Date: 29th March 2015

What We Did: This was our very first overnight bus and we were slightly nervous. Well I was excited as I can sleep on any form of transport, Mike on the other hand was dreading it as he is quite tall and being stuck on a bus all night was not his idea of fun. The Megabus however cost us less than £20 each return London to Paris, which we could not say no to.

The bus left London Victoria at around 8pm and it was on time. We were on a double decker bus with Wifi and charging points. It felt like it took ages to get to Dover. I of course slept all the way, Mike did not. Even though we knew you would have to get off the bus on the ferry this was hard in the middle of the night. We found sofas and had an hours sleep before getting back onto the coach.

We arrived in Paris 40 minutes ahead of schedule which would have been great if it wasn’t 5.30am. Nothing was open not even the underground stations. We decided to sit on the side of the street and wait for the underground station to open.

Food and Drink: We ate lots of snacks on the bus.

The Highs: It is one of the cheapest ways to get to Paris from London.

The Lows: It was a long night for Mike as he is unable to sleep on public transport.

Date: 30th March 2015

What We Did: Once the underground was open we bought tickets and caught the train to Notre Dame. This Cathedral was amazing and so pretty on the inside. It looks dark in colour on the outside but once you walk inside the colours from the stained glass windows stand out. Our best tip for visiting the Cathedral is to get there early. We were one of the first in as we were in Paris so early. As we were walking out the line had got long and we were glad to be there early, especially as we only had 1 day in Paris. You need to go inside to see the stained glass windows and all the small details in the decoration. A must-do in Paris.

Our next stop was the Love Bridge, which unfortunately after our trip they started to take down due to the weight. We were very lucky to see this bridge full of all the padlocks placed by people over the years.We could not believe how many locks were actually on the bridge. You could not see the river through the locks. I can totally understand why they were taking the locks away as the bridge must way a tonne.

We were getting hungry as we were up so early, we decided to go and get a sandwich before getting aboard the hop on/off bus. We would definitely recommend this, especially if you only have 24 hours to see Paris. We saw all the main sights from the bus. The only problem was we were so cold and tired that we did a whole lap while asleep so had to go around again.

Our first stop off was at the Arc de Triomphe after riding down the Champs-Elysees. This street reminded me a little of Oxford Street with all the stores and how busy it was. We then crossed into the middle of the roundabout to go into the Arc de Triomphe, luckly the path goes under the road. The roundabout is crazy with so many lanes. We walked what felt like 100s of steps up the Arc de Triomphe to the best views of Paris. We really enjoyed watching the cars going around us and trying to work out which lanes they were in and where they were going. It was very cold and windy.

The next stop was of course the Eiffel Tower, we couldn’t pass the opportunity to go up this. We love getting a view from high up in every city we are in. We caught the lift up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, it was very quick and made your ears pop. We recommend getting here early as we waited in line a long time to get tickets and then for the lift. The views from the top are amazing, we decided though that you were too high to get perspective of anything. It all looked so small. We spent a few hours walking around the different levels and of course getting a souvenir. We then decided to walk down to the bottom, a lot more stairs than we anticipated.

It was getting dark and the rain was setting in so we decided to head over to our hotel and had to get the train to Val d’Europe. This was very simple and cheap. We were staying at Hipark Serris-Val d’Europe and could not find it from the train station. We decided to ask another hotel who didn’t know and showed us to a taxi. Once we were in our room which was lovely we walked to the supermarket to get snacks for the room.

Food and Drink:

Lunch: We decided to grab a subway as we needed something quick and was the only place we could find as it was only 11am.

Dinner: From the supermarket we bought bread, cheese, meats and cakes with a bottle of wine and had a picnic in our room which was lovely. The cakes came in platter packs, why do they not do these in the UK.

The Highs: Our favourite part of today was going up the Arc de Triomphe. We much preferred the view from here than the Eiffel Tower. We felt that you could see more and was a better view as you could see the Eiffel Tower.

The Lows: The tiredness from the overnight bus. We were so tired and missed a whole loop on board the bus as we slept.