After spending an amazing 12 hour layover in Copenhagen, we finally touched down in Paris! For the entire trip, we had been tracking our luggage via our AirTags, and had discovered after the first leg (KL to BKK) that my bags had been left behind in Kuala Lumpur. When we touched down in Paris, I went over to the lost baggage desk to fill out my form while Saz waited for her bag. As I was filling out the missing luggage request form, Saz called me to tell me that my bag had arrived!! Confused, I walked back to the baggage claim to confirm. Turns out, somebody in the KL airport must’ve opened my bag, removed my AirTag and zipped it back up? Nothing else was missing, and the AirTag is still actively showing at the KL airport. A mystery for the ages.
Our flight landed in Paris around 9 pm, so we were fully expecting it to be a bit of a harrowing journey navigating Parisian public transport in the dark. To our surprise, the sun was still shining so bright, it looked like the middle of the day. We had been in Asia near the equator for so long that we were accustomed to 12 hour days. It was such a pleasant surprise for it to still be so light out.
We were Couchsurfing for the first time in Paris, so we coordinated with our host Jonas and took the metro over to his place. We were blown away when we arrived at his apartment – right in the centre of Paris, a block away from the Seine and the Louvre.
We settled into our room, had a shower, and got chatting with Jonas. He is from Germany, and has been living in Paris for the past 2 years. Despite it being 11 pm already, Jonas took us on a little walking tour of his neighbourhood. We walked along the Seine and gazed at the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance. After our nice walk, Jonas took us to his hole in the wall neighbourhood bar, Bar A La Tour, and we had a glass of wine and chatted the night away.
The next morning was a beautiful Saturday morning, and we had plans to spend the day with our Parisian friends, Romy and Chris, who we had met on our Big Dream Boat Man boat tour in the Philippines. We messaged Romy and Chris to meet for lunch, and we invited Jonas along as well.
On the way to the restaurant, we walked through the Louvre. The sheer magnitude of the museum was incredible to see, and the architecture of the buildings were absolutely beautiful.
Jonas had previously lived in Korea, and was a huge fan of authentic Korean food so he suggested we get Korean BBQ for lunch.
After a delicious Korean BBQ lunch, we continued on our walking tour of Paris. Romy is addicted to chocolate, so we had to make a quick pit stop in the Lindt store. We were able to taste test a bunch of their flavours, some of which were weirder than others!
The next stop on our Tour de Paris was the rooftop terrace of the Galeries Lafayette mall. This is an amazing rooftop viewpoint of Paris that is completely free. Landmarks you can spot include the Paris Opera House, Sacre Coeur, and Eiffel Tower.
Jonas left to meet up with a friend, so Romy, Chris, Saz, and I headed to the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre district. We took our time wandering through the cute streets of the Montmartre district, saw the I Love You Wall, and checked out the little cafes in the area.
It was quite busy at the Sacre Coeur, but still amazing to see in person! We sat on the steps outside, enjoying the view of the city on a beautiful blue sky day.
After all of our walking to and around the Sacre Couer, we were craving a little treat! Romy took us to get ice cream at one of her favourite places in the city. The owner explained that his vanilla was made with authentic Tahitian Vanilla, and was specially imported from French Polynesia. The ice cream was incredible. The shop also sold croissants, and we had our first authentic Parisian croissant.
Romy and Chris continued their walking tour by leading us through the adorable streets of Paris and the Royal Palace.
We stumbled across the most charming square where a band was playing and people were dancing in the streets! So cute! So Paris!
We decided to pick up some beers and relax along the Seine. We found a spot right next to the Alexander III bridge, with an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower. My friend from high school, Ha Na, was coincidentally also in Paris so she came and met up with us as well.
The vibes along the river were amazing, but it started to drizzle so we had to make moves. Romy and Chris decided to take us to a nice bar in the Latin Quarter, where we could experience a Parisian aperitif.
We ended up at a cozy bar with outdoor seating in the Latin Quarter, where I tried my first Aperol Spritz! We stayed chatting, eating, and drinking for hours until the sun went down. It was an amazing first day in Paris!
The next morning, we had a lazy morning and got pastries with Jonas from the boulangerie down the street, Merci Jerome, for breakfast. Jonas took us to the Centre Pompidou, where the top floor also has a nice viewpoint over Paris. We could see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and Napoleons Tomb.
We strolled through the Jewish Quarters and explored the little shops/stalls in that area. We then found a cute little outdoor bar right next to the river, so we got beers and sat along the river chatting.
After our beers, we walked to L’île de la Cité, the island in the Seine that the Notre Dame is located on. We got to see the impressive Cathedral up close. Unfortunately, it’s still under construction/renovation after the devastating fire, so a lot of it is boarded up.
That afternoon, Saz and I sat down in a cute cafe to try to plan our next moves. We were trying to plot out destinations, look at train tickets, and decide if we should visit the south of France or just go straight to Spain. Ultimately, we decided to skip the south of France and take the train to Barcelona, then Valencia, then Seville.
Jonas had invited two of his neighbours, Tokio and Arnaud, to come over and hang out. Tokio is a fashion photographer from Japan, and Arnaud is a medical student from Paris. We had a hilarious and fun afternoon chatting with them, and decided to make a yummy home cooked meal together. Being the Korea stan that he is, Jonas suggested we make Korean food again! We all headed out to the Korean grocery store to get the ingredients.
As soon as we got home from the store, it started to pour! It was such a cute and cozy rainy Sunday afternoon in Paris. Our homemade dinner turned out to be delicious. Jonas had a tabletop grill so we had fresh grilled meat, toppoki, bulgolgi, air fried potatoes, and fried pork and edamame.
That evening, we decided to try and book our train tickets to Spain. Unfortunately for us, we found out the hard way that the Spanish train system is very un-integrated with the Eurail Pass, so it is virtually impossible to get tickets online. We would have to go in person to a station to get our tickets.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early at 4:30 am to go to the Eiffel Tower for sunrise. We were about an hour walk from the Eiffel, so we decided to rent a lime scooter instead.
The two of us shared one little electric lime scooter and scooted down to Tracadero Square for sunrise. We had already spent 2 days in Paris and hadn’t gone to the Eiffel Tower yet, so we were excited to check it out. We took some photos at Tracadero and tried to find somewhere with a better angle of the tower and sunrise. We found the best sunrise spot in Paris, which was the Pont de Bir Hakeim bridge. We had an amazing view of the sunrise from this spot, and it was well worth the early morning wakeup call.
I had seen tons of photos of tourists sitting in the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower living out their Emily in Paris dreams, so we decided to go have a chill in the Eiffel Tower park. As we got closer and closer to the Eiffel Tower, the less cute it became. Although an iconic landmark from afar, up close it is just a big rusty metal building. They have also fenced off the cute park underneath the Eiffel Tower for an unknown reason, so I didn’t get my Emily in Paris moment. We drowned our sorrows away by munching on delicious chocolate and had a little photoshoot with my Lindt chocolate ball.
After we spent some time exploring the area around the Eiffel, we walked towards the L’Arc de Triomphe.
We sat on a bench near L’Arc and ate our sandwiches, watching the cars navigate that insane roundabout.
We walked down Champs-Élysées on our way back towards Jonas’ flat, taking in the nice views of the beautiful stores and trees lining both sides of the road.
I had made an appointment at the Apple Store to replace my iPhone battery, so we headed to my appointment and dropped off my phone. They said it would only take about an hour, so we killed some time by stopping at a cafe and getting a croissant. The service was horrible and the waiter was super rude to us, but hey that’s all just part of the Parisian experience!
Later that afternoon, we walked to the train station to try and purchase our tickets to Barcelona in person. If you purchase the Eurail Pass, it’s supposed to act as your ticket to the train but some of the high speed trains or international trains require seat reservations (at additional cost) to actually board the train. We had read online that it was impossible to make seat reservations online for Spanish trains, and that we would just have to go to the station to get them.
There was kiosks in the station that I tried to buy the tickets with, but they said the tickets were sold out for all of the trains to Barcelona. We knew there were still seats available because the tickets would populate if we tried to buy them without the Eurail Pass, but they were much more expensive (over 250 euro/ticket!). We were getting stressed out that we would’t be able to get a seat, so we waited in line at customer service. While Saz was in line, I tried getting reservations on a few other kiosks, but they also showed all the tickets as sold out.
Finally, while still waiting in line for customer service, I tried to reserve the seats on my phone one more time as a last ditch effort. Miraculously, it worked! It was super bizarre because I had tried the same thing multiple times the night before and they hadn’t gone through, but we were just so happy that we finally had our tickets to Barcelona!
We were going to do a day trip to Versailles or visit the Louvre for our last full day in Paris, but we looked into the tickets too late and they were both sold out. We took the opportunity to have a chill morning eating pastries and doing laundry.
We had forgotten to give Romy and Chris a little gift we had brought them from Malaysia, so we swung by Chris’s flat to drop it in the mailbox. Afterwards, we strolled along the Seine and decided to find a happy hour somewhere. We found a local bar called Le Sully that seemed to have good happy hour deals, so we headed that way. It was so relaxing to sit outside and people watch while sipping our cocktails in Paris!
That evening, I planned to cook an authentic Taiwanese meal for Jonas. We stopped by the Chinese supermarket to pick up ingredients, and then went home to prep. I made green onion stir fried beef noodles, green onion pancake, and tofu.
We had a post dinner drink at Bar A La Tour, and decided we wanted to go see the Eiffel Tower sparkling at night! We started the 1 hour walk towards the Eiffel around 9 pm, hoping to make it in time for sunset.
We were a little too late and the sun started to set before we arrived at the Eiffel Tower, but we found a good spot near Trocadero to post up on a park bench and watch the Eiffel Tower twinkle! We stayed enjoying the beautiful view until around midnight and took the metro home. It was a perfect final evening in Paris!
The next morning, we woke up and enjoyed our last Parisian breakfast at the boulangerie. We picked up some extra croissants and baguettes for the long train ride to Barcelona, and packed up our bags. We said goodbye to Jonas, and hopped on the metro to take us to the train station. We couldn’t have had a better time in Paris, and were so grateful to Jonas for hosting us. It was an amazing 5 days in the City of Love, exploring the beautiful sights, trying to delicious pastries, and hanging out with new and old friends!
Next stop – Barcelona!