This article was written by Amy Rogers, a student from London who went backpacking in Paris in August 2010:
The general feel of Paris was that it is huge and that three days isn’t enough. The people are generally nice as long as you attempt to speak a little bit of the language. They always appreciate the effort, even if it isn’t any good. It is a bit of an artistic city with lots of museums, some are free some aren’t, so for anyone who loves art it is perfect.
We stayed in a hostel called ‘The Three Ducks’, which was a little bit out of the main city, but it was right by a metro stop, so it was very easy to get to the centre, plus you could walk to the Eiffel tower in about 10 minutes. The ‘Three Ducks Hostel’ was lovely, it gave you breakfast as well, which not all hostels do. They charged us around €25 per night, which was about average when compared to the rest of Europe.
The food and drink was quite expensive, but obviously that’s only if you eat out. You can pop to the supermarket and grab something from there, but we wanted to try snails (escargots) so we did eat out. They were lovely! Just a bit slimy, but worth the money!
Main attractions would obviously be the Eiffel tower, which I recommend going to the very top of, also another gorgeous view of the city can be seen from ‘sacre coeur’, which is based in the north of Paris in Montmartre. It is a cathedral on top of a hill with a view of the Eiffel tower and it costs €5 to walk up it. The Louvre is also very good to visit and with a European Passport it is free to get in, as long as it is valid and you show it on entrance. Then there is Notre Dame, which is a stunning building.
Another place we were told about that we didn’t get to visit is the Catacombs in the south of Paris, which is just a cemetery full of bones, but is meant to be a good day visit. Also we did meet a guy who did a day visit to Luxembourg from Paris and really enjoyed it and loved it’s history.
Comments on this entry are closed.