I am finally back from my first trip to Paris and I am absolutely in love. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a hopeless romantic and a wedding photographer, but I felt right at home. The architecture, the history, and the food are all reasons for me to go back again but I will always be the one to encourage people to visit at least once in their lifetime.

Prepping for Paris

My family and I did lots of research before traveling abroad, using Pinterest and asking a lot of friends we gathered all the information needed to know how to visit Paris the right way. The first thing I did was look into purchasing a Paris Pass for each one of us. This pass provides you admissions to museums, attractions, and a travel card to use the subways/metro and bus within the city. When you purchase these online you may choose to pick them up at their office in Paris or have them mail it to you to your home address. I chose to have them mailed to me for an extra $7 because I had no idea if their office would be located near our hotel and I didn’t want to risk getting lost or spending more on taking an uber to the office.

To visit the Eiffel Tower you have two options, stand in line and purchase your tickets once you get there or purchase them online via their website we chose to buy them online to have guaranteed admission at a certain time and date. Every night at 8:00 pm they have a light show on the Eiffel Tower for 5 minutes, the view is unbelievable from the Trocadero across the street.

If you can, make sure to look into taking just a carry on for your trip. Look into a wardrobe capsule on Pinterest and take the most comfortable shoes you have to walk around, a lot!

My Favorite Places

Notre-Dame and Saint-Chapelle

We did the two main churches in Paris. Notre-Dame is a must and Sainte-Chapelle was my favorite. Notre-Dame is obviously an icon to France even in Disney movies so if you have the chance to visit this beautiful city you have to at least take some photos outside of the cathedral. We were able to go inside but I found it to be too dark and gothic for my liking. Sainte-Chapelle on the other hand is almost right across the street from Notre-Dame and it was beyond breathtaking. To get to the main floor you have to go up a few flight of stairs but the minute you get to that top step and look up at the stained glass windows you’ll be blown away.

Chateau de Versailles

One of my uncles told me to go to Versailles because he figured I’d love it and take a ton of pictures, and he was 100% right! Versailles immediately became one of my favorite places to go to in Paris and if I could’ve spent more time there I would have. I didn’t have enough time to go see Marie Antoinette’s house and all of the gardens because I was just mesmerized with the inside of the Chateau.

We did the audio tour that gives you the history on the whole place. The only downside to it was that it was way too packed at times and people can be a little rude and pushy when moving from one room to another.

Your Paris Pass will provide you admission to the Chateau and the Metro Pass will provide you the train ride to Versailles from Paris. Once you have to come back to Paris you have to purchase another Metro Pass at the station because your pass only covers the rides in zones 1, 2, and 3 and Versailles is in Zone 4.

Eiffel Tower

And of course, the view of the Eiffel Tower was just breathtaking! Our hotel was literally around the corner from it which made it accessible during the day and at night when it was lit up.

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• Paris: City of Food