The Greatness of Paris
Last weekend, three of my friends and I went to Paris, a trip that we had been planning all semester long. When initially coming to Germany, I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to visit Paris, since I had heard from people that it supposedly wasn’t a very nice city, but all of these prior expectations were proven completely wrong the second I got there. To start off with, the architecture was beautiful, it had a similar old style that Prague did, with tan buildings lining the streets. The first night we were there, we went to the Eiffel Tower to see it light up at night. We found a nice place to sit where a street performer was playing songs on the guitar, and the sparkling tower illuminating the night in the background. Not to mention, we had an amazing dinner before we visited the tower, and I had the best calzone I ever had in my life. We were sitting on the steps, watching the performer, eating cheese and drinking wine on a warm Paris night: everything I would have ever wanted from my visit.
The next day we were there we decided to go back to the Eiffel tower and have a picnic below it, so we again stocked up on cheese, wine, bread, and meat from a local market that was near the hostel that we stayed at. After we were done with our lunch, we decided to walk around the city and visit other historical sites, including the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre Dame Cathedral. When we arrived at the Arc, we weren’t sure how to cross the huge road that surrounded the monument with no crosswalks, so we sprinted across it, dodging cars like we were playing a game of crossy road. Later we found out that there was a tunnel beneath the road, but that we didn’t get the same rush of adrenaline of dodging angry Parisians who were driving around the circle, trying not to hit all of the tourists. On the topic of the Parisians, contrary to the stereotype, many of the people we met there were very nice, and surprisingly, were willing to have conversations with us in English. My friend Jack knew some French to help us get around, but people were still willing to switch the language of any conversation to help us out. We went to the Notre Dame Cathedral, which had finished its reconstruction after the devastating fire, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get in, since you needed a reservation. While walking throughout the city, we saw many beautiful parks, where we would stop and sit for a while, with all of the other Parisians that were enjoying the beautiful day.
Going into Paris, I didn’t know what to expect, and had negative stereotypes about France from Americans, but it has been one of my favorite places I’ve visited here in Europe. The city was beautiful, the food was incredible, and the people were sweet, which is all a tourist could ask for. Reservations to places like the Louvre and the Cathedral were booked out for weeks in advance, and Versailles was an hour outside of the city, so those are a few places that I really wish to visit in the future. I know for sure that if I ever get the chance to return to Paris, I’ll take it without a doubt, and I really want to see more of the city in the future.
-Seamus Barnes
Cmn. (2025, April 26). Welcome to the Arc de triomphe. https://www.paris-arc-de-triomphe.fr/en
