Last Day in Paris: Day-5 in France

How time flies when you’re having fun! The last day of our vacation arrives, and we still have not seen some sights in Paris. We plan to see the Luxembourg gardens and Pantheon. So once again, after breakfast at our hotel, we set off to the nearby Metro station. It happens to be a Sunday, so the metro is not too crowded. However, we have to change the Metro line at Gare du Nord to RER-B, since that’s the only line that goes to Luxembourg gardens.
We get off at the metro station, and it’s one of the dirtiest and most dilapidated ones that I have seen in Paris so far! But, once out of the station, the garden is quite beautiful. It’s about 9:30AM in the morning, and there are joggers and dog-walkers all over the park. There is a lovely mansion house at one end of the gardens, which I later found is the French senate.

Jardin du Luxembourg, with the palace on the right.

Admiring the gardens

Exploring Mont St. Michel: Day-4 in France

Day-4 in France my wife and I have checked into the Mercure hotel near Le Mont-St-Michel Abbey. I wake up in the morning to see dark grey skies and continuous drizzle of rain. Bad weather to walk down the 2.5 km long stretch from the hotel to the Abbey, but I have no choice, as we’re here for one day only. After a hearty breakfast at "Le Pre Sale" restaurant, out come the umbrellas, and we begin our walk to the Abbey. Soon the rain starts coming in gusts, and I turn back to see a Peugeot sedan approaching. I’m pretty sure no one would give a lift to a foreign couple on a dark and rainy day like this, but I still make the universally accepted sign with my thumb asking for a lift. We’re in luck, the car stops, and a French couple, who cant speak a word of English, give us a lift. We were really grateful to this helpful couple; without their help, we would have been walking in the rain for at least 20 minutes. We thanked the couple with heartfelt "merci beaucoup’s", when we reached the Abbey.

Destination Mont St. Michel: Day-3 in France

My third day in France, I leave Paris, the city I could not yet explore to my heart’s content, and head off to rural France. My destination is Mont St. Michel, a church which has a history dating back to the 8th century A.D. The church is dedicated to St. Michael, the arch-angel. The unique thing about this church is that it’s built on a finger of land jutting out into the Atlantic ocean. But before I leave, I have some time so a visit to the Sacre Coeur Basilica, which was a short walk from the hotel. As we walked, we crossed a very charming part of Paris. Nice little restaurants like the one below, markets selling oysters, clams, mushrooms and different kinds of hams and cheese. 

Le Basilic restaurant.

Montmartre, on the way to Sacre Cour

 
Sacre Coeur
The Sacre Coeur Basilica is a slightly steep climb up the Montmartre hill. Once up, there is a beautiful view of Paris, and you can even see the Eiffel Tower from here. The Basilica itself is quite awe-inspiring. It’s a towering structure.

Sacre Cour

 
It is said that during a siege of Paris, the Montmartre hill was used to bombard
the city using cannons. There is a plaque on the wall, but since it’s in French,
I could not understand it completely, except for the fact that during a siege,
this particular point was used for cannon artillery.

View from the hill.

Paris: Day-2 in France

On today’s itinerary was the Eiffel Tower and Church of Notre Dame. We had plans of seeing as many of the sights as possible, but time was short, and sights worth seeing many, in Paris. We took a L’Open Tour bus, which is a hop-on-hop-off double decker tourist bus. These buses have different circuit routes which take you to pretty much every tourist attraction in the city, but with a catch (that we later realized)... the last bus is at 6:30PM, and this does not give enough time to see everything. While we wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Pantheon, Napoleon’s Tomb, Luxemburg gardens and Sacre Cour, we could manage just the first two. After day-2 in Paris, I realize that it’s a place that you cannot do justice to if you have only two days.

Church of Notre Dame

The first stop was at Notre Dame, the 12th century church.

Carvings on the facade, Notre Dame

The church is both a tourist attraction and a religious place, so tourists are asked to maintain silence while inside. Mass is still held in this church, as we went in, the mass started.

Interiors of the church.

You may enter the church for free, but if you want to ascend the towers, it costs 8 euros per head. It is a bit funny to have to pay 8 euros to climb up what seemed like a thousand steps, but when you reach the top, this is the view you get!

A Gargoyle looks at the Eiffel Tower.

View from the top of Notre Dame

Paris : Day 1

So I’m in Paris today, starting a week-long vacation with my wife. We make a good team while travelling in France. While she had previously lived in Nice & Toulouse for a short while, I learned to speak a wee-bit of French during my MBA. It’s just been half a day, and I’m already liking the city of Paris. We landed in Charles De Gaulle airport, and took the RER (Rural-Express-Rail?) to Gare Du Nord. On the way we were accosted by girls pretending to be deaf & dumb, asking for charity. My wife asked one of them where the train station was, and she replied quite helpfully, momentarily forgetting the charade! Train station located, and tickets bought (approx. 9 euros per person), we then waited at the station for the train to arrive.

Waiting at the RER station at Charles De Gaulle

On the train, the journey to Gare du Nord was faster than expected. It took, I guess, about 20 minutes (expected time was 30 minutes). From Gare du Nord, we took a taxi to the hotel. While looking for the taxi stand, we were again accosted by a group of girls, who asked me "Do you speak English?". I was quite aware that this is always the starting point of some sort of scam or request for fake charity. I just replied "No" and moved on. We, we had to wait in a line for a good 15 minutes, but the ride cost only 10 euros, and was quicker than taking the Metro. We’ll go out exploring in a while, most likely the Louvre. Before that we had an early lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant. The place was called "Flunch", and was a chain that my wife remembered from her Nice days.

First taste of French food. Verdict: main course was OK, dessert was great.

I always had heard that in Paris hotels are noisy, and walls are thin so you can hear what the other guests are up-to. Believe it or not, as I write this, I hear some idiot in the floor above with an electric drill! The rest of this post, after the sigh-seeing trip!

Louvre
After lunch we decided to take the Metro and see the Louvre museum and Eiffel tower. The Metro is a good and convinrent way to move around in Paris, although at first, we didn’t realize that there was something called a "day ticket" which is valid for the whole day. The Paris Metros have different numbered "lines", and with a Metro map, it’s easy to figure out (even for tourists like us). We had to change the line once to reach the Louvre.

Entrance to the Louvre