Starting today we are going to be sharing our 35mm film photos (with a few iPhone photos thrown in) from our France and Italy trip in 2019! After we got back from Europe we were asked quite a few times about what cities to visit, what to do, and where to stay- so we decided we needed to do a blog series! Over the next few weeks we are going to go city by city and share a little bit about our itinerary and our favorite recommendations.
Paris, France- Day 1
We arrived in Paris with about 3 hours of sleep but knew we needed to power through to combat the jet lag! We cannot recommend enough to avoid napping at random times when you arrive in Europe and to wait until it is a normal time to go to bed so that you can reset your internal clock. This saved us and we had little to no jet lag! We stayed in the cutest little Airbnb (happy to give anyone interested the link) that was located in the République area of Paris and was conveniently within walking distance to Notre Dame and the Louvre.
Our first stop after checking into our Airbnb was to the first of many coffee shops of the trip, Fragments. This is a tiny, picturesque cafe with amazing espresso and a super cozy atmosphere. After refueling with a cappuccino, we made our way to Notre Dame. While taking in the views and taking photos on every street corner, it started to rain and we ended up drenched and seeking shelter with everyone else in Paris under whatever overhang we could find. Once the rain cleared we made our way to the metro to head to the Eiffel Tower! We arrived at Trocadero and of course had to visit a crepe stand for dinner. Two ham and cheese and one Nutella crepe later, we began our walk down to the Eiffel Tower. We highly suggest when visiting the Eiffel Tower to arrive right before sunset so to be able to see it in daylight as well as once it gets dark!
We had tickets to the summit, and if you’ve never been it is absolutely worth it to see the entirety of Paris (as long as you don’t mind rickety old elevators)! Being able to end our day with sunset at the top of the Eiffel Tower was the perfect way kick off of our Europe trip, so surreal! And we were even able to FaceTime our parents to share the view (the Eiffel Tower has free wifi from the summit)! Once the sun had set we walked towards the Trocadero Gardens to get a great vantage point of the tower in all her sparkling glory. Every hour on the hour the Eiffel Tower twinkles and it is the most magical thing we have ever experienced!
Exhausted from a day a travel and excited for the rest of the trip we headed back to our Airbnb to catch up on some sleep and to get ready for another day in Paris!
