When someone says Paris, what do you think about? I think about macaroons and the Eiffel Tower. You might think about the Louvre, or the Mona Lisa. This post will be about my once in a lifetime trip to Paris. We landed in Paris in September, 2013 the flight took eight hours in all. This is actually not a very long time for me, because I’ve bee on a flight with double that time. This was also the same year that we moved from Ontario to New Brunswick, Canada.
The first thing I saw from the plane was the Eiffel Tower. With its popularity and towering height, the Eiffel Tower is a must see. It was built in 1887 as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair. The Eiffel Tower is also an observation and broadcasting tower. It was our first stop on our Paris tour, and we took a Hop On, Hop Off bus tour. This way was easier because if we did that, we wouldn’t need to take a taxi all the time. The bus would go around the city and would make different stops. As long as you had a ticket you could hop on and hop off.
We got off the bus to see the Eiffel Tower, and I could remember the long line to get a ticket to go on the top. We waited there for an hour, and then we took an elevator to go to the top. But, here’s the thing, we actually didn’t go to the top! The tower has two levels of observation decks and we just went to the second floor. It was my dad’s second visit to the tower and he has been to the top once before. So this time he decided he didn’t want to go to the top. Anyways, we didn’t go to the top, and I remembered I really wanted to. I mean, your not at the Eiffel Tower every day so you might as well see all that you can, right? But, the view from above was beautiful. You could see all of Paris from this one spot. We bought three mini Eiffel Tower key chains as souvenirs and post cards so I could remember my trip to Paris. If I ever go to Paris again I will make sure to visit the very top of the Eiffel Tower.
From there we went to Pont des Arts bridge, where thousands of locks were attached to it. Couples put their names on a lock and then fasten the lock on the rails of the bridge and threw the key onto the river. My parents put a lock of their own. I did some research, and the legend goes that a woman had lost her lover during World War 1 and started fixing padlocks on bridges where they used to meet. The trend caught on and became a tradition. Paris is known as The City of Love, so I guess love locks are the perfect thing. Sadly the city of Paris started to remove the locks in 2015 because the bridge could not support the weights of the locks anymore. So by now, I suppose my parents’ lock is gone.
The next day we headed for the Louvre Museum. The Louvre is home to the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, and Venus de Milos (the Greek goddess Aphrodite) by Alexandros of Antioch. We walked in this huge hallway with so many paintings and statues. Our mission was to see the Mona Lisa, but it was so crowded I could barely see her. So many people bunched up together made it really hard to see. My dad had to lift me up. The painting was is a glass case. My mom took a few pictures and we were out.
arielaonthego.com 
arielaonthego.com
We hopped on the bus and hopped out and took pictures of Arc de Triomphe. The arc was built in honor of those who fought in the war, and it was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806. The arc is one of the largest commemorative monuments in the world. Another famous landmark in Paris is the Notre-Dame de Paris. The Notre-Dame Catholic cathedral was built in 1163-1345. The back part of it got burnt in a fire in 2018 and is now being rebuilt. My dad and I always light a candle every time we go to a Catholic church or cathedral.
Some other things we did before leaving was a river boat tour, it is another way to see the beauty of Paris. The city has lots of cafes where you can sit and eat outside, I had lots of macaroons and many tourists and local people enjoy their coffee and pastries. Paris is a beautiful city to visit. From Paris we took a flight to Nice, France. That took one hour and forty-five minutes, then we took a taxi ride to Monaco. I will write more about Monaco, Geneva, Switzerland and Venice, Italy in my next post so stay tuned for more!