Three lessons from our trip to Paris

On AI, alcohol and how the city becomes a playground with children.

For a few years, we didn’t leave the country.

Perhaps we’d had enough adventures, what with leaving London for the countryside and building a brand new community around us, only to return to the city two years later to start anew, again.

But after a lucrative January, I decided to book a few holidays - one to Ireland, to the birthplace of my grandmother, and one to Paris.

My older two children have spent about four years asking to go to Paris. They learnt about the Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower from Ladybug and Cat Noir in TV series Miraculous and they’ve long wanted to see them for real.

So, I booked a three-night trip to the city I should have lived in, at least for a year. The city I went to alone, in my early 20s, to mend a broken heart. The city I might be living in right now, if I was single and didn’t have children.

I wasn’t sure how a city break would be, as my youngest (aged five) asks for a piggy-back on the five-minute walk into school and there was going to be lots of walking. But it was booked, and we were going.

Here are three lessons from our trip to Paris

Le café