After a quick night in London, we were onto our Topdeck trip. While we were only doing the 15-day Classic Europe version, it was part of a greater 49-day Mega European tour. I think that long trip would have been something that I would have considered potentially if we hadn’t done the rest, but then its a very long time with a bunch of strangers. I dunno, it could be great, it could have been horrible.

After an early start to get to the bus, we were down to Dover to catch the ferry across the English Channel to Calais. From there I managed to get a quick glimpse of the white cliffs of Dover, though they didn’t look too white as the sun was not shining on them, except for a small patch long into the distance.

Once we landed on shore, it was another long trek down to Paris. Over this time, I’m pretty sure that I had drifted off to sleep as one moment I was travelling through a whole bunch of farms, next moment I was in the middle of buildings and streets and people, and only five away from the hotel. Our Topdeck trip is using multi-share hostel rooms so its a little different to what we have had on the rest of the trip, but the hostel in Paris was more than fine. Breakfast was particularly good, especially with the croissants, which I’m sure will have added some weight to me — though probably not a great deal.

First night there and we ate at a restaurant as part of the trip. First on the menu: snails. As mentioned earlier, we had snails previously in Singapore when Edd’s cousin Jason was kind enough to take us out for dinner at a French place. These snails though were slightly different in that they were still in their shells. It took a little more effort to take them out but they tasted fine, especially since they were smothered in garlic and butter.

Then it was onto a tour of Paris at night, to see all the landmarks, all the amazing things glowing in the dark. One of the first things we saw was the famous Moulin Rouge, famous for its cabaret shows and its less than glamourous past. In complete contrast, the next one that we saw was the opera house, Palais Garnier, one which is said to have inspired the novel and the subsequent musical adaptation ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. It is said that there were strange incidents and deaths at the theatre when it first opened, and combined with the underground lake found underneath it, you can see the inspiration for the story. This was followed by a number of places that we saw at both day and night — though some of the photos at night were crap due to the combination of night photography and a moving bus.

One of the places that we managed to see at both times was of course the Eiffel Tower. I have to say that the tower is more impressive at night with the lights on, the spotlight shining out, and the lights on and sparkling on the hour (the below photo is the best of the multiple crappy photos that I took — once again I miss having my screen working). During the day though, it just a whole bunch of steel up into the sky. It doesn’t look terribly impressive and you can understand why at first the French people weren’t too keen on it. Funny how it always seems that skyscrapers that nobody likes at first end up being a symbol for a city, or in this a whole country in a way. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to be able to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which isn’t that surprising considering all the tings that we had planned. One day in Paris is not enough as a tourist and we missed out on all kinds of things that we wanted to do.

One more place we saw at both times was Notre Dame, the famous cathedral of Paris. The cathedral was a little different to what I expected, and in some ways it was grand and not at the same time.

It was grand in the sense that it was gorgeous, with beautiful stained glass windows, and some gorgeous gothic architecture. The stonework was amazing. On the other hand, the church is quite different from say Westminster Abbey which is amazing, with more detailed stained glass windows everywhere and is more steeped in history with its plaques and tombs all over the place. I guess its a different type of church, and each to their own I suppose. Nevertheless, it felt quite spiritual and a place of worship, despite the sea of tourists. Also, I lit a candle for Elsa in the church. I do miss that little tyke.

I guess the other thing that we did was visit the Lourve, one of the most famous museums in the world because of the presence of the painting, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. We were there super early and we went on the side entrance so we were one of the first in there and we didn’t need to buy special passes. We were at the painting in two or three minutes with only a dozen people at most around. However, we went able to get any closer than five metres or so of it.

To be honest, it was a little underwhelming. It wasn’t as small as I thought it would be but it was still nothing particularly special to me. In contrast, there was a painting on the other wall from a church that was massive, easily the biggest painting that I had ever seen, and yet no one really was looking at it with as much interest. I don’t understand why the Mona Lisa is that amazing, but I can say that I’ve seen it.

Once we had got that out of the way, we were able to enjoy the rest of the museum. There were a lot of other pieces of art and artifacts to enjoy, including entire rooms of Greek vases and Egyptian tombs and statues. It was incredible, with the collection big enough to rival that of the British Museum which astounded me. But in some ways, one of the major assets of the museum is the fact that it is in a palace and a gorgeous one at that. For example, there is the Apollo room, decorated as King Louis XVI felt that he was like Apollo and so had the room decorated accordingly. It is a stunning room, with loads of gold and decorating the roof are the months and star signs. It is simply beautiful and awe inspiring.

In the end though, I was unable to visit everything. Indeed, if I visited every single item for 30 seconds, apparently it would take 12 days to do which I can safely say I won’t be doing. Indeed, there wasn’t enough time in Paris to do much which I think will be the theme of this coach trip. Its a shame but its good as it means that I can come back and still have heaps to do, as evident from the bike tour that we did that pointed out a whole lot of buildings such as the Tomb of Napoleon which apparently includes a fake dome roof because the king couldn’t see it and actually wanted a floor taken out of the building so that he could see it. There are also a dozen museums including the Musee d’Orsy which includes all the impressionists like Monet.

I suppose it means I will just have to come back. But alas, it is time to travel to Switzerland. Interlaken, here we come!