Free Trip to Paris

As a surprise for Sam, we headed off to Paris for 3 nights on the 16th February. Firstly, it wasn't a Valentines trip - I'm not that soft! It was just that Airmiles had a really good offer on for a return to Paris on the Eurostar, and 3 nights in a top location Paris hotel all for free (well, if you forget about the 2400 airmiles it cost!). And that top location Paris hotel, the Antin Trinite (2*) sounded to good an opportunity to miss!

We took the Eurostar on Friday morning from Waterloo and were in Paris for Lunchtime. We dropped our bags in our 'top location' Paris hotel and headed out to explore... we would have spent longer exploring the room, but if I'd have had a cat with me I don't think I would have been able to swing it, but you can't complain when it didn't cost anything! The tariff chart on the back of the room door made me laugh - €155 a night!!!

All of the food we had was great, from the €15 for two Chinese to the €195 meal on Saturday night (ouch)! We walked miles and miles over the weekend, and I didn't take very good walking shoes!

Sam found a great looking bar in the Wallpaper guide of Paris, and we headed there on Friday night - it was about 11.00pm when we got there, but you guessed it - we were too early - it didn't open till 12. With aching feet after all the walking, we decided to go back to our 'top location' Paris hotel and crash out!

I planned to take Sam up the Eiffel Tower on Sunday evening... as I thought it would be a bit more relaxed at the end of the weekend - how wrong could I have been! We didn't get up it, I ended up taking photos of it from the opposite side of the river. I've never taken photos from this angle before, and I think it is much better than standing right underneath - you can't get the full picture from there. I'll let you decide, here are the results...

As a commiseration for not managing to do what we set out to do, we headed for a bargain Chinese restaurant instead. It was Chinese new years day after all!

Then off to meet up with Evelyn, who moved out to Paris a month ago. She's living in a real authentic Parisian apartment, it was nice to get to go inside a proper French apartment- all very art deco and stylish.

On Monday morning I was up at 5am to head to Helsinki via Copenhagen, while Sam was left to get the train back through the tunnel to work...

Recommendations:

Fuji Sushi, 5 Rue Joubert, Near Galleries Lafayette
Rival de Luxe, 3 ave Matignon, off the Champs Elysees
Georges, Pompidou Centre - maybe only go for a drink unless you want to spend a lot on dinner