We were seated in First Class throughout Europe trip as EURAIL pass is available for that class only.
We landed at
Charles De Gaulle airport, Paris in their morning around 8am local time. We could make out the vast expanse of beautiful landscape from the plane.
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| View of French landscape outside Paris |
We had booked a shared shuttle from
Super Shuttle. Thankfully the Terminal WiFi worked and I was able to update the gate which we were going to get out from. The shuttle was waiting for us there. Then it picked couple of more folks and we were off to Paris.
We were not tired too much and tried to soak in the views. This being morning and a working day there was lot of traffic. We stopped couple of times but in orderly traffic. Our lane to exit was long and adjacent one empty but nobody tried to come up and occupy the space. The cab dropped us right in front of the hotel. We were booked in
Hotel Darcet which was in the
Rue Darcet, very near to
Place De Clichy, a major intersection point in central Paris with a Bus and Metro being available.
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| Place de Clichy |
We had an upcoming tour of Eiffel Tower at 12:30pm from
33 avenue de la Bourdonnais. We hurried through our routine and went to Trocadero which is a major hub close to Eiffel Tower by bus. Eiffel Tower is visible from here but one has to cross
Jardins du Tracadero park, then cross the Seine river to come close to the base of Eiffel Tower. The avenue where we were to meet was one of the lanes on the side and unfortunately I did not work out the way fully. The time was ticking and we had some jittery moments asking people and policemen who could not understand what we were asking. Finally we spotted the lane and ran to the meeting point. Thankfully we managed to locate our group which was just about to leave. It was pretty hot at that time with bright sun which probably was also severe due to clear sky. The sunlight was unbearable to eyes and started sweating soon. Anyhow, the joy of making thus far after enormous planning and finally being able to make it was satisfying.
We finally came up close and personal with Eiffel tower, the most visited monument, symbol of love, wonder of the world, engineering marvel and an iron giant. Words are enough to describe what it feels to be to look at the monument against the blue sky, its beauty, poise and elan.
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| Eiffel Tower, most visited monument in the world |
The tour we booked just include a "skip-the-line" privilege with a guided tour of level 1 & 2. Our guide was a young and enthusiastic lady who gave all the regular information. We went through elaborate security check and then took lift and came to second floor with the guide. The guide gave us a good overview of the Eiffel Tower. One Trivia about Eiffel Tower is that it takes 7 years to paint it fully and then they start all over again. Other being that it gets painted to different colors like red. The tickets to go to the top has to be purchased separately and then stand in queue for the lift. We did not have that much patience and were happy with what we got to see from second floor which itself was quite high. Tours and tickets to the top can also be booked in advance but they get sold almost an year back and are obviously expensive. Eiffel tower has 3 restaurants one at the top and then one at each level. Our guide bade us good bye at second floor and we were left to explore the place on our own leisure. It being hot and we being a little dizzy from our travel, we modestly went around the place. One can just stand on all four sides and try to look as far away in the city as possible. We could spot all the rest of the monuments of Paris. The Seine river meanders through and comes close to Eiffel tower with multiple arched stone bridges on it. Tourist boats floating in the river. The vast ground in front of the Eiffel Tower where people are loitering around. Paris downtown with skyscrapers.
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| Paris wide angle view with Paris downtown in distance |
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| Seine River with numerous bridges |
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| Ground in front of Eiffel Tower |
We climbed down from 2nd floor to 1st floor witnessing mesh of iron trusses, beams, girders. There was just too much of metal.
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| Metal edifice |
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| Too much metal iron! |
First floor has section of transparent floor which we tried to step onto and getting scared. We had lunch at 58 Tour Eiffel restaurant which was three course set menu worth 32 Euros each. Then we got down to ground floor and admired the view around.
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| At the base |
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| Different angle |
We were anyway feeling dizzy so we sat down under shade and had a brief siesta. After savouring the place enough we left from from a little away from tower and got to witness it diagonally.
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| Looking diagonally |
Then we came to Trocadero. From there we walked down to
Arc De Triomphe which is another famous monument in Paris. It was erected to honour those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. There is a roundabout around it where 12 roads meet but there are underground subway to reach it. The monument has names of the prominent personalities written. There is an eternal fire burning underneath. Reminded me of our own India gate.
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| Eternal flame at Arc De Triomphe |
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| Names engraved on Arc De Triomphe |
Champ-Elysees is one of the main avenue in Paris. Champ-Elysees and Arc De Triomphe are the places which one witness on television or media as this is where French celebrate, for example when they won the world cup football. We walked down it witnessing the glitzy showrooms, restaurants and shops all the way to
Place de la Concorde where there is an obelisk planked by two fountains called
Fountains Des Mars. There was a giant wheel under construction there just in front of
Jardin de Tuliers garden. The obelisk reminded me of obelisk at Sultanahmet in Istanbul, Turkey.
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| Champ Elysees |
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| Champ Elysees |
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| Place de la Concorde |
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| Obelisk |
We went inside to find a small pond with chairs spread around for anyone to sit. After relaxing for some time, we came out to
Musee D'Orsay from where we caught train back to Place de Clichy. We were helped by a Paris metro assistant to figure out the way.
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| Place de la Concorde |
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| Jardin de Tuliers |
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| Love locks |
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| Paris metro |
Day 2
Next day we had planned to go to
Palace de Versailles which we had pre-booked for visit. We took train from Place de Clichy and switched at intermediate station to finally arrive at
Gare de Versailles Château Rive Gauche. From there palace was walking distance.
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| Gare De Versailles Chateau Rive Gauche |
There was huge crowd to visit the palace. It took an hour just to enter the palace. Palace of Versailles was the principal residence of the Kings of France from Louis XIV in 1682 until the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. The palace is now a French Historic Monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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| Palace |
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| Crowd gathered at the Palace |
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| Palace |
The main palace is height of opulence with rooms after rooms of intricate carvings, paintings, cornices, chandeliers & furniture. Oil paintings of successive rulers, queens. Ceilings were painted like Sistine chapel. So much opulence that it hurts. No wonder that due to indulgence of rulers of that time, general people were neglected and that led to French revolution!
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| Grand hall |
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| Paintings of rulers of that time |
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| Opulence |
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| Ceiling |
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| Chandelier walk |
The palace is quite grand with huge spread out building. If the building is marvellous, the sprawling gardens behind it are equally marvellous. The garden has slender plus shaped water body with sprawling green grass and trees and bushes around. The tall green grass was so inviting that people were relaxing on it in shade. We did the same for some time. I just marvelled at the greenery around that I was watching. Haven't see any such tranquil, oozing green garden. There is always some not so good patch but here the trees, bushes were uniform and green throughout.
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| Just outside the palace |
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| Gardens beyond the palace |
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| Monument inside lake |
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| Palace from distance |
One of the gardens was curated to the hilt. There was a shooting of some movie or show was going on with actors dressed like medieval times.
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| Curated garden |
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| Actors of medieval times |
There are couple of residences apart from main palace called
Grand Trianon and
Petit Trianon built for Queens. One can imagine how grand and opulent lifestyle the royals were living that it was one of the factors for french people to overthrow the monarchy.
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| Queen bed |
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| Queen herself |
We went around the garden, rested under trees, walked on trails covered by trees and try to soak in beauty and tranquility all around.
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| walkway |
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| garden |
We were hungry and what we could eat was loaf bread from the only outlet. We finally left around 4:00PM the same way we came.
In the evening, we had another plan of Seine River Cruise. We quickly got ready at the hotel and took a bus to the meeting point. The cruise was to start from
Marina de Paris, Port de Solferino, Quai Anatole. While we were in bus, the sky became overcast and it started raining. Thankfully we got down close to the meeting point and after some waiting we were ushered into the boat and onto our table. The package included three course dinner but not fixed vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. The food was a disappointment mostly due to our inability to savour unfamiliar cuisine. But rest of the ambience of the boat and service was good. The cruise sails down the river upto a point, then takes a U-turn and comes a little beyond Eiffel Tower on seine river. We figured the reason for this timed route is to for guests to witness the shimmering of Eiffel tower which happens for full 5-minutes at the turn of every hour. It was amazing to look at the Eiffel tower shimmering, with cool breeze, gentle music and your spouse around. Surprisingly there was a small statue of liberty similar to the one in New York!
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| Eiffel tower all illuminated |
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| Statue of Liberty in Paris |
The cruise ended beyond 11pm but thankfully we were able to catch a bus to come back to hotel after a long day.
Day 3
We came back to Paris in our last leg of the journey again. We left from Brussels for Paris again in Thalys. We arrived at
Gare du Nord, Paris and went to our hotel
Ibis Styles at Bercy by taking train RER D. We checked-in and immediately went to Louvre museum by bus. We had pre-booked our tickets for Louvre for that day. Louvre Pyramid is a glass and metal structure and acts as entry point into the museum. The square around the Pyramid is flanked by museum building. Louvre is quite huge and has several galleries. It hosts the most iconic painting of Mona Lisa which expectedly had huge crowd in front to admire. We glanced through the galleries of Roman, Egyptian and several other cultures. It is impossible to do justice to this place in half-a-day but what can a time crunched tourist can do.
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| Louvre Pyramid |
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| outside Louvre |
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| Louvre building |
We came out and decided to go to Notre Dame cathedral. We first came to Town Hall which was an impressive building, then cross the Seine river bridge.
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| Town Hall |
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| Road signs |
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| Seine River boats |
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| Seine river boats |
Notre Dame is on an island on Seine. The exterior of building is grand and is finest example French-Gothic architecture. We went inside cathedral which was equally grand with very high ceiling with arched roof, stained glasses.
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| Notre Dame cathedral |
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| Inside Notre Dame |
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| Notre Dame |
We came out of the building and crossed back Seine and came to
Pont Neuf - Quai du Louvre. We wanted to go to Eiffel tower for our final view of its glittering view but there was still time as sunset happened beyond 8pm. Found that there is a bus route no. 69 which goes to Champ De Mars from Gambetta. Paris had complicated set of transport and ticketing. But I figured that the t+ tickets have time validity. Just to kill time and witness more of the city, we decided to take the bus to Gambetta and take same bus back all the way to Eiffel Tower. It was worth it as we traversed through city. We witnessed July Tower while transit and many more sights and sounds. We eventually came back to Eiffel Tower. There were huge number of people gathered in the garden below tower. We too sat down. Few vendors came to sell Wine, Beer or Champagne and even provided glasses! Apparently, Eiffel tower being symbol of love, lot of romantics flock the place and to make the moment special they are provided with
spirit. Surprisingly, none of these vendors could quench your thirst even though it was quite hot in Paris and had to purchase it from a shop.
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| Dusk |
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| Crowd gathered at tower |
We started walking back towards Trocadero and witnessed the shimmering at 8pm hours for whole 5 minutes. Huge crowd was there to witness.
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| Eiffel tower illuminated |
We looked for food but most of the places has 3-course meal plan and found a pizza shop. From there we took Paris metro route 6 (Nation) to our hotel. Next day we went to Lyon & back by 5PM. With nothing planned for the evening, we spent time in a nearby park and went to Seine promenade. Later in the evening we had dinner at an Indian restaurant and retired for the day.
Next day we had morning flight for which booked shared cab which picked us up in time but we nearly missed our flight when it took enormous time for immigration and security check. We had to run full-speed to our gate. The airlines person scolded us for being late and they were searching for our bags to offload. Luckily, it got sorted and we were allowed to board. That's how our adventurous trip to Europe ended.
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