Paris - La Fête Nationale!

Bonne Fête Nationale!! Today is the French national holiday (called by foreigners as Bastille Day!) It commemorates the storming on the Bastille in 1789 and the Fête de la Fédération in 1790. We intentionally changed around our holiday when we were planning so that we could be in Paris for this national holiday.

After our big day and night yesterday, we had a late breakfast and chilled in the hotel. Alex went for a walk to see some more sights and we opted not to try and see the military parade as people would line up early (around 7pm) and we wanted to ensure we would all be awake for celebrating later in the day!

Around lunchtime, we met Gab's Canadian friend, Heidi, and her partner Dennis at our hotel. They are travelling around Europe for a month and it was so exciting to see Heidi who we haven't seen since January 2020 in Australia!

We went to the supermarket with Nicky, Alex, Heidi and Dennis to stock up on essentials for our afternoon and night including bread, cheese, meat and alcohol. From there, we walked together to Champ de Mars in front of the Effiel Tower for a picnic. The plan was to have a picnic during the afternoon and reserve a spot for the concert and fireworks which would be later in the night. We thought we would beat the crowd by getting in early, however after being there for around an hour the police began evacuating the grounds so they could setup a crowd control perimeter and barricades - something you would think should have been done days before!

After relocating twice, we eventually setup camp on the side of the road - playing cards and having a few drinks whilst we waited for the grounds to reopen. We had lots of fun chatting, playing card games, eating and drinking and after 2 hours we were able to re-enter the grounds around 6pm and get a very good spot with a great view of the Effiel Tower! The concert started around 9pm before a fantastic 30min fireworks and light display around 11pm to cap off a great day and night! The fireworks were so beautiful and filled with lots of different colours coming off various parts of the tower! Truly spectacular and definitely worth the wait and the diversion of our trip plans so we could be in Paris for this magical experience!! It was also fun to enjoy it all with friends!

We made our way back to the hotel, said goodbye to Heidi and Dennis were about to go to sleep when Alex and Nicky realised their flight to Venice tomorrow had been cancelled! We then helped them out for a bit until the early hours of the morning, using some of our acquired knowledge of the various European transport systems to help them find an alternate route before heading to sleep.Læs mere