Potentially an unpopular opinion. I did not love Paris. Full disclosure, I was tired, and sort of under the weather during my trip, but even still, it may be a been there done that destination for me.

I took the Eurostar from London to Paris. That turned out to be a great idea. It was quick, easy and pretty comfortable. Pro tip: Book your Eurostar tickets way in advance. When I initially planned this trip the tickets were $100 cheaper. When I went to book them, the price jumped way up.

Upon arrival in Paris I used my lifesaving Citymapper app to help me navigate public transportation to my hotel. When I got out of the train station where my hotel was, I stupidly walked in a few circles before realizing where my hotel was. I stayed at the Holiday Inn located pretty close to Notre Dame. Of course, my visit was shortly after the big fire, so I did not get to visit inside of Notre Dame, but the outside was lovely, scaffolding and all.

I had some travel delays, which caused me to miss my timed ticketed entry into an immersive van Gogh exhibit, so I was pretty bummed about that. Instead I decided to bury my feelings in some street cart crepes. Those did not disappoint. You could put nutella on just about anything and it will be good.

In true Kelly fashion, I opted to take a Hop-on-Hop-off Tour. However, this was a night tour, and there was no hopping off. I do recommend the night tour, it was really cool to see the city lit up at night.

Obviously a huge highlight was to see the Eiffel Tour in all its sparkling glory. The bus did make a stop here, and let everyone get off and take pictures and just watch the lights. At this point of the tour I was frozen though. I pretty much never cower to the cold, but tonight I did. I got off the bus with everyone, and called an Uber back to my hotel.

My 24 hours in Paris was coming to an end. I had no delicious meals aside from the crepes and a croissant at the train station. I over bought train tickets, so as I was waiting for my train back to London, I tried giving my tickets to people purchasing them at kiosks. Not a single person would take the tickets! I guess maybe I looked like like a scam artist? I don’t want sound completely negative, but I don’t see the draw to Paris. Its dirty, and the people are not friendly. I’m probably being way too judgy, maybe I’ll give it another try, but not anytime soon!

Take me back to London ~Ed Sheeran

~Kel