Alright so I’m a little behind here, since I actually went to Paris a couple weeks ago. Honestly, to me, this is a hard city to write about visiting because I just feel the city to be a bit underwhelming. It might just be that I first went to Paris when I was in Europe for the first time and thought it was amazing, but after traveling more, it’s lost its luster a little. However, I did get to meet up with Courtney, my travel buddy, here. After a little bit of a rough morning, which involved a missed train due to an open bar the night before, we met up and caught the metro to our hostel.

For this stop we chose to stay at Generator, as we heard it was a very social. However, I am not sure it is social in the aspect of making friends if you’re traveling solo. They have parties most nights, especially on the weekends. So if you’re going to Paris with your friends to party, I’d recommend this hostel. In the end, we were glad we chose this spot to stay, as it was really close to the metro.

While in Paris, we took the metro everywhere. Most of the large attractions are just far enough away that the walks between are a bit long (30-40 min average). In addition to all the attractions to see, like the Eiffel Tour, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame and the Louvre, I’d recommend spending some time in Montmartre. We did a walking tour through this part of the city and learned so much (find information about it HERE). This tour was especially great because it kept us off of the main drag near Sacré Cœur, the basilica in this quarter of Paris. This is probably one of the best walking tours I’ve ever done and will probably do it again when I bring my parents and boyfriend to Paris later this year.

Here are some photos from Notre Dame de Paris. The star that I’m on in the middle is something you stand on to signify that you’ll come back to Paris one day.

And some photos from the walking tour and other sights in Paris

Our tour guide also gave us some tips, including a great lunch place, and told us to head to the Louvre in the evenings on the days it’s open late. When we went to the Louvre, we actually entered through the metro station, which was really nice because it seemed less hectic than the last time I went and entered from the pyramid. While you could wander the art museum for hours, we were there for about an hour and a half. We just focused on seeing some of the most famous pieces, as well as my favorite painting, The Raft of the Medusa by Eugene Delacroix. It’s kind of a weird painting but has a very interesting story behind it. I’m not one of those people who takes excessive pictures of art so you can look it up for yourself (you’ll find a better quality one than I’d take anyways. I do have a photo of myself outside the Louvre and the Mona Lisa crowd below though.

While Courtney and I weren’t particularly comfortable going out and drinking at night in Paris, we did decide to have a few drinks at a beach area close to our hostel and then a couple back at our hostel. While in the hostel bar, I ran into a guy named Cam who looked very familiar from my university in Wisconsin. When I asked him where he was from, he immediately recognized me from a club we were both in. And then a french women sat down with us and started talking. After speaking with her for a few minutes, I discovered she had lived in my hometown as a child, which is CRAZY. Most Europeans I have encountered don’t know where the big city, Milwaukee, is and I live about 45 minutes outside of it. It is crazy how small the world is sometimes.

That was our last night in Paris, and then we were off to Interlaken, Switzerland. Paris was great, but we were really looking forward to a quieter city where we could do some hiking.