PARIS, FRANCE
27th April 2002 to 1st May 2002
Beautifil Paréé...
View of Paris from Eiffel Tower
Bonjour monsieur's et madams ( hello gentlemen and ladies) for those of you who are sooooooo uncouth as to not know French:)
well, we finally made it to good 'ole Paréé with all our luggage intact and in relatively good spirits. Our train was the high speed Thalys, which travels at the meager speed of up to 300km/h. Makes traveling a breeze, but let me give you a word of warning; DO NOT, and I repeat, do not! try and count trees going past - it gets very nauseating, believe me:)
We arrived at Paris' 'Gare Du Nord' ( North station) at around 4.30pm and
started walking around trying to find some accommodation.
More
Gare Du Nord
Found a cosy little place not too far away called 'Hotel de Milan', put our stuff down (after I convinced Rob that we did not have to chain our stuff to the bedpost) and started orientating ourselves.
Rob in room we found in Gare Du Nord, Paris
We found Paris to be beautiful but after walking around our area, we became aware that there were not that many tourists around,... in fact they were totally lacking from the environment, as were all the cheesy and tacky tourist shops that we love so much. Instead we came across alot of Arabic type people and a lot of "mavrous", it started feeling more like South Africa than Paris.
As the time progressed and the sun started setting, we found ourselves becoming more and more uneasy and decided to make a beeline for our hotel. Had a really bad McDonalds for dinner and resolved ourselves to spending our first night in Paris not under the stars, at a bistro watching the world go by, but in our little hotel room, overlooking the neighboring building ( and they weren't even doing anything interesting)!
Consulting our trusted Lonely planet guide, we discovered that this particular area was a bit unsavory and it warned tourists not to wonder around at night. So Rob and I did the obvious thing, put our bed up against the door and waited all night for someone to come knocking.... no really.... we decided to look for another place in the morning and move out on Monday.
On Sunday we started walking towards the Louvre and not only found a lovely little hotel to stay at, but an internet cafe, laundromat, bistros, coffee shops and tourists all around us..... we had finally arrived. This felt sooooo much better, so we booked a room for a further 3 nights and went to do some sight seeing at the famous Louvre Museum
I must say that the last few days we have had rather bad weather, rainy, overcast and windy and today was no exception. It seems to be following us around. The quest to the Louvre have to be seen to be believed! We waited in line for just over an hour to get inside and the queue just kept on getting longer, and this is off-peak season, can you imagine what it will be like in high season?
Rob about to join the queue at The Louvre
The Louvre is an experience in itself. Although I think those that have an affinity for art and sculpture would appreciate it more than us plebs who just want to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo:) Sacrilegious I tell you!!
We spent a few hours wondering the halls of the Louvre, then made our way home before nightfall, just to be safe.
Next morning packed our bags and whilst Rob went to get a taxi (hehehe), I negotiated the archaic lift with two backpacks. We got a "crazy" taxi driver who finally managed to get us to our hotel in one piece, put our stuff down and got ready for our day of touring.
We strolled to the Place de la Concorde (more Place de la Concorde)which has an obelisk in the centre that was given to France by Egypt. It dates back 3300 years. It is just like the obelisks you see in the movies, full of hieroglyphics. Makes you want to climb up and pretend you're Indiana Jones deciphering it:)
Kat at Concorde Obelisk, Eiffel Tower in the distance.
It is found in this huge square with lots of beautiful but kitch fountains surrounding it. After taking the obligatory photos, we meandered down the Avenue des Champs Elysees making our way to the famous Arc de Triomphe. I must say I LURVE the shops in Paris, forget London... give me Paris any day!
You name it, it's there, Rob had to drag me along and just couldn't understand why I was drooling at the mouth and making funny noises, for you shopping nuts....YOU KNOW WHY!!!!!:)
Got to the Arc de Triomphe which is the largest roundabout in the world. It has 12 streets, named after famous generals, all converging to this one central point; I'm sure glad I didn't have to drive here!
Kat (left) in front Arc De Triomphe. A bit deceiving in size as those things at the top are actually people!!!
Paris is a very beautiful city, it is full of decorative buildings and most of them have stupendously gorgeous gardens with waterfalls everywhere. One of the places we went to that had these stunning gardens was the Jardins de Trocaderos and right behind them was the Maritime Museum which we had to visit, Rob is a model boat freak!
The museum is very close to the Eiffel tower, so after spending a few hours wandering at old boats, we made our way to one of the tallest, infamous structures on our planet. More Eiffel Tower
Yes, we did take the lift to the very top because there was no way in hell we were going to walk all that way. I found the tower quite impressive and the views were amazing. Comparing it to the views from the London Eye (in London) Paris was much prettier, London didn´t have as many places of interesting to spot where Paris was full of them and just getting an overall view of everything was awesome.
We finally came down and slowly made our way back to our hotel (about an hours walk) walking along the Seine River and called it a night.
Tuesday we dedicated to going to Versailles ....
Versailles is actually half an hour out of Paris. You can get there by bus but we took the train instead. The opulence and beauty of the chateau has to be seen to be believed and the gardens put Buckingham palace to shame. We spent most of the afternoon at Versailles and then went back to our hotel; as the next day was May Day and it was suggested we don't stay out too late due to the expectation of some riots.
So yes, Wednesday was spent just arbing around the hotel. We could see the people marching a street away from us and on the tv, but everything turned out peaceful. It was a waste of a day though unfortunately.
We planned to leaves Paris on Thursday for Madrid. Originally we were meant to stop at Bordeaux but decided to leave that for our next trip and carry on straight through to Spain. Our train for Madrid was an overnighter so we had the whole of Thursday to fit in some sights that we hadn't had a chance to see due to May day.
The Hotel Des Invalides was one of them, so we caught the train, instead of
our usual walking.
This was built to house all the veteran invalids from WW1 and also houses
the most enormous war museum as well as Napoleons Tomb. By the time we had
gone from level to level at least 3 hours had passed.
Rob at Palace de Invalides, Paris. This is where Napoleon Bonaparte's Tomb is.
If you are a history enthusiast, (talking to you Mike) (from the middle ages to today) this is a must, but you have to allocate a whole day to really appreciate the detail of the museum. Went and saw Napoleons´ Tomb. It is situated right in the middle of this musoleum-like building and his coffin stands at least a few kms high. You would never say he had visions of grandeur or megalomania:)
With just an hour or so before we had to make our way to our hotel to collect our things, we thought we'd try and squeeze in Notre Dame More Notre Dame
Notre Dame is a beautifully charming church in typical Gothic style with Gargoyles, steeples and decorations, I couldn't wait to get inside and walk to the top. Getting in is free (as it is a church after all) and inside is just as awe inspiring as the outside. There is an area that has huge cathedral ceilings with amazing painted glass windows coming down from the ceiling. The church inside is quite dark with only the light of candles and some lowlights for illumination. Going to light a candle though is a different story, they EXPECT you to pay €2 for the privilege of lighting a candle.
Now this, to me, is not right, It's not the money or cost but lighting a candle is a very personal thing as is your donation to the church. Charge an entrance fee, sell souvenirs (which they do, inside the church) but leave some things sacred.
This unfortunately spoilt the experience for me.
Anyway, made our way to our hotel, saddled up with backpacks and made our way to the train station to catch our overnighter. Had the world's most expensive beer whilst waiting for our Talgo hoteltrain to arrive. but at least we where now prepped for the next part of Rob and Kats honeymoon adventures:)
talk to you after our train journey:)