My recent trip to Paris was, undeniably, a disaster from almost start to finish.
This should have been one of the easiest trips I’d done all year; get down to London, stay the night, get up early for the Eurostar across to France, come back the following afternoon, and fly* home.
*I suppose it should have been an omen when I went to book trains between Edinburgh and London, and they were threatening a three month strike. The strikes were then called off two days after I finally caved and booked flights.
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On that note, I’d also been looking forward to writing about how it’s possible to do a sustainable weekend trip to Europe from Edinburgh, but alas, UK rail strikes again. Literally. So from a content point of view, I’m also annoyed – but not nearly as annoyed as I am about how the weekend turned out in general.
I was visiting Paris with a friend, after years of talking about doing a Eurostar trip together. We had both been before, so we were looking forward to exploring at our leisure rather than rushing around, and we were going on a little scavenger hunt, searching for Heartstopper filming locations! Even better, we’d be seeing Sum 41 play their last ever European show. Needless to say, we were excited!
Instead, we arrived six hours late so we did end up rushing around, and alongside this I had 5-6 hours sleep 3 nights in a row, walked 54,000 steps on very little food, ended up getting home at 1.15am, and was in the office the next day. The whole weekend was embroiled in chaos, from cancelled trains and delayed flights to assault and illness.
But as bad as it was, there were positive moments too.
So first, I wanted to talk about what went right.
Our main reason for visiting Paris was to scout out the filming locations in Heartstopper. We only had a couple of setbacks with this, including one being in scaffolding and one being shut, but for the most part this was pretty successful!
Read about our hunt for all the Heartstopper locations here!
It also meant that we unintentionally hit up what I call Paris’s “big five” – the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc De Triomphe, the Louvre and the Sacre Coeur. This was great because the last time I visited Paris, I had a very basic digital camera (ahh, back before phone cameras were even really a thing…) and was not into photography at all. This time, I could have at it with my mirrorless.
We got up super early for a walk on the Sunday, which meant finding scenes like this.
I NEVER thought I’d see the Arc de Triomphe with virtually no traffic or people?!?
All around the Eiffel Tower was empty too, and I really feel like we’d made the most of the quiet hours before chaos ensued. (Chaos did nevertheless ensue during this moment – more on that below.)
Montmartre, meanwhile, was packed, but we did enjoy a wander exploring where we hadn’t been before. It’s one of the main areas that they filmed Heartstopper with a whole episode set here, so it was like a little treasure hunt which was fun. I love Montmartre, and I’ve been meaning to return for a while, so this was a perfect excuse. As you’ll find out, we did not have as much time there as we would have liked.
On that note, I loved our brief time in Le Marais, and could have happily wandered for longer. We popped into a delightful bakery to grab pastries and sandwiches, which actually wasn’t the plan for food, but it gave us more time to explore rather than sitting in somewhere.
Speaking of Le Marais, check out this absolutely (and delightfully) unhinged shop display:
And finally (yes, this is how few things went well), the gig was amazing! This actually wasn’t even planned. We found out after we booked the trip that Sum 41 would be playing their last ever European show the night we were there. They had just announced the rest of the European dates, and another band we love, Neck Deep, were supporting on the whole tour except for the UK, so we excitedly went to book Paris.
…it was actually announced months before the other dates for some reason, and had sold out. Dammit. Oh well, I thought, it’s already going to be a rushed trip, without spending an evening at a gig. Rushed? I had no idea.
Anyway, my friend diligently kept an eye on resale tickets, and incredibly some came up for 40€ each. Sod it. Let’s go and see Sum 41!
It was an INCREDIBLE night! It’s the largest indoor gig I’ve ever been to, with over 40,000 people (for context, the largest indoor venue in the UK holds 23,000). Just over 41,000 in fact, which seemed fitting for Sum 41. What a celebration, and what a send off.
It was a fantastic show, and Neck Deep hit it off with the crowd really well, especially when Dave from Sum 41 joined them for a song.
The only thing that went wrong here was that we saw an awesome Paris-exclusive t shirts on the merch stands on the way in, and decided we’d get them inside. I kid you not when I say we were third in the queue when we watched someone buy the last one. They even radio’d the other merch stands for the person in front of us and they were all sold out.
And then the second great thing about the night. As we were on our way to Paris, I made a snarky post about how awful it had been before we’d even left, and a friend commented. “Wait, you’re in Paris?! I’m on my way too!” It was a friend who I worked with in Vancouver but is from France originally, and I turned to my friend on the train and said “I bet I know why she’s in Paris”. I immediately commented back. “Are you going to Sum 41?!”
And she was! Unfortunately she was on the level above us, and the venue is so massive that you can’t actually get between the floors, even in the areas outside of the arena room. (We’d tried when we were looking for that t shirt!)
So we somehow managed to meet outside afterwards instead, in the chaos! I hadn’t seen her since we worked together in 2018, and we were heading back into the city centre the same way, so we travelled together until we both had to change to go our separate ways. What a lovely chance meeting!
And I maintain, posting your plans on Facebook can make such a difference! After all, the last time I was in France a couple of months before, we ALSO found out friends were there and had a lovely reunion in Nice.
Oh, and one last positive thing? The metro system, believe it or not! I was reminded of this when going through my photos, because I loved these ridiculous warning signs that look like the Duracell bunny wearing Converse.
My only memory of the Paris metro from previous trips is that I hated it (second only to the New York City subway) – but this time I thought it was brilliant; cleaner and much easier to navigate. I mentioned this to my friend and she said her local friends had also remarked on it as lots of improvements were made for the Olympics.
Why our Paris trip was a disaster
And now for things that went wrong. Because this is the part you’ve all been waiting for, right? So buckle up, because this is, possibly, my ultimate travel disaster story.
So much went wrong on this trip that it was almost laughable, but then it went well beyond that.
Here’s a breakdown of the chaos, including cancelled trains, delayed flights, assault, illness & LOTS of stress:
– First, the main disaster of the trip kicked off before I’d even left Edinburgh: our Eurostar was cancelled less than 24 hours before we were due to leave. At such late notice, the earliest available wasn’t til the afternoon, losing us virtually an entire day (of a 2 day trip!). We got up early anyway to try and get on an earlier train but to no avail and with lots of stress.
– We were told to sit tight and look out for any availability on the website, then come straight up to the “counter” to amend our booking. When availability came up for the Premier class, she tried to change us to it but wasn’t able to because you can only upgrade by one class (without paying). She said we’d need to change to Plus first on any train. And to her credit, she was lovely and really helpful.
– And then – two seats became available for the 10am train!!! I was up at the counter like a shot, standing impatiently in line behind one other person. The other person went on to hurl all sorts of abuse to the poor woman about why her train was cancelled and demanding that she be put on an earlier train than the lunchtime one. The lady kept apologising that there was nothing available, when unfortunately she refreshed. And guess what. Gave her the fucking seats that I’d gone up to book!!!!! I think this point right here was my most furious moment all weekend. The woman’s reaction? “UGHHHH, well no I don’t REALLY want to go on that train, but I suppose I’ll HAVE TO if that’s all you’ve got!!!” LADY, WE ARE DESPERATE TO GET ON THAT TRAIN. GIVE US THE EFFING SEATS THEN.
– So basically, we wasted several hours furiously refreshing, only to be knocked back by a rude, abusive woman who had turned up hours after us and hadn’t even re-booked herself in the first place. We ended up getting the train we’d originally changed to. That’s what you get for being friendly and organised, I guess.
– We finally got to Paris at 4pm, which didn’t even give us time for a sit-down meal before we needed to go to La Defense arena for the Sum 41 show, but we did have a little wander around Montmartre which was lovely at night. Typically we really wanted to see the support act, otherwise we could have got away with turning up at least an hour later as we had seated tickets for once!
– I keep forgetting this one: the kettle in our hotel room tried to poison us! My friend made a tea to help her sleep, and it tasted vile. We reckon they’d accidentally left some chemicals in there from descaling it or something! Honestly, the hotel was pretty good other than that…
– Despite being knackered from an early start, a 3 hour gig and a late night, we got up early anyway because we needed to make up for literally lost time. (I also wanted to get up early to get some nice shots of the Eiffel Tower before the crowds!)
– We walked from Arc de Triomphe to the Eiffel Tower, which is probably my least favourite walk in Paris. But there were two reasons: one, my friend had never seen the Arc de Triomphe, and two, there’s a Heartstopper location half way between the two. The filming location was in scaffolding.
– My friend got assaulted next to the Eiffel Tower. A woman snuck up behind us and poured a bottle of water over my friend’s head before running away laughing, and I ran after her screaming, asking her what the hell she thinks she’s doing. Some men were setting up those tacky tourist tat “stalls” on mats nearby, and they all ran over to calm us down and told me I should leave her alone because she was crazy. WTF. That liquid could have been anything!
– We swiftly moved on and jumped on a train across to Notre Dame, which terminated half way… luckily we managed to get straight on another train from a different platform with some help from the lovely station staff. Nothing like more stress right after being shaken up, though!
– One place on the Heartstopper list was a street they walk down, and they walk past a café which looks really good, so I figured we might as well go in for breakfast. Well my friend had clearly had enough by this point and stormed into McDonald’s, much to my dismay! McDonald’s Christmas ornament, anyone?
(This actually led to us discovering a lovely bakery next door, so not all was lost and I got my pastry fix.)
– After a good walk scouting filming locations, we went back to Montmartre, which was lovely but far too busy in the day time. The men selling bracelets near the Sacre Coeur are the actual worst, even following us, blocking our path and grabbing our wrists. One of them laughed when we tried to get away and started mocking us! Not pleasant at all.
(My friend was telling one of her colleagues about this and he said if we didn’t know it would be like that then we clearly need to travel more HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA. I dare him to say that to my face!)
– In the end, we totally overdid it and I ended up feeling ill on the Eurostar home. I’d eaten a croissant and an underwhelming takeaway crepe to fuel my 54,000 steps, and you might be surprised to hear that wasn’t enough. Luckily I slept it off on the train.
– Got back to London to a notification that my flight home was delayed. Because what flight isn’t these days? This was largely due to the weather though.
– Decided to go to Liverpool Street to get some food as I basically hadn’t eaten all day, and I needed to get the train to the airport from there. Got to the station to see all rail to Stansted was cancelled due to a tree on the line. It was a toss up between a panic and getting food. I wanted to panic, but I NEEDED food. Went to a pub I’ve been meaning to check out for a while, for a mediocre roast while stressing TF out.
– Went back to Liverpool St to find out what was going on and work out the alternatives. Understandably chaos. I decided to book the next National Express bus, which sold out while I was in the process of booking. And the one after that. Managed to get one that would be very tight for my flight’s original time (I was now thankful it was delayed!).
– Then I couldn’t find where the buses go from. Followed signs for buses, ran round the outside of the station to find no buses. Back on the main road, I found plenty of bus stops for local services, but nothing for National Express. This is it – I’m literally crying at this point. Breaking point has been reached.
– Finally found the National Express stop down the road (literally opposite the pub I was in!) along with 150+ other people. The 6.30pm coach was there, running 40 mins late. Panic sets in again and people are giving up and calling taxis. Turns out most people haven’t booked, so when the driver says there’s space but he’s prioritising people who have booked any bus, I run forward and he lets me on. I actually wanted to give him a hug!!!!
– Security at the airport was mental, and it took 45 minutes to get through. Again, good thing the flight was delayed. People around me are talking about how likely they are to make their flight. It’s not looking good for a couple of them.
– We are finally on the plane, and the pilot says “good evening everyone, we have just been informed that due to the weather, Edinburgh is closing the runway.” He then went on to say they were trying to hold it open for us and they’d get us up there as quickly as possible. THANKFULLY we made it in record time – 50 minutes!!
And if you think I should have just got the train instead… well, I probably should, but at the same time as I was running around Liverpool Street station in a panic, two of my colleagues got stranded by cancelled trains further north and had to get a replacement bus service from Preston to Edinburgh instead!
Honestly, readers will know that A LOT has gone wrong on my travels over the past couple of years. This one was almost the final straw for me. Not to be dramatic, but I genuinely got home and felt like I never wanted to travel again.
I have never had one trip be so consistently awful.
In Riga, it took us 19 hours to get home, but at least the rest of the trip was amazing. In Italy, I had the afternoon from hell trying to get from Lake Como back to Milan, then the airport, then home; but the previous day had been one of my favourite travel days ever. In Andorra, my bus back to Barcelona took an extra two hours, but I’d had a great time in Andorra itself. In Gdansk, our flight home got cancelled, but we made the most of it by adding on Warsaw.
The less said about Dusseldorf, the better. That’s a close second here.
And sure, sometimes you have a bumpy ride and that’s life. C’est la vie. Some of them even make for great stories (like Dusseldorf; Paris less so, I think). But come on, this is getting ridiculous! I’ve become known at work for having a travel curse! Which is impressive when my job is in the travel industry.
Granted, most of the issues on this trip were caused by the single disaster of our Eurostar being cancelled. Perhaps we should have aborted our mission and just tried to enjoy what little of the weekend we had left. I should at least have eaten something.
If we’d had the two full days, I reckon it would have been a great trip, even with some of the other things that would have still gone wrong.
But it wasn’t meant to be. Although I fulfilled my bonus aim and got a lot of nice photos, which I’ve stuffed into this post to break up all the drama. So that’s another thing that went well, at least.
After this trip, I’ve decided I’m not done with Paris. But I don’t think I can face it again for a while…
Tell me about some of your travel disasters!
Read my growing collection of travel disaster stories here:
⭐ The Dusseldorf Disaster: How I Really Messed Up On A Trip To Germany
⭐ A Tale Of Riga & Ryanair – It’s Another Travel Disaster Story
⭐ Milan & Lake Como: Two Days In Northern Italy
⭐ Andorra La Vella: Is This Europe’s Most Scenic Capital?
And more about France:
⭐ On Paris, And Why Everyone Either Loves It Or Hates It
⭐ Nice Is, Indeed, Nice: The Gateway To The French Riviera
⭐ A Photo Tour Of Colmar, France’s Fairytale Town
Discover more from An Orcadian Abroad
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I guess short trips that go bad don’t have enough time for good things to balance out the bad things. I’d say you’re due for a relaxing beach vacation. I know I am after reading this! (Good thing I’m heading for one soon 🙂 ). I’ve read from another blogger recently how overcrowded Montmarte has gotten, but they way you were harassed is another level altogether. And I can’t believe that woman poured water on you, crazy or not. You are overdue for a stressless trip, Clazz. I hope one comes your way soon, because despite your feelings when you got home, we both know you can’t stay home for long. 😉
That’s exactly it, and the main thing that made it stressful was not having enough time. To eat, relax or enjoy! And it made everything else more stressful than it might have been. There were parts of Montmartre I really enjoyed but again, not having the time to relax didn’t help. It was also probably significantly worse being there at a weekend, though I was surprised just how busy it was in November.
Believe it or not, I haven’t booked any travel since!! BUT I have been on two trips that were already booked. One was the day trip to Poland which was brilliant. And my next post is going to be about the other one, which was Madeira in January; almost a relaxing beach vacation (you know me; it was much more than that!), and it was a FANTASTIC trip!
Glad to hear it. I’m not as tempted to take short getaways like you are, but if I lived where you do and had access to all those cheap flight deals, I probably would.
Haha exactly, the accessibility just leads to temptation! Especially when you can get £20 flights. Then again, this wasn’t meant to have any flights and look how that went…!
I’m stressed and exhausted just reading this. But at least you saw SUM 41! I didn’t know they were so popular in Europe. There was just a great interview with Deryck Whibley on CBC Radio a couple of weeks ago. Hope you have a relaxing vacation planned sometime soon 😊 Maggie
I felt like I was getting PTSD writing it!!! I sent my friend the post earlier and she went “you want to go back to Paris?!?! I’m still traumatised!!” 😂
Yeah I have to say I was surprised they sold out such a massive venue. I saw them a few years ago in London at a 2.5k capacity venue – 41k was a bit of an upgrade! I’ve got Deryck’s book but I haven’t read it yet. 🙂
Haha thanks – we’ve had one relaxing holiday since, and nothing else booked yet! I’m slacking.
Oof what a nightmare. All the cancelled trains and flights at the moment are just a total nightmare!
Aren’t they just?! Travelling the past couple of years has been like playing roulette. Almost all my trips have had delays too.
Geez, what a wild ride! I read about your Riga and Dusseldorf journeys in previous posts, which I thought were bad enough, but Paris’s really takes the cake! I’ve had some travel inconveniences in the past, but thankfully mild ones (knock on wood). But I can imagine it’s absolutely mental when not just one, but several modes of transport are delayed or cancelled. You made it home eventually, Clazz, and lived to tell the tale!
Haha true, I did make it home, much to my surprise I think! I was envisaging being stuck outside Liverpool Street station forever. I’d never really had any travel disasters until a couple of years ago, so I had a good run. 😂
Oh my! so much transportation chaos! I always find that the most stressful when travelling. Even worse than poor hotel rooms where you have the opportunity to find something else even if it costs more. Glad you made it home safe and sound after the weekend, but what a waste of a day where you should have been enjoying Paris. Hope your next trip is less crazy!
Me too, there are certain things that are easier to deal with than others! Transport issues can be so time sensitive that it can be extra stressful. And yes I think that’s what was so frustrating about it – it was a total waste of a day! If we’d accepted our fate, we could have had a more relaxing morning in London too, but we were so determined to get an earlier train haha. And we SO almost did!!!
You were sooooo close!
Oh my goodness, what a mess. I definitely would have been in tears and probably at some point would have just given up. I’m sorry to hear about what happened to your friend (who does that, wtf?) and I’m glad you finally made it home, and hopefully you’ve gotten your travel mishaps out of the way for many years now.
Epic post and trip! Sorry about the things that didn’t go well as planned. Nowhere to go but up! 😊
Sounds like an absolute rollercoaster of a trip! Despite all the chaos, I love how you still found moments to enjoy—especially the Heartstopper hunt and that incredible Sum 41 gig. Travel disasters are the worst in the moment, but they sure make for great stories later! Hope your next adventure is much smoother!
Oh maaan, this post is literally the antidote to all the perfectly posed, travel-is-an-everlasting-joy influencer posts! I’m so sorry for the things that went wrong but impressed by what you managed to make of a challenging trip. Curiosity piqued, I’m off to read about Dusseldorf!
lot of disasters in one trip! my last trip with some disasters was a trip to Malta in 2022. You needed to have a COVID vaccination to be able to go to Malta which we had. But then, just a couple of months before the trip we got COVID and it seemed that we could not go at all because of their strict rules. Then, they changed those and we could go but one of our flights got cancelled. I managed to find another flight. We got to Malta in the evening. The second day while we were walking around Valletta, I managed to sprain my ankle and be in a lot of pain and discomfort for the rest of the trip but we still walked everywhere. Then, in Medina we had a massive row. So, it wasn’t the best of the trips. LOL I didn’t write about this, I did a normal post about Malta because we also had plenty of great moments and saw some fabulous places
Paris is hard work and you really need to be on the ball. Anything can happen when there. you survived and it wasn’t ALL BAD! Take it as a win I will be avoiding Paris when I go back to Europe
Oh my! What a trip. The window displays look cool. Paris always has such creative displays. And the early morning walks are priceless. I hope your trip goes better next time!
Another journey from hell to add to the list but hopefully this’ll be the last of them for a while!
It’s great you were able to see Sum 41 and Neck Deep though! It’s great when events like that coincide with a trip already planned!
Also those bracelet scam guys at the Sacre Couer are the worst!