Celebrating NYE in Paris!

Over the years, the beau and I have visited numerous locations to celebrate and ring in the New Year, (the more unusual destination being Egypt!) and this year was no different! Early in June, I booked the two of us onto some cheap flights to Paris and managed to find ourselves a lovely apartment style hotel in the South of the city.

On Thursday, December 29th we departed the rainy shores of Ireland and landed on the rainy shores of France a short time later. As Paris has a wonderful public transport system, we found our home for four days very easily and zipped through the city like we were pro's! On our first evening, we took it easy as our plan was to rise very bright and early on Friday morning to visit Euro-Disney! Like two big kids, we nearly ran into the park when we arrived such was our excitement and immediately started to queue for Space Mountain, which was brilliant. Other scary roller coasters included, Terror Tower (brilliant!), Indiana Jones (too short!) and another one inspired by the group Aerosmith (Brilliant! Highly recommend it!).

 During the four days, we went to a number of restaurants and cafes, but we were on a tight budget (or at least, thats what I told myself!) so tried to restrain ourselves when it came to spending. The price of a (decent) cup of tea really threw me back one day, as I gazed down at the bill I realised it cost €5.50!! Think about it, hot water, a drop of milk and one tea bag! However, I soon calmed down when I discovered these beauties! Macaroons...Oh la la! I have lusted over many an image of these on pinterest and nearly squeeled in delight when I found them. They're pricey at €1.50 each, but trust me they're worth it and taste like heaven! When I was in the departure area of the airport, I discovered a book about how to make them, so I'll be trying that out some weekend soon! J'adore Macaroons!

We crammed alot into our short stay. We visited the Eiffel Tower, the Arc D'Triomphe and Notre Dame as well as a cruise down the River Seine and many a stroll along the narrow, pretty streets and galleries. We also came accross (by accident) this wonderful church, with the most amazing stained glass windows I've ever seen. They were very striking!

It really was a beautiful little accident to stumble upon! I'm in no way religious, but I do enjoy the vast array of art and art history you can learn in these places!

On New years eve, we decided to travel up to Monmarte which offers the best views of Paris. A quaint little area, its windy side streets were bustling were people excited to ring in the New Year. We managed to bag our self a great spot and quickly got chatting to two young students from Australia and a family from America. They were great fun and as midnight approached the crowd grew and we exchanged gulps of champagne! We had the perfect view of the Eiffel Tower and I tried my best to co-ordinate the countdown in the final 10 seconds, with mixed reactions! Apologies for the photo below, it was taken with my iPhone. 

After the countdown, we made the sensible decision to try and make our way back to our apartment as we were worried that in a city the size of Paris, it may be difficult to get back as not all Metro lines were in operation and large crowds were inevitable! We made it home, safe and sound however the headache which arrived the next morning was not as welcome!

Wishing you and yours a very happy, healthy and crafty 2012!