Day 2 - Arrival in Paris

Trip Start Apr 30, 2004

Trip End May 09, 2004

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Flag of France Paris, France
Saturday, May 1, 2004

Our flight to Zurich and on to Paris is quite uneventful, as it should be, and we arrive in Paris right on time. Customs and immigration is a breeze, totally the opposite of the U.S. where it's a long convoluted process.

To our delight, as soon as we exit into the main airport we see Rocio waiting for us. Now we are all five together and can start our holiday in serious.

The Train to the City
Number one experiment upon arrival is to test out our ATM cash cards. We locate an outlet with the "PLUS" sign easily. We insert our cards, plug in our PINs and, lo and behold like magic, the machine starts spewing out Euros. Always remember to stock up your bank account prior to departure

1. Looking for the Way

. You wouldn't want to run out of money half way though the trip.

All fixed up financially, we now look at our next task. Although we had contemplated purchasing metro transit passes and museum passes online, and having them delivered to the hotel, we finally decided to await our arrival in Paris. On the Paris Metro RATP website http://www.ratp.fr/ we found we could buy these passes at their airport office at lower prices. Sure enough, we approach the office, and although there is a small queue, we quickly arrive at the counter and obtain our 3-day passes for zones 1 to 3, and at the same time our one way tickets from the airport to the city centre, which are not included in the pass. Everything is charged to our Washington Mutual debit card, and we are on our way.

Because we will be in Paris on the first Sunday of the month, the majority of museums offer free entry on that day. We planned to visit the Louvre and Quai d'Orsay on Sunday, so decided to forgo the US$ 30.00 days pass. If this had not been the case, we would have been tempted as these passes allow you to "skip the queue" and not waste time in line. More on that later. http://www.conciergerie.com/main.htm?O=OV.

The train ride into Paris is fascinating as we see at first hand the different architecture and culture of France

2. The Hotel Mont Blanc

. We are amazed at the amount of graffiti painted on almost any moveable or immovable object. Much is very creative, but it is graffiti after all. Soon we drop underground and join the Paris Metro system. Saint Michel is our station, and it's only half a block from there to the hotel.

We alight at Saint Michel, but find there are six different exits, all with street names we have no knowledge of. None indicate Rue de la Huchette, where our hotel is located. It's now a matter of pot luck, and we find ourselves on the corner of Boulevard Saint Germain and Boulevard Saint Michel, the very hub of the Latin Quarter http://www.pariserve.tm.fr/English/paris/quartier.htm. We consult our maps and find we will have to walk two whole blocks down the narrow pedestrian Rue de la Harpe to get to our destination. Our greatest shock are the masses of people we encounter, obviously all tourists just like us. We wend our way through the crowd wheeling our suitcases behind us. At this moment everyone appreciates the requirement we had made earlier of one small suitcase per person. With little effort and some amusement, we arrive at Rue de la Huchette. Our hotel is just around the corner, just half a block from one of the multiple exits from the Saint Michel metro station!