Paris carries the weight of its own mythology. You arrive already knowing what it's supposed to be — the boulevards, the café culture, the Louvre, the light, the food. The question is whether it lives up to the idea of itself, or whether the idea has been so perfectly marketed that the reality can only disappoint.
It doesn't disappoint. But it does surprise you, and not always in the ways you expect.
What We Got Wrong
The Eiffel Tower is smaller than you think. This is a well-documented phenomenon that we assumed wouldn't apply to us and that absolutely applied to us. It's still magnificent — particularly at night when it sparkles on the hour — but standing beneath it for the first time you have a moment of recalibration.
We also massively underestimated the walking distances between things. Paris is enormous. The neighbourhoods are distinct and far apart. We bought a week carnet of metro tickets on day two and life improved dramatically.
What Surprised Us
The food. I know this shouldn't be surprising — it's Paris — but the quality of the everyday food was staggering. The worst croissant we ate all week was still better than the best croissant most of us had eaten in our lives. The neighbourhood bistros that aren't in any guidebook, where the prix fixe lunch is eighteen euros and includes a glass of wine and is genuinely delicious, are everywhere.
- Breakfast: always a boulangerie, never a café (cheaper and better)
- Lunch: prix fixe menus in neighbourhood bistros, far from the tourist areas
- Dinner: book ahead, always, for anything worth eating at
- At all times: a baguette, carried under your arm, because you're in Paris and it would be wrong not to
"I spent fifteen minutes watching a Parisian eat a sandwich on a bench and I don't think I'll ever fully recover from how stylish it was." — Rachel, who has since reconsidered her entire relationship with lunchtime
The Museums
The Louvre is too big. This is simply true. You cannot see the Louvre in a day; you can experience a fraction of it. We went with a plan — specific wings, specific rooms — and stuck to it. The Musée d'Orsay is more manageable and, for impressionism specifically, unmissable. The Pompidou was the unexpected favourite of the trip, because the building itself is as interesting as the art inside it.
Six People in Paris
We split into pairs for most of the day activities, which worked perfectly. Paris rewards wandering and wandering is better in small groups. We regrouped for dinners and for the big set-pieces — the Eiffel Tower at night, the boat trip on the Seine, the Sunday morning at Montmartre before the crowds arrived. The group trip app kept track of who'd paid for what across six people and three different currencies of spending, which would otherwise have been a logistical nightmare.