Notre Dame was really beautiful - the exterior is so detailed and decorative, and once inside the stained glass, paintings, shrines and candles really do take your breath away. We left all feeling quite overwhelmed, resulting in us just having to have our first nutella crepes of the trip from a sweet little stall. We wandered through the gardens, saw the bridge with the locks and headed towards a restaurant our teachers had booked for dinner, only for my friend and me to both gasp in shock at the same time as we turned a corner and came face to face with Shakespeare and Company! We had separately read about it years ago in Rookie and both wanted to find it, but hadn't actually spoken about it or remembered until we literally walked straight into it. We had a tight schedule so had to get dinner first, but in our 20 minutes of free time afterwards we ran straight back, and spent every last second we had soaking up the shop's rich atmosphere and coming close to tears at the beautiful notes left by visitors from all over the world, with the sound of a girl playing piano and singing floating in from the book-lined room next door. It was everything I could have dreamed of and I 100% recommend a visit - it's one of the biggest highlights of Paris, for me at least.









One of my favourite works was the series by JR, who looked at the Paris riots and the lives that had been affected by them, and the memories that were lost with the demolition of people's homes. He transferred photograph portraits of people who had lived in the area onto a block of flats set for demolition, then documented the process of the building being pulled down. It was a really moving piece of art with an incredibly poignant concept.




We then took the Metro to the Pompidou gallery, where we found some lunch (baguettes are a necessity in France, and hot chocolate is always a good option) before exploring the crazily large amount of art on display. I found a lot of pieces and artists I really liked.




I adored seeing so many beautiful pieces by Matisse, Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay. I love the colours and style and spent a very long time committing my favourites to memory. We also saw Duchamp's urinal, works by Magritte and many more.










On Friday we went to the modern art gallery and saw an Andy Warhol exhibition, as well as having a group nap in one of the rooms as we were so tired after getting home late the night before. The gallery was beautiful and it was fascinating to see more of Warhol's less famous pieces - it's easy to know him as the 'one with the soup cans' but it's much more interesting once you learn more about his life, inspirations and intentions. In short, there is always more to pop art than meets the eye!






After a quick lunch (and the best hot chocolate I've ever had in my entire life) we went to our next gallery of the day; The Picasso Museum. It was one of the most beautiful and one of my favourites from the trip. I adore Picasso, even more so now I have been able to see such a vast array of his works. He explained once that it took him only a few years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child - this could not be more clearly observed than in this gallery, where his highly skilled sculptures, sketches and fine paintings contrast crazily with the bright, flat bold colours and think lines of his abstract works. You really begin to appreciate his work more after seeing the time and skill it has taken him to create them.











I wore a jacket from Depop, a top from Beyond Retro, belt from Blitz and jeans from Topshop.
After the Picasso museum, we went to the Champs-Elysees and had a bit of free time to go shopping, try on expensive eyeshadows and hang around in the cold before finding our teachers and having a buffet dinner which was really good (after Indonesia, all food is good - anything that has more flavour that plain rice is delicious in my eyes!)








After dinner we went to the Louvre, one of the most famous art galleries in the world and one of the biggest I have ever known. I think it would be impossible to see everything in less than at least an entire day, so we only got to briefly explore a few rooms before it closed. It was so overwhelming to be surrounded by such huge and grand pieces, especially as so many were famous pieces you could recognise. We managed to sneak into the sculpture rooms quickly too before being ushered out (everything was closing as we got there quite late!).









It was very difficult leaving as I wanted to stay and explore for the whole day, but finally I managed to tear myself away in time to walk up to the Sacre Coeur. It was just as breathtaking as expected, and surrounded by portrait artists who ask to draw you. We stopped in a cafe and had pizza for lunch, before meeting everyone again and travelling to the Musee d'Orsay.




The Musee d'Orsay is arguably one of the most amazing galleries in the world; a huge train-station like building, it houses almost every piece of famous artwork you know from every artist, all displayed beautifully and with the most ornate rococo rooms I have ever seen. We saw the Manet painting that Picasso had used as inspiration for some of his own work (below) as well as Monet, Degas, Van Gogh and more.








I wore a gold lurex shirt and patterned shorts from Beyond Retro, with Monki shoes and socks from Topshop.
We stumbled across the reception room, a gorgeous decorative, rose-tinted masterpiece of a room that literally took our breath away and near brought me to tears with it's sheer elaborate beauty. We spent a very very long time in that room, as I feel was almost obligatory.











 Our last day was spent going on a two-hour walk to Le Pere Lachaise, which my friend and I chose not to go into (I feel a little uncomfortable being a tourist in a cemetery - I personally only like to go if I am paying my respects) so instead we explored the surrounding area and found the most beautiful cafe on the corner where we had our final Nutella crepes and hot chocolates of the trip, ending it pretty much as it had begun. I had such an amazing five days and really wish I was back there already!
Apologies for the ridiculously long post!