the train was delayed for an hour at gare du nord and now - three hours later - some technical issues mean we haven’t made it to the euro tunnel yet. rather than continuing to purchase overpriced snacks onboard and alternating between audible & my kindle, i thought i’d use this opportunity to write my first blog post!
welcome welcome - i’m so happy to have you here. i’ve spent the last few days in paris on a solo trip and it’s been quite a reassuring experience for me. about three months ago i was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and spent five weeks there as an inpatient; i then spent a further five weeks as an outpatient in day therapy. it was the lowest point of my life and - as someone who is usually independent and reasonably spontaneous - having to rely on others because of a brain malfunction i didn’t (and still don’t) understand was almost as painful as the trigger itself.
despite the extensive delays i’m currently experiencing, the journey here was smooth and unstressful. not so much as a hiccup! mentally it was a slightly different story though: i rescheduled the trip three times out of fear of relapsing. i knew i had to make allowances for myself so when i eventually committed to the trip, i chose to stay in a slightly nicer hotel than i usually would in paris (i’ve been ten + times and most of them alone). i also made sure i had permission to work in my company’s paris office during week days in case i got to paris and realised i hadn’t been ready to travel alone after all and/or panicked about the lack of structure my days would have. i didn’t end up working at all but it was comforting to have the option of some familiarity and formality that working would offer.
(we are finally going through the euro tunnel!)
so, enough prefacing! onto the trip. i put together a little
(new arrival time has just been announced: 19:08 bst, which is in 40 minutes time…part of me is not too irritated about the 2.5 hour delay because it means i can get a 50% refund harhar)
list of places and things i’d like to do with how long it would take to get there on foot/by metro. i love doing this ahead of holidays because it means i leave every day open to my whims (i have frequent whims) but at the same time the days are not so completely unplanned that i end up vegetating in my room out of indecision.
here is my paris itinerary:
depending on my mood on a given day, i plan circuits based on how close places of interest are to each other (e.g. it might take 45 minutes for me to walk to x, but if i leave at x time and stop at x café which is halfway to my final destination, it won’t be so tiring/i won’t die of heatstroke). this approach proved very useful during this huge heatwave currently hitting northern europe since i didn’t have to walk in the sun for long periods of time (or walk for long periods of time full stop - i am not a big walker. i enjoy sitting down) in an attempt to get to my destination. tip for solo travel: always email your itinerary to people close to you. i email mine to my mum and dad so they know where i’m staying etc. when i’m travelling to a new or more distant place i make more bookings in advance and i include the details, timings & contact numbers for all those bookings on my itinerary.
i don’t love heat or sun at the best of times but 38 degrees celsius + with no air con in buildings designed to preserve heat is a resounding no from me. thankfully my hotel room was one of seemingly very few places in paris that actually had air con, so i rejigged my plans to ensure i had frequent stops back at the hotel to cool off. sincere apologies to the environment for how many times i showered per day but the metro was at times biblically sweaty.
(18:16: out of the euro tunnel at last…i love travelling but i always get a little jolt of happiness when i arrive back in my beautiful england)
i was in paris for four full days. every morning after breakfast i walked to the jardin du luxembourg to read for a bit. it was about a four-minute walk from my hotel which was amazing. this “ritual” helped relax me in preparation for the day ahead and also meant i could be outside for a while before it got boiling and crowded. i think i’ve mentioned this is the vlog i filmed (which is now live! https://youtu.be/NAGMC8CpSqI) but i was listening to “the whistling” by rebecca netley on audible when i didn’t feel like physically reading and otherwise reading “the idiot” by fyodor dostoevsky on my kindle. i re-read “crime & punishment” while i was in hospital and decided to re-read dostoevsky’s other big three novels: “devils” (finished just before i left for paris), “the idiot” (currently reading) and the brothers karamazov which i’ll read after “the idiot”. dostoevsky has got me through many a dark day so whenever i feel even vaguely down i turn to him.
(19:05: aaaand we’re at st pancras. or at least i was until i dragged my luggage along euston road to get to my uber pick up spot! i’m sat on a concrete slab thing with all my luggage looking very flustered, which i am)
i went to mademoiselle angelina (https://www.angelina-paris.fr/en/mademoiselle-angelina) right near the entrance of jardin du luxembourg almost every day because a) it was so nearby and b) more importantly, there was guaranteed good service & yummy food! the eggs benedict isn’t too heavy and paired with their iced tea or green smoothie on a warm day…bliss. all of course being significantly better when consumed on the pretty pink and green bistro chairs so typical of french cafés!
while i did come across a few brunch cafés in paris, most restaurants & cafés in my area tended to do the kind of heavier meals that i try to only eat for dinner so i was really happy to have such a nice “brunchy” place right nearby. if it hadn’t been so hot while i was there i definitely would have ordered angelina’s signature hot chocolate, which is world famous for good reason! highly highly recommend if you visit during cooler times. the main angelina cafés are booked up months in advance but mademoiselle had free indoor and outdoor seats whenever i happened to wander in, so definitely a good option if you missed a chance to eat at its counterparts (though it is a lovely café and worth visiting in itself).
another brunch place i really liked was apēgo (https://www.apego-traiteur.fr). it’s open between 10am and 4pm daily and i walked in at around 1pm without a booking. it’s essentially a buffet full of healthy food - i had scrambled eggs with sliced trout on brown bread with a few different salads and some dates to finish. it was quite hot indoors and got a bit loud during my stay but i would definitely go back for the food alone. the staff are also very sweet which is a huge bonus!
i usually take my own photos using a tripod when i’m travelling, but this time i decided to hire a photographer for an hour somewhere pretty & central. this was a huge time-saver; i could spend one hour getting all of the photos/content i wanted and didn’t have the hassle of needing to get up really early in the morning to avoid the shame of taking photos of myself in public (which i inexplicably only get in some places - paris being one of them!), the picture quality is much better and i had someone there to watch my stuff while we were taking photos. i found odrida, the photographer i ended up booking, through @theparisphotographer on instagram and i found the booking process really easy. i paid €279.50 altogether, which includes 20 edited high resolution images.
i booked an assistant to accompany us too (which would have been an extra €103 on the day) but i didn’t actually realise that the individual photographer isn’t told when a client books an assistant and some confusion meant that it ended up just being us two. thankfully it was unusually quiet at the time and in the place we chose to shoot and there was a nice café nearby where i could change my outfits & makeup so i didn’t feel the loss of the assistant!
here are some of the photos i chose; i asked for raw images only as i don’t like to post edited photos on social media:
booking a photographer is definitely something i would do again when i next travel alone…or even if i were travelling with someone else to be honest. the number of different outfits, makeup & location combinations you can cover in an hour is quite amazing when there is a professional there keeping things focused!
it’s been a couple of weeks since i got back from paris now and should receive the rest of the images from the photographer soon - fingers crossed!
i’ll leave it there as have covered most other bits of my trip in the vlog and in my instagram captions and don’t want to bore you with duplications!
thank you so much for reading,
olivia xx