I’ve been mildly obsessed by Paris for several years. Every few months I’ll browse Eurostar and hotel websites and get it into my head that this will be the year that I finally go. But none of my friends were really interested in going to the most romantic city in the world without their boyfriends. I know, right? Losers.

But then I won Eurostar tickets (thanks to this blog post) along with a few other Domestic Sluts and got the chance to visit this wonderful city last weekend. Granted, I’d had a rubbishy week and wasn’t feeling all too spanky, but I had an amazing time once I got there. And thanks to all the walking we did (easily around 15 miles) I may have actually lost weight. Win!

The inevitable list of fun things I did in Paree in chronological order because I’m a bit weird like that:

Steak frites and wine

My little jug of wine

The first thing we did on arrival at Gare du Nord (after being warned by Jane to KEEP OUR BELONGINGS CLOSE BY AT ALL TIMES) was wander for somewhere to have lunch. On the way we stumbled across the oldest sweet shop in Paris, where I got to practice my appalling French. It involves far more hand gestures than it probably should.

Anyway, an hour later we were in a restaurant playing bad country music and ordering medium-rare steak with fries. Having missed breakfast and dinner the night before, I could barely finish my little jug of wine (equates to a large glass) and was drunk at 3pm.  The other girls thought it was cute.

Drinks at the Louvre

One of the wonderful Domestic Sluttery readers heard we were going to Paris and emailed us a list of rather fabulous places we should visit. Unfortunately we forgot to print out that list and had to piece it together by memory. Oops.

Our view from Cafe Marly

One of the places we were all keen to visit was Cafe Marly, a restaurant with an outdoor terrace practically on the doorstep of the Musee de Louvre. The waiters were a bit rude, a small glass of white wine was 7EUR and it was drizzly but the view was amazing. Imagine everything good about Paris – the Louvre’s glass pyramid, Arc de Triomph and the Eiffel Tower – all rolled into one view. With wine and giggles.

I should also add that the Louvre is one of the most astonishing buildings I’ve ever seen (and I’ve yet to go inside). I think all of us just ambled about the courtyard with our jaws dropped. I didn’t think it was possible for one building to contain so much beauty. Even if you don’t step foot into the museum, you HAVE to see this building.

Hotel picnic!

Pretty buildings aside, we came to Paris to eat. Rather than forking out for another meal (I was saving my cents for macaroons), we nipped to the local supermarket and filled our baskets with every delicious thing we could find. Namely bread, cheese, chorizo, little caramel tartlet thingies, bubbly and brioche which we managed to successfully smuggle into our hotel room. We did leave a few crumbs though…

Centre Pompidou

Look! THE EIFFEL TOWER!

Jane was keen to stop by an exhibition at Centre Pompidou, a modern art gallery not unlike the Tate Modern. While she perused the feminism exhibition, the rest of us talked about handsome ushers and tried desperately to get pics with the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

I owe a word of thanks to my travelling companions Jane, Gemma and Sian. Though they’ve all seen the Eiffel Tower, they walked with me across Paris for over an hour so I could see it for the first time. They said my reaction, which involved a REALLY big gasp, was worth the trip.

Macaroons at Laduree

I’m a little bit obsessed by macaroons, as previous blog posts may have demonstrated. So I had to visit Macaroon HQ (aka the Champs Elysees branch of Laduree). We queued for ages, but as we spent most of that time gazing at the rococo interior and shiny pastries, we weren’t too fussed.

Even though I’m still recovering from my trip, I can’t wait to get back to Paris. There’s so much I want to do. I didn’t visit Notre Dame or try an absinthe cocktail, and us girls fell in love with Sacre Coeur once we saw it from the Centre Pompidou. But my first trip to Paris was pretty perfect. This will sound a bit corny, but it was every bit as amazing as I expected it to be. And I didn’t need to go in the Spring, with a boy and spend loads of money to enjoy it.

But if anyone’s offering?

Fabulous pics from sian_meades’ flickr photostream