Paris: Day-1 in France
This was first posted on Dec-01, 2011
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.
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.
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 convenient 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.
I had read in Paris travel forums that there is a huge queue of people trying to get into the museum, but I guess we were lucky (it being a Wednesday afternoon). There were hardly 3 to 4 people in line ahead of us, and there was no fuss getting in. Once inside, I bought a ticket for the museum and temporary exhibitions (14 Euros), and a audio guide (6 Euros, and a deposit of your ID). Once inside, the first thing we saw was the statue of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.
Then we headed off to the main attraction of Louvre — La Jaconde, aka the Mona Lisa.
The Grand gallery if full of awe-inspiring paintings, and if I try to explain these, it would make this blog really long, so let me not attempt to. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
The largest painting in the Louvre is “Wedding Feast at Cana” by Veronese, which is a ceiling-to-floor painting just opposite to the Mona Lisa.
We soon realized that we could not see all the attractions at Louvre, and still make it to the Eiffel tower, so we decided to drop the tower for today, and concentrated on seeing the best of the Louvre. It turned out to be quite a treasure hunt, especially when we had to hunt for the statue of Ramses the second.
Champs Elysees
With aching feet, but satisfied right brain cells, we exited the Louvre, and took the metro to Champs Elysees. This street gives Paris the “City of lights” tag. It was a great walk down the avenue, lit up with neons, and shops selling interesting stuff.
I had to try the “hot wine”, and took a bought a cup from a shop. I had never had hot wine before (unless you count Sake, the Japanese wine), and I must say, it warms up the body on a cold night like this one!
