Travelogue: Paris, je t'aime!

An evening in Paris

Paris...One certainly needs to pause to recollect the visual brilliance of the city. We (Piyali, Prisha & I) reached Paris from Helsinki on the eve of Christmas. I should have guessed what was in store for us as I soaked in the unique layout of the escalator in Charles de Gaulle International Airport (Roissy Airport or just Roissy in French).

After spending quite some time at the SNCF counters to take the train pass as well as collect the onward tickets to Venice, we arrived at Hotel Abbatial Saint Germain at about 1600 hrs local time. The weather was warm & pleasant in comparison to what we had in Helsinki. It was good to be away from the snow for once 😊. We got into a nice cosy room without much hassle since I had managed to book a room as part of the planning and stretched our stiffened muscles.

Our hotel was centrally located, close to Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral and we had a room that gave a good view of Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet church.

After relaxing for a couple of hours, we decided to venture out into the City of Lights. Even though it was drizzling, our increasing hunger ensured that we moved out. We decide to move in the direction of Notre-Dame hoping to find some good restaurant as well as catch a glimpse of the famed church.

Little did we realize that it would be such a great sight to see the church bounded by Seine on one side. Amazed at our first halt in Paris, we forgot about food and started to walk around the Seine. The drizzle was making it cold as we stumbled upon a huge building with flashing lights. Little did we know then that the building was the famous Place de l'Hôtel de Ville (City Hall Plaza). It looked resplendent with the flashing lights.

By now the drizzle was slowly increasing in intensity & so was our hunger. We decided to abandon further gazing of the buildings & head for dinner, trying to fit under the solitary umbrella. As it was Christmas eve the restaurants were either fully occupied or closed. We finally managed to locate one, in one of the side streets called Le Jardin du Marais. The staff were very courteous & served us with our order of pizza & wine. The hunger made the food extra delicious. After enjoying our food, we decided to head back to our room. As we walked back, we decided to hand the umbrella to our little lady who was enjoying her evening in Paris 😊.

Christmas

We had to drag ourselves out of the bed as we were totally exhausted from the previous day's travel & walk in the rain. Hoping for an eventful day we started with Notre-Dame. My enthusiasm to capture the Notre-Dame in digital frame slowed us down. Soon enough, we decided to have our breakfast and headed towards the Subway across the street where we stuffed ourselves with foot-long subs.

Christmas sermons were in progress as we toured inside the cathedral along with hordes of other visitors. I realized the need for a wide-angle lens as I tried to capture the complete entrance. I noted that I must either get add-on lens for my Olympus E-330 or upgrade to a newer camera.

Content with the time spent at Notre-Dame, we decided to visit Place des Vosges which was a must see on Piyali's agenda. I had hardly heard of this place but then agreed to her as she had spent a lot of time preparing the list of must-see for us. As we did not know the route we decided to explore on foot. Few of the Parisians' were kind enough to give us the directions. As moved across the Seine, I got a view of the Notre-Dame that I had to capture on my camera. Later this view was described as one of the most sought after views by the cruise guide. Lucky me🙌!!!

We continued to walk through the by-lanes and moved towards Rue de Rivoli as we were told. En-route I took a picture of what I had assumed to be yet another church. I had absolutely no clue then that it was the well known Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis Church. As they say every moment is worth capturing in your camera, especially when you don't know what you actually are looking at 😉.

Finally we reached Rue de Rivoli and made our way to Place des Vosges. All my apprehensions on visiting this place vanished once we entered the huge complex.

No wonder it was the dream address for not only most of the Parisians but for anyone who has been there. We too were no exception to this greed as we watched our little girl enjoy herself.

It was time for us to leave Place des Vosges and go to our next stop for the day, Sacré Coeur. As we took the metro, we decided a small detour to Place de la République, which was right above the République metro.

After the brief halt at République, we reached Sacré Coeur. I had missed reading that Sacré Coeur was perched on top of the highest point in Paris. Daunted by the task on hand, we decided to refuel ourselves before starting our ascent. We managed to have some pizza, eggs and bread at one of the many restaurants lined up in front of Sacré Coeur.

It was fun climbing all the way to the top. We managed to cajole Prisha to take up the rides on our way back. As we reached half way through, we decide to take a photo-break. Prisha was keen to try her hand on whatever her papa was doing. I decided to let her give it a shot. It was an amusing site for the people around to see a cute little girl try & take pictures of her parents as we posed for Prisha. For someone her age, it was really a very nice picture 😄.

We walked all the way up and went inside the church. If only they would let photography inside such places 😒. After offering our prayers, we moved out and once again got engrossed in trying to take some good pictures but in vain. The light was fading & my basic D-SLR would not satisfy all my requirements.

We took some time off to watch one of the guys perform some wonderful tricks with a football perched on top of one of the columns. His fluency with the ball would have put most of our footballers to shame 😊. Our walk back was swift & as promised we let Prisha enjoy in the play area and the merry-go-round.

It was time for some shopping. We bought some souvenirs and perfumes. It is true that one gets the best perfumes in Paris 👍. It was now time to move & I rushed back to get one final picture of Sacré Coeur as dusk dawned upon us.

The metros were crowded and after quite an eventful journey we decided to go about the rest of the evening without any plan. We decided to do some window shopping on Boulevard Haussmann which boasts of the famous Galeries Lafayette.

People had come out to the streets to enjoy the Christmas evening. We had lot of company in gazing at the animated toys adorning the displays. Prisha had fallen asleep by now & we had to wake her up so that she does not miss the fun. After a brief stop at one of the McDonalds, we decide to go visit Avenue des Champs-Elysées.

Stepping out of Champs-Elysées metro, we walked into a mini exhibition of sorts which had attracted Prisha. After convincing her about the wait time, we started walking away from the crowd towards Les Invalides not knowing that we were close to Arc de Triomphe as well. As moved ahead, we found this huge structure which looked like some sort of museum on our right. Curious about the way the building was lit, we decided to drop in.

This place was filled with games for kids much to Prisha's amusement. We decided to hangout for sometime & let her have some fun.

As I discovered later, this sturcture was Place Vendôme. We thought of taking a bus back home. As we walked in search of a bus stop we had our first look at the Eiffel Tower.

As we had no clue about the route numbers, we decided to stick to the metro & returned to our room.

Last Day

We started our day quite late compared to what we had planned. We halted near the metro for breakfast and treated ourselves to some delicious crepes. Our first stop was the Louvre. Piyali had done a brief yet extensive research on what all we should see. We had heard of the enormity of the museum and time that would be required to cover the complete museum. We were lucky to get in quick & buy the tickets. Once inside this magnificent must-visit museum, I could understand why this was one of the most visited museums in the world.

I may not be wrong to proclaim that this is perhaps the number one museum in the world. There were an awful lot of things to see. As we had very little time we started with the paintings section, especially the one in the wing that housed the world famous Mona Lisa.

I started taking pictures as usual knowing pretty well that most of them would not make the cut to be shared. Piyali was gazing away at all the life like paintings. After going through many hallways we were finally there to meet the good old lady herself - Mona Lisa.

The painting was barricaded a good 30-40 meters away from visiting public. All the competing flashes made it all the more difficult for me to capture Leonardo da Vinci on my digital frame. Now that I had the picture, my interest level waned. We went through the different wings and by the time we winded up, it was well into past noon.

We decided to have lunch and then go to Centre Georges Pompidou. But after Louvre, Pompidou felt more like a shopping mall.

As we walked around Pompidou, we reached the beautifully lit Saint-Jacques Tower. As we walked through the side streets, we realized how close we were to our hotel and could not help appreciate the location of this wonderful hotel.

As night was setting in we decided to complete the remaining two major attractions, Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. We took the metro to Charles de Gaulle - Étoile which was right below the Arc de Triomphe. As we walked out of the subway, we could see the structure which reminded us of our own Gateway of India. We found a few other fellow Indians but could not make out whether they were localites or tourists like us.

After having our pictures taken we moved on to Eiffel Tower, our last and final stop in Paris. This one time tallest man-made structure in the world stood on the banks of Seine. As they light it in the evenings, it was radiant from a good distance.

As we moved towards the tower we stumbled upon a fellow Indian who was selling souvenirs. The desi spirit got the better of me and I decided to buy some souvenirs from him. This guy hailed from Punjab and gave me a good deal (I prefer to think that way 😉).

We then moved towards closer to the Eiffel Tower. We felt dwarfed as we neared this structure. I was hoping that it will be less crowded so that we can manage to go up at least till the fourth level. But as we approached the bottom of the tower, all such hope fast evaporated. We decided to hang around for some time, take a few more pictures and then go for the cruise on Seine.

The cruise was just in time and took us around the city of Paris. It covered most of the key places to visit. The evening breeze made it all the more pleasant. My attempts to add to my collection of pictures were futile due to the lack of light as well as the speed of the cruise. I decided to forget about taking pictures and enjoy the cruise. The cruise was for about an hour and brought us back to Eiffel Tower. Satisfied with the places we got to see in the day, we decided to have dinner at Pizza Fiorentina near the Champ de Mars RER station. We tried the pizza bolongnese which was quite much more than delicious. Satisfied with our food as well as our trip so far we headed back to the hotel looking forward to the next day.