Travel Contest - Unexpected 05 day trip to Paris on my birthday

Hi everyone,

Now I am very very excited to share to you about my experience of first time traveling to France without a plan on October 2021 with my partner. It is not recommended to travel without a plan because everything will be super expensive. Lesson learnt! 😜

One day before my birthday, my partner and I suddenly decided to close our coffee shop for 05 days and booked the flight from Vilnius to Paris. Below is how we made the trip:

Day 0 (1am before day 1): Pack and go!

We booked a cheapest available flight of wizz air for 02 people for the following day. It cost double comparing to “non-urgent” tickets. (286 EUR two ways). We booked a train ticket from Siauliai to Vilnius (aprox 12 EUR/person/way). Then booked 02 dorm beds in Enjoy Hostel - Paris (187 EUR for 4 nights 02 people) from "booking.com". We purchase entrance tickets of Lourve Museum. Everything we prepared and booked only in few hours before the morning of the following travel day.

Day 1: Siauliai - Vilnius - Paris

We took the late morning train from Siauliai to Vilnius (2,5 hrs). We took a public bus directly from train station to Vilnius airport for an evening flight from Vilnius, Lithuania to Paris, France.

Snow covered the railway when we arrived Vilnius from Siauliai by train

We arrived at Beauvais Airport (located outside of Paris) around 22:00. We purchased two way tickets of bus transfer online (cheaper a lot than direct purchased tickets at the ticket machine). It took more than 1 hour for bus to commune from Beauvais airport to central area of Paris.

Arrived at Beauvais Airport - Paris, France

Late night Day 1 + early morning day 2: A struggling moment of our trip

We were still on the street and struggled with taking buses from the central area to our hostel. Never use Iphone Map which the most stupid map I used. So Google Map saved us. We finally knew how to buy T-tickets and chose the right bus station to our hostel at 2am.

After receiving the beds, we realized it was a mistake to book dorm rooms. We could not sleep because the roommates snored too loud and the smell of humid clothes were too strong.

Day 2: Visit Eiffel Tower, Seine River, and Notre Dame Cathedral.

After a very short nap and we woke up to ask the hotel to change the rooms and they upgraded our beds to double room without surchange. We were very lucky and the receptionists of Enjoy Hotel are the most friendly and helpful people in Paris that we knew.

This day, we walked and took underground trains of Paris to visit Eiffel Tower. Too crowded and we must always be careful for pickpockets and aggressive street vendors around this attraction. We had a short queue to enter the main gate of Eiffel Tower attraction. The security woman scanned our backpacks to make sure we are not dangerous tourists :D. We were a bit afraid that she would not let us bring any food inside this area but everything was fine.

Eiffel Tower in Paris, France

My partner and I did selfies with Eiffel Tower

Had a picnic brunch under the tower and took some selfies. We decided not to queue for visiting inside two floors of the tower because of covid things and a long long queue in front of us.

Suddenly we remembered to purchase the Versace Palace tickets which we forgot before the flight. Luckily, there were still available tickets from 12:00pm visit section for 02 of us on day 4.

Afternoon, we walked around the pier along the Seine River then took a bus to visit Notre Dame Cathedral. The Cathedral is still in the process of being restored after an infamous fire in 2019. We did some praying there and only took some photos outside area of the church.

Notre Dame Cathedral

We bought 02 packets of 10 t-tickets (18 eur per pack) for bus and metro, cheaper than purchasing 01 single ticket. We headed back to hostel and had instant noodles for ourselves. Then we went to bed right immediately because we were super tired due to lack of sleep.

Day 3: Visit Lourve Museum

We woke up around 9:00 to have a simple breakfast with bread and delicious French butter, home-made jams and coffee at the hostel kitchen (breakfast included in room price). They only serve breakfast from 7:00am to 10:00am. We did miss the breakfast on day 2.

My partner prepared breakfast for two of us while I were planning the day schedule

Although we downloaded many Paris Map apps, nothing worked. Google Map again saved us. It showed exactly which stations of trains and buses we need for traveling from our hostel to Lourve Museum.

Outside Lourve Museum

We came early 30 mins for some selfies and queueing to enter the museum. The museum is way way too big for 1 day visit, so we chose to visit art sections with many famous paintings included the Mona Lisa painting.

we selfied with Mona Lisa in a hurry before security staff kicked us out of the line due to taking off the masks 😜

Maybe our regular eyes did not see any impression in that famous painting but we really were impressed by a very huge painting “The first miracle of Jesus Christ at Cana Wedding Feast” ; which was located opposite to the Mona Lisa painting.

The Painting "The first miracle of Jesus Christ at Cana Wedding Feast"

The museum is very very … very huge, so if you want to visit Lourve, remember to bring few water bottles with you. Another pain of this visit is to look for toilets hidden in some corners of the museum after you drink some water.

This museum is worth for 03 day visit. I think it is impossible to enjoy the complete visit of Lourve in only one day.

Our Lourve visit was 05 hours totally (from 12:00pm to 5:30pm when the museum was closing).

After Lourve, we took a short metro train to Happy Caffe at the corner of Rue de Rivoli for a light dinner. My partner is a vegan eater but it was so difficult to find a vegan restaurant in Paris. So she had to order vegetarian crepes and I had a spicy chicken crepes and small portion of french fries for myself at this small coffee shop. The food was very nice, the cook guy is Indian as I remembered and he was very friendly and funny.

Crepes at Happy Caffe in Paris

Walking too much helped us having very deep good sleep that night.

Day 4: Visit Versailles Palace

Versailles Palace is located in Versailles District, outskirt of Paris central area. After breakfast at hostel around 10:00am, we took the nearest bus from Enjoy Hostel to Gare Montparnasse.

Here we asked a member of tourist guide team how to reach Versailles because we cannot use the T-ticket to travel with long train which commune out of central Paris.

So we had to buy different tickets from Paris to Versailles, which cost nearly 3.5 EUR per one-way ticket per person. The train was nice and clean. We reached Versailles Train Station after 25 mins travel. Walked 8-10 mins from the station to the palace and queued 30 mins to enter the Palace.

Gare de Versailles

the beautiful way from the train station to Versailles Palace

The security team of the Palace worked very carefully and strictly to make sure the safety for everyone visiting the attraction. And of-course our vaccine certificates were always required at every attraction we visited while covid thingy still happened.

Versailles Palace and its gardens are too big to be visited in one day. So we only purchased the tickets to visit inside the palace. Maybe next time we will visit its gardens.

)
Outside area from main hall to main palace of Versailles Complex

Versailles Palace is to glorify mostly King Louis XIV and his wife Queen Maria Theresa of Spain. His rule was the longest recorded in French History as I remembered. My partner had one main purpose to visit this place to learn how infamous queen Marie Antoinette used to live and burn all wealth of French people in her parties and gamblings &#128518 &#128518 &#128518

The Painting of Queen Marie Antoinette and her children

The palace is very nicely maintained and most of all original details are kept intact. The audio tour guide recorder was included in the ticket price and it was very useful. We listened to all information of the recorder every room we visited.

The King's bed

The ceiling of Chapel Room in the Palace

After 4 hours of the visit, we went back to Versailles Train Station for a trip back to Paris. Arrived at the Gare Montparnasse around 5:40pm and we found a small Lebanese restaurant on Rue de I’IsIy named “La Pause Libanaise”. All dishes with meat & hummus were so so delicious as well as their vegan dish which made my partner very happy :D. The price is reasonable. The restaurant manager/owner and the staffs are very helpful and friendly. Highly recommended if you want a nice budget dinner in a pricey Paris!

Vegeterian dish with eggplant hummus at “La Pause Libanaise” Restaurant

We took a metro back to hostel around 10:30pm and packed all clothes for home flight. This day was the most enjoyable day of the trip for both of us. The visit to Palace was nice and not so rushing like Lourve visit. The dinner before heading home was tasty with cozy atmosphere.

Day 5: Visit “La Basilique du Sacré Cœur de Montmartre” and home flight.

Our home flight was in the late evening around 10:00pm Paris time. So we had a very nice day rip to visit the basilica of Sacred Heart located in Montmartre Hill of Paris.

The Basilica of Sacred Heart in Montmartre Hill, Paris

Checked out at 11:00 and left all luggages in locked storage of the hostel. From Enjoy Hostel to Montmartre Hill, the bus took us 35 mins and we walked 5 mins up to the hill. The basilica architecture is very epic and it was in some maintenance process when we visited. We are Catholics and we always feel very peaceful and happy every time we visit a church in any country we travel to.

The mosaic picture of Jesus' Sacred Heart on the ceiling of the basilica

The city government put some coin-maker machines inside this holy place to gain more money for maintenance. That is a downside. They should put these machines outsides the church. We just do not like the idea of doing business in a church but ironically we did buy some coins from these machines as souvenirs

There are full of locks hang on the fence at the front area of the basilica. These locks may belong to many love birds (couples) who want to wish their love will last forever.

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My partner just found the biggest lock among the punch of locks hang by couples at La Basilique du Sacré Cœur

After doing some praying and exploring around the church, we walked back to the bus station and heading back to hotel around 4:30pm. Said good bye and thanks to the receptionist. We took a bus to the airport transfer spot that is 45 mins from the hostel.

The airport transfer bus from Paris to Beauvais airport was on time and we arrived at Beauvais airport after 1.5 hours due to heavy traffic in Paris jam hours.

Beauvais airport had nothing fun. Only 02 restaurants open before security check-in gates because it is in renovation. At the security check-in gate, a lot of tourists got big trouble with covid declaration forms that we must fill in 24 hours before our flights to Lithuania. Some of them could not go on board because of that form. We filled all information 48 hours before the flight, thanks to Wizz Air reminding emails.

In the waiting area for on-boarding, there were not many things to shop either. Only 02 shops for our choice: one shop offering food & drinks, another one is selling cosmetics, candies, magazines and some mini bottles of liquors. All of them were not cheap but perfumes were on sales at that moment. We only bought 1 bottle of mini white wine while waiting for our delayed flight.

We enjoyed very nice white wine of French at Beauvais Airport

Mid-night Day 5 and Day 06: Arrive Lithuania and sleep over at the airport.

Arrived at Vilnius Airport of Lithuania mid night. The train from Vilnius to Siauliai only starts from 6:45am. We decided to sleep on the metal bench of arrival area in the airport. Luckily no one kicked us out. I confirmed that there is no comfort to sleep in the airport but we could not book any bed in Vilnius. Buses from airport to train station in Vilnius kinda run 24hours a day but train only starts from 6:45am.

We arrived home around 10am and went to sleep right away.

The birthday trip ended very safely! :DD

Sorry for my broken English grammar if some sentences confuse your reading.

Next post I will share to you about our trip to Warsaw & Krakow of Poland. Stay tuned! ;)