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