PARIS PHOTO DIARY

I'm back with another one of my photo diaries - this stop, Paris! I'd wanted to go back to Paris for ages now with the only time I'd been before when I was much younger and not able to appreciate the city properly. I went with Carissa for her 18th birthday- we ate too much food, I took too many photos, I bought too much in Zara (there's just something about international Zara shops that just gets me every time) and this blog post is the result of it all! Due to me normally working 6/7 days a week, with my two jobs, internship, being at college and keeping islaay.com going - we had to squeeze this all in within 36 hours, so here goes!

6am overpriced vegan coconut chocolate chia seed pudding for breakfast at St Pancras station (I wouldn't recommend it)

In typical me style, I coordinated my passport, purse and train pass holder...

First sight of the Eiffel Tower from the Metro (at this point we hadn't realised that I'd taken us 30 minutes in the wrong direction and ended up at the Metro stop for our hotel instead of Printemps department store which we were meant to be visiting first, oops)

The Galeries Lafayette department store is the Parisisan version of Selfridges etc. but with this beautiful stained glass roof - it's a must visit if you're in Paris and fancy a bit of department store shopping

These motorbikes are all over the city, they seem to be the go-to mode of transport and they are ready to knock you down at a road crossing at any moment!

Parisian buildings seem to all look the same, however they are beautiful so that's totally okay

Sacré Coeur

Sacre Coeur church peeping through the end of a busy street, we went up the hill and visited it on the second day and it was well worth the trip!

An illuminated bridge across the River Seine - I cannot explain how cold it was at this point, and how long we'd be wondering around trying to stumble upon a coffee shop to warm up (this was after getting lost and waiting at a bus stop for 45 minutes (not an exaggeration!))

In true Paris style, traffic jams coming along the Champs Elysees from the Arc De Triomphe

There's only so much Eiffel Tower you can fit into the viewfinder when you're using such a zoomed in camera lens...

Looking across the River Seine from the Eiffel Tower, illuminated cities are my favourite

The Sacre Coeur church was probably one of my highlights - such amazing views of Paris and totally free to visit! It's definitely worth a trip inside too, although you sadly weren't allowed photos so you'll just have to use your imagination about what it looks like!

Hazy morning view from the Sacre Coeur

Tourist's attempts at recreating the padlock bridge - there were padlocks attached onto random gates all over Paris!

I forgot to actually take a proper photo, but these coffee beans were inside the best Starbucks I've ever been to - red velvet seats, lights hanging from rope and coffee paintings onto wood (it's the Place du Terte one). I know I sound so common white girl saying that, but it is 100x better than any of my local ones and I fell in love!

The Place du Terte artist's courtyard where Renoir, Dali and Van Gogh supposedly lived. Nowadays, it's full of painters and sketchers painting scenes of Paris and drawing portraits of people

The graffiti in Paris was a lot more of the ugly tag type, as opposed to the street art which can be found in places such as Berlin

We stumbled across a cafe which we had carrot and coriander soup and a chicken tagine in for lunch - very Moroccan!

Paris Gare du Nord train station, waiting for the Eurostar back to London