I’m so used to travelling to places by myself that I now feel slightly odd when I’m not alone! Does that sound weird? I don’t actually like travelling alone all that much – once I’ve got past the novelty of being away and being able to do exactly as I please, I often just feel a bit lonely. I then try to amuse myself by walking long distances, nipping into churches and sites of historical interest and spending long periods of time in cafes and restaurants.

I went to Paris earlier in the week – Paris and then on to Versailles, to the Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa at Ville d’Avray. My day and night in Paris was spent exploring Paris’s left bank, an area that I hadn’t really spent much time in before, and I sat in some famous cafés that were once the haunts of famous and impoverished (and famously impoverished!) writers. In one, Café Flore, a hot chocolate cost me €6.80 and it was tiny. In another, I paid €4 for a Coca Lite! More fool you, you’re thinking, but I wanted somewhere historical to sit and by the time I had parked myself at a tiny table, knocking into three other tables en route, I kind of felt obliged to stay.

It’s funny how quickly you snap back into ‘knowing’ a city – if you had asked me to name five metro stations in Paris last week then I would have struggled, but as soon as I got to Gard du Nord it was as though I knew the entire network off by heart. That’s one of the hidden perks of being a model – there’s no way you ever forget a subway system! Paris has a brilliant underground – if you haven’t visited the city before and are planning to, get hold of a plan of the metro and RER system before you travel. Although it looks daunting on paper it’s actually an incredibly easy and convenient mode of transport to use. Each single journey is €1.70 or you can, as in London, buy a day pass if you plan to make a number of journeys.

There are a number of different things that I’m going to write about from my Paris trip, but this was just a little note to keep you informed of my whereabouts and meanderings – a diary entry, or snippet, if you like. You’ll have to hang on for the juicy details!