Paris, France
Trip Start
Jan 05, 2008
1
52
61
Trip End
Jun 20, 2008
Paris,
Île-de-France,
France
Monday, April 28, 2008
Well it's sad but I am going to start the tour of Paris off by summary up our bus trip and arrival to the hotel. It seems that it is where most of our stories come from, but here it goes. We first had to catch the train from Brugge to Brussels, which is where the bus station was located for us to catch our bus to Paris. We made it to Brussels no problem, we were even a bit earlier than we had to be. We figured we would check in and make sure we got decent seats, but we were not allowed to check in because it was too early. We came back thirty minutes later, when we were told to and when we went to check in the desk attendant said that he could not find our reservation in his list. Somehow the reservation we did online didnt make his list. Great! While he is on the phone with the main office, Alane with her poor French understand that he says the bus is full and that we would not be able to go. Well, that was not an option because Alane was not going to stay in Brussels any longer than she had to. I am not sure if he ever found our reservation but we ended up on a bus that seemed to leave at the same time our reserved bus was leaving. He said it was a different bus, but oh well we were headed to Paris (on the dirtiest bus yet). We had to ask two singles to move together so we could sit by each other, which gave us great seats right in front of the bathroom. We smelled PEE the entire trip...not sure what was worse, the pee smell or the BO smell of all those that were in the same bus... it was great! At least we made it to Paris on time. And this time we had a hotel already reserved!
So from our printed directions we were to catch a certain metro line and get off at a certain stop and then we had to walk to the hotel. From the map on our drawings it seemed that we had to cross a highway interchange and we thought maybe we just had to walk under it. Well we tried that and after about 40 minutes of carrying the packs, again, we ended up nowhere and lost.
Sacre Coeur - Paris
The direction didnt make sense. So now we are standing in the middle of an interchange contemplating our next move before we get soaked by the rain that is moving in. We spotted a bus stop and walked briskly to it as it started to rain strongly. We ended up catching a bus that we should have caught from the metro stop; it was actually in the directions to catch the bus from the metro station, but since we dont speak French we didnt quite get that. So we ended up walking to nowhere and catching a bus that took us back to where we started and then 5 minutes later we were at the hotel. To top off the last dramatic hour we checked into the hotel and they gave us probably the worst smelling room in the hotel. It smelled of BO (really bad bo) according to Alane. We opened the windows to let the room air out and went to the mall besides the hotel since it was too late to head to the city after our ordeal. The room never aired out, so we slept through it. Day 2
We ended up not leaving the hotel until 12PM because we were waiting until checkout to see if we could switch rooms. Alane could just not deal with the smell. We had a few choices of rooms we could move to so Alane went to check them out while I waited in our old room. Our new room smelled like roses! Alane was so excited!! Now finally off to Paris. Our first stop was at the Galleria Lafayette, which is a huge store full of expensive brands shops in an old building with great design to it.
Sacre Coeur - Paris
Then we searched for a place to eat and ended up at a street crepe stand and we had a delicious lunch: I had a huge hotdog while Alane had a ham with cheese crepe. Believe it or not she ate the entire thing all alone and it was quite big. Next stop: Sacre Coeur. This is a cathedral that sits atop a hill on the edge of the city. It gives a great panoramic of the city, we just wished it was sunny. Yes it was raining again! Then we headed down hill into the city to visit the Louvre museum. The famous museum that holds the Mona Lisa and other famous artwork. The museum buff that I am did not know of this place until I watched The Da Vinci Code (This is Jarrett writting). It looked liked it did in the movie except it was raining now. We couldn't go in because it is closed on Tuesdays, so sorry no pics of the Mona Lisa. We sat down at a corner because the rain got a little stronger and waited, while the wind kept blowing on us and it finally broke our umbrella...bummer. Then it cleared up a little bit and we walked to the Arc de Triumph. It looks a bit similar to the India Gate in Delhi....not sure who copied who. We finished off our day at the Arc and headed back to the hotel because it started raining again.
Day 3
Another late start but we didn't need the whole day to cover what we had planned. First stop, which was one of the reasons I wanted to come to Paris, The Catacombs. I saw it on the travel channel. The only thing I knew about the place was that it is a system of tunnels under Paris that holds the remains of many deceased persons. What we found out was that Paris used to have a big mining industry and while mining there were many cave ins and people always died. There was a gentleman who was elected to dig a series of tunnels under the mining spots to make sure that the mining areas would not cave in. That's why the tunnels exist. The bodies remains were added because of the same situation at the Prague Ossuary, due to the Plague the cemeteries filled up and there was no more space so the French decided to turn the tunnels into graves. Its not as artistic as the ossuary in Prague but there are many more remains - thousands more. The tunnels were also used as office during the second World War. The offices were set up among the remains.
After the catacombs we went to catch a glimpse of the exterior of The Moulin Rouge. It not as exciting as you would think. It actually looks a bit rundown from the outside. We took some pics and then sat down for a coffee and a beer. The only reason I mention this is because my beer was 8.30 Euro, which is equal to 13.28 US Dollars. That's right my beer was 13 dollars. It wasn't small but it was only the equivalent of 2 bottles of beer. We shook that one off an move on. We left there and walked to the Notre Dame, the cathedral from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I guess we lucked out because it was open for free entrance so we got to tour the interior of the church. We were actually kind of excited about that because we usually only look at things from the outside. But it only looked like a church on the inside with some very nice stained glass windows, so we were glad we didnt pay to go in.
Finally we were on our way to the Eiffel Tower and guess what, it was NOT raining, it was actually sunny. Perfect timing. The Eiffel Tower is actually a very beautiful site to visit because there is nothing around it. Paris does not have many skyscrapers so the tower stands out as a dominant feature. It is also surrounded by a large park, which didn't have too many visitors but I am sure it can get quite busy. At the base of the tower we enjoyed our fourth crepe of the day. The crepes are like pizza in Italy..
Sacre Coeur - Paris
really cheap, and GOOD, no matter what you have in them. We tried to stick around until the sunset - it was about 8:30 pm and still very lightout, but we needed to head back to the hotel because we had an hour metro ride ahead and the sun was not setting until about 10PM. That was it for Paris but we saw what we needed to see and when it mattered it wasn't raining and we were happy about that. 
