelle’s place!