Parisian adventures, day 3: a Batobus trip down the Seine and the Louvre

On my final day in Paris, Harriet and I decided to do something I'd actually never done before: a boat trip down the Seine!

It was a super hot day, so the prospect of being on the cool water was mighty appealing. Don'tcha just laaaave being by a huge body of water?

There are a whole load of boat tour companies in Paris, the majority of whom offer one simple trip and are rather pricey. Boo to that.

The Batobus, however, is different. It's unique in that it has eight stops and passengers can hop on and off as they please - it serves sort of as a means of transport as well as a tour. Très efficient. I like that.

Equally pleasing is that a student ticket is 10€, for which price you can use le boat as much or as little as you please. Heck, you could ride that thing round and round in circles all day if you really wanted to get your money's worth.

Yeah, we didn't.

Each stop is at a particular attraction or point of interest, and we got on outside the Musée d'Orsay.

Oh, I shall also add - because I'm still chuffed about it - that not only was the ticket man delightfully friendly but he was also highly complimentary about my French. So that's nice to hear having just finished a blimmin' degree in the subject. Would've been awkward if the case had been otherwise really, wouldn't it?

Moving on.

We hopped on the boat after a brief wait (the boats come roughly every 20 minutes) and made our way straight to the sun-drenched back deck. Most of the boat is covered by clear glass and the roof does open, but Haz and I wanted to make the most of the sunshine and the view behind the boat. #backrowlads #notreally

With the flags billowing behind us, the Seine shimmering below, the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces, we had a beaut time cruising through Paris.

Having been to Paris my fair share of times, I particularly loved seeing the city from a new perspective. We breezed our way past Notre Dame, under the bridges and further down the river than I'd ever been on foot.

It was great!

You don't feel like the boat is stopping too frequently, and we thought it traveled at just the right pace.

I thoroughly enjoyed admiring all the gorgeous buildings and fantasising about what it must be like to live in them...



Haz and I hopped off at the Louvre stop, walked along the Tuileries gardens and made our way to what is probably the most famous pyramid outside Egypt.

Did we go into the museum? Negative.

So why were we there?

To take pictures, obvs.

I've been to the Louvre before and I'm sure I'll go again, but time was a-ticking and it was far too gorgeous a day to be in a museum.

Here's the thing: I really want to love museums, I do. But I just don't. Most of the time, I get bored. Pretty quickly.

I have loved some museums, for sure. But if I'm perfectly honest it's usually the classic ones - you know, the ones you're meant to go to - that fail to interest me. Sure, you feel all cultured if you go, but they're just not my fave way to spend a day. Ya feel me?

Museum rant over, let's take some pictures!

It's fun to be a tourist.

All that posing had made us hungry though, so we moseyed back to the river to eat our picnic with a view. (Although potensh not quite as good a view as the previous day's spot.)

Post-lunch we jumped back on the Batobus to finish the tour.

Ooh, what's that iconic landmark I spy?

HEY FRIEND!

The boat got super close which was pretty cool.

It was the perfect way to end my little trip to Paris, and I couldn't have asked for a better pal with whom to do it all.