Paris – the romantic capital of the world, right?
Sorry, not for this chick!
It’s not like I had an especially bad time in Paris the first time I was there, it just wasn’t overly memorable compared to all the other amazing cities I’d seen.
When the opportunity came up to go there again, just for the weekend, I originally baulked at the idea. See, I guess I’ve become part-European. I thought to myself, it seems like a lot of hard work, driving 10 minutes to the airport to go to Paris just for two nights. Of course, I soon realised my mistake – any opportunity to do these things shouldn’t be passed up – who knows how long I’ll be here!
Thomas was there for a work trip so the plan was to meet him on the Friday and spend the weekend together. I decided to wipe Paris’s slate clean and try again. Maybe it really was as good as they all said after all.
Well, things went bad straight away because I missed my connecting flight in Munich. So instead of arriving in Paris at 5pm, it was more like 9pm. And at that time of night, it takes a while to get from the airport to the city… so finally at 11pm, after stopping at McDonalds because honestly we were so tired and hungry by then, we arrived at the hotel.
The next day was cool, but sunny – perfect weather for Paris sightseeing. On my previous trip it had been nudging 40 degrees. Seriously, you can’t even imagine how feral Paris is in that kind of heat. Thomas and I did our favourite thing – walking. Rather than try to get to all the sights in the guidebooks, we prefer to wind our way through cities… randomly stopping at places for food, drinks and sights along the way. Of course we covered the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and most of the other big attractions. But the highlight of course was finally finding a fromagerie, next to a bakery, and feasting on cheese, baguette and wine. Even if the French do nothing else right, I can’t say anything bad about those things.
We weren’t up for any fancy French dinner, so after a quick walk we happened upon a Turkish restaurant that looked more like a take-away joint (indeed they also did take-away), but the food appeared quite authentic and I can’t get Turkish in Austria so we tucked into a gourmet selection of Mezze Plates. It was heaven.
On the Sunday we’d planned a run in the morning, but due to having walked over 30km the previous day (wow), our feet were too sore and tired. Instead we opted to go and check out some markets. Sadly, it began raining, which clogged the outdoor markets with people holding umbrellas, so we abandoned the plan soon after, and made our way to the airport quite early, pretty much done with Paris. Oh, I forgot to mention that we went back to the Turkish restaurant for a schwarma snack for lunch. It was that good.
So in conclusion, sorry Paris, two strikes and you’re out. I understand that everyone should go there if they have the opportunity, but I certainly won’t be rushing back anytime soon. The week after we went to Hamburg and wow, now that is a nice place to visit. You can read about it in an upcoming blog post.
an aussie in austria 