Pit Stop at Paris

There is an inherent benefit when you are living in the USA and your hometown is in India. The benefit is that you get to make pit stop trips to the cities where you get flight connections to India. My final destination was Mumbai but I found a wonderful route via Paris. The flight was SFO - Paris - Mumbai (March 2014). It was a quick 3 1/2 days trip to Paris. My wife and I landed in Paris around noon. It took a long time for our bags to come in at the baggage claim. Finally they arrived and off we go. Firstly I exchanged my US dollars to Euros at the airport. Per our research the train service from the airport to the city is very straight forward so we were very keen on taking the train to the city. We looked up the signage started walking towards the train. It was a long walk. We finally reach the ticket counter and I picked up 2 train passes for 3 days. We took the train to Gare du Nord. Our hotel was near Gare de L'Est. So we had to change the train and hop onto the local metro. This is when we realized that we made a mistake to be adventurous with 4 bags in hand in a new crowded city changing train. We got off Gare du Nord and could not really figure out where to go. It was dark and crowded in the subway and we were with a lot of baggage. From the research I had done for the city we were warned of the thieves that operate on the stations. So it was very very uncomfortable. Finally a gentleman helped us out but pointing towards the direction as he could not speak English and we could not speak French beyond "Bonjour" and "Merci" :). We crossed over to the local metro . We were supposed to go further down the staircase to get to the metro that would take us to Gare de L'Est. We had 4 bags and there was no elevator or escalator. I picked up the 2 big bags and my wife picked up the 2 small bags and in a classic touristy fashion in stress and confusion we reached the at the right platform. We took the train to Gare de L'Est. Once we got off the episode repeated and we found ourselves again lifting the bags this time climbing up the stairs. Somehow we managed to get out of the subway to breath some fresh air on the road. Thankfully the hotel was right there. We checked in to the hotel. The trip did not start in ideal scenario but still I find it very adventurous today when I write this article. It is definitely a memory to remember.  I cannot explain the sigh of relief  we felt after we checked in to the hotel. It was the smallest room that I have ever stayed in. Untill Paris it was New York City that held the baton. Now its Paris. It was dark, gloomy and small. We did not care much as we knew that we are not going to spend much time in the hotel anyways.

A quick nap and a shower got us ready for the city. Despite of the uncomfortable arrival to Paris, the excitement was still at its peak to explore the beautiful city of Paris. We picked up the travel guide and metro train map from the hotel and we took off to Notre Dame. It was not to far from the hotel. Just a few stops away. This time the train ride was very smooth since we did not have any bags with us. We got off the station and quickly walked up to the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a very beautiful structure. There were a lot of people outside as well as inside who were mainly tourists. The structure is covered with La Seine river on both sides. The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and most well-known church in the world. The art and the architecture takes you in the past and makes you feel how it must have been. We almost spent an hour at the cathedral. The most memorable visual of the cathedral in my mind were the staint glasses that I have added a picture of here.

After the cathedral we walked around in the area. We were hungry so we were on the look for some food. That hunt took us to the Saint Michel area which is very close to Notre Dame. We walked around the area. Saint Michel was buzzing with performers on the street, restaurants, tourists and great scene with La Seine in the background. 

We found a great roadside option to eat. When in Paris what better to eat but a roadside Crepe !  It was delicious. We spend some more time in the area. We made a quick trip to Champs-Elysees which is a boulevard near Arc de Triomphe. It is famous for its theatres, cafes and luxury shops and we were keen to see it. We walked around for very little time as we knew we had a plan to come back and spend more time here on the 3rd day of the trip. We were awed by the size and the buzz of the street. We tried to get tickets for the famous Moulin Rouge show but everything was sold out. We realized that we should have planned and purchased earlier for the show. We took off fairly soon as it was the first day and we were tired and hungry. We took the train back to Saint Michel and had dinner in the latin area of Paris in Arr #5. It was a very authentic place and it gave us a first hand feel of a French restaurant. Thankfully I found my vegetarian meal at the restaurant. We were at the restaurant for a long time. We enjoyed the ambience. Post dinner we retired the day. Took the train back to the hotel.

It was the next morning. It was really hard to wake up due to the heavy first day with all the action with the trains and baggage plus the jet lag set in as well. But the action packed second day motivated us and we were up and running again. We grabbed our Starbucks and chocolate croissant at Gare de L'Est and were ready to go. The destination for the first half of the day was Palace of Versailles. Versailles is a suburb of Paris and has a lot of history associated with it. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France. It was a hunting cottage for King Louis. Eventually after several rebuilds King Louis XIV expanded it to be one of the largest palace in the world. 

It was an hour plus long journey to Versailles. It surprisingly got very cold but no rain. We did not have the tickets. So we had to stand in a really long line first to take the tickets and then to get into the Chateau. These lines took away a lot of our time but there is no other choice but stand. Finally we get in to the most amazing palace that I have ever visited. The grandeur, the show, the shine was simply too good to be real even after soo many years of development. The palace seemed endless as there were rooms one after the other and each room better than the other. Every room had a history. We tried to keep up with the radio commentary. There were huge gardens surrounding the palace. A place not to miss !! 

It got very tiring at the end of it as the jet lag played its role in it.  We wrapped up our final photographs at the site and started the walk back to the train station. By this time we were very comfortable with the metro and the route. We changed the metro's and the connections very smoothly. The train network in Paris is amazing. We grabbed something eat on the way and headed back to the hotel. 

We took a quick nap and we were ready for our next activity. We headed to the La Seine night cruise. It was a 9PM cruise. It was a very good experience. The city looked beautiful in the night. The highlight was the close look at the Eiffel Tower that was fully lit. It was shining bright and tall. The view was really good from the cruise. We had dinner after the cruise and retired for the day.

We woke up early next morning as our destination was The Eiffel Tower. We had decided to go early since the lines can get significantly long. We reached the site by 8:30 AM. The line was long but not too long so we were in a good shape. We purchased the tickets to go all the way to the top of the tower. Standing in the line with people from various parts of the world, gave me a very good feel that I am actually at the Eiffel tower. One of the wonders of the world. We went up one level and then the other. We were on top of Pairs at the peak of the tower. I made atleast 3 complete rounds at the top. The weather was good too. No rain, nice and bright. The views were spectacular. We did not want to get down. Following were the pictures in all four directions from the top of Eiffel Tower.

Finally we get off the tower, a few final pictures and we were out of there with very fond memories of the Eiffel tower. We grabbed quick lunch at one of the restaurant near the tower.After Eiffel tower we headed straight out to the Louvre museum. It is one of the largest museum in the world. It has a various collections of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Islamic, African, European arts, paintings and sculptures. I am not a big fan of museum but I covered the two most important art that I wanted to see. I saw Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting and Michelangelo's Dying Slave.  

We spent a few hours at the Louvre and finally went to the final destination of the trip Champs Elysees. We walked the entire street. It was lit up in the evening. Went into a few stores to only realize that we cannot afford anything here :) But it was still a great experience to walk around . Buzzing with great restaurants, music, young people. We dinned at a fine restaurant on Champs Elysees to get a feel of the place. It was wonderful. We retired the day and headed back to the hotel for the last night.

I had requested for a taxi to return to the airport. Learnt a lot from my arrival. DO NOT TRAVEL IN PARIS METROS WITH BAGS. Next morning the taxi driver same in early we were extremely tired but were ready to go and it was time to say goodbye to the wonderful city of Paris. We might have missed a lot of places but I thought with 3 days in hand we did cover a lot and we had a lot of fun.