In many books and films, Paris isn’t just a city, but its own character. It’s the city of lights, or love, either one as romantic as the other. A 2000 year old wonder filled with Gothic architecture and iconic pieces of art, Paris is truly something to behold.

On our way to Paris we slept on three different trains over a four hour period - we thought sleeping through our nerves would help, it didn’t. We had each been to France before on little holidays with our family, the South for camping and the centre for Disney, but going by ourselves with no safety net, money, or sense of direction was terrifying.

The neo-classical Gare-Du-Nord is the largest station in Pairs, it has 23 statues and what felt like a million different exits. We were tired before we even left the station, Paris has a way of sapping energy. After aimlessly wandering around, we practically stumbled upon our hostel, we had a bunk bed and a single mattress - and a balcony which looked over Barbes. We left to explore, we were catcalled the second we left the hostel by a man pushing his young daughter in a pram.

In 2017, the year we travelled, 1.2 million women experienced sexual insults in Paris. It’s of no surprise that the busiest places in the city are rife with harassment, but it’s still shocking to witness. Our exploration took us from our hostel to a bakery on the other side of the road and we were still leered at more times than we could count.

After a nap and some soup, we took a train to get into the main part of Paris, this train had two floors, looking more futuristic than anything I’d ever seen. We then stood outside the Notre Dame for a while before stumbling upon a bird market and a pink trinket shop. I dragged my friends into a part of the catacombs where we had our faces embossed onto a coin. Then we sat outside doing the most French thing we could think of - eating Crepes outside the Gothic and imposing Notre Dame.

We walked along the river, and spent the rest of our ‘Paris’ money on pieces of art, we took photos outside of the Louvre so we could say we had at least seen it. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon on a boat along the river Seine, we saw the Moulin Rouge building and the Kissing Bridge.

At that point we knew we had to at least look at the Eiffel Tower, so we did. It was a wire trap, a metal monster. We stayed for 5 minutes before we were swarmed by Parisian sellers - the worst part of Paris. I think we were in the biggest daze as we set back on the train, we didn’t even try to sit upstairs. We collapsed into our beds/mattresses for a few hours before we scrambled around to make another train.

Paris itself has an unwelcoming atmosphere to it. It was as if Paris was a friend who would let you inside their house, but never inside their bedroom. I could see it chewing us up and spitting us out if we were to stay just another day. We felt tired the whole time. We suffered from Paris Syndrome, the city so unlike how any of us expected. We left and never looked back.