Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Ryan Air was having another sale this time with £1 flights so we took advantage and booked flights to Paris.
We arrived into small Beauvais Airport, much smaller than we expected, and caught the shuttle into Paris that took 1 hour. It was a nice trip, France is so different to England, it was not until we were about 45 minutes into the trip that we even got a hint of heading to a big city. It was so much green and trees for most of the trip in.
We arrived in the city and after a walk in the total wrong direction we found our way and decided to check out the Arc de Triomphe before heading to the hotel as we were so close to it. A very impressive monument that towers over the city with beautiful details both on its outside and its underneath. We then headed to the hotel to check in and change into cooler clothes, it was so hot and sunny. The weather remained like that for our entire stay, it was mid 20's all weekend. After changing we headed back into the city. Our hotel was about a 15 minute walk from town, we decided to take a scenic route to get a feel for Paris along the way. We ended up at Place de Concorde. This was a busy square with people and cars everywhere. You have to be careful crossing roads in Paris because the cars don't stop for you and in some places, such as this there are no lanes and cars going in all kinds of crazy directions! From this square if we looked east we looked down through Jardin des Tuileries to the Musee de Louvre and if we looked west we looked along Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We walked through Jardin des Tuileries, a park with gravel pathways leading around green grassy squares and several ponds. There were people everywhere lounging in the provided deck chairs and on benches enjoying the sun. There are also several cafes with chairs and tables spread under green canvas umbrellas where people were relaxing, enjoying coffee, cold drinks, crepes, waffles and ice cream. We ended up at the Louvre and walked around the outside for a bit, deciding to come back to go inside another time. We strolled down along the Seine River walking past many street stalls selling old drawings of Paris's history, canvas oil paintings of iconic Paris, souvenirs and books. Further down we realized we weren't far from Notre Dame so crossed the river to head there. We joined the long line of other tourists waiting to get in. We walked around inside and saw Joan of Arc, stained glass and other statues of people. Then we headed outside and walked around the building for a few more photos. We decided to walk back along the opposite side of the Seine than we had walk down to start with taking in more of the typical beautiful Parisian buildings. We ended at the Grand Palais, not far from where we had started and decided it was time to eat. We walked up the Champs Elysees which was bustling for 7 o'clock in the evening. People were shopping and the street was lined with footpath cafes. When a café was getting full the waiters just moved the barriers and added more tables and chairs! We settled on one and enjoyed wine, beer and a meal while people watching and soaking up the atmosphere. After a very long day were walked back to the hotel and slept.
We had discovered that Roland Garros was on while we in Paris so we did some research and decided to head there at 5pm, when cheap evening tickets were available, hoping to catch Nadal and Sharapova's games. After breakfast we took the scenic route into town to head to the tourism office to book a tour. Along the way we found a really cool old church, visited the Academy of Music/Opera building (very impressive) and saw the Vendome statue. We wanted to book a tour that included going to Moulin Rouge but hadn't brought any formal dress with us. After much debate and the office workers talking about us in French we settled on a Seine River dinner cruise, Eiffel Tower and city illuminations tour. It was heading into afternoon so we decided to get baguettes and head into Jardin des Tuileries to pull up a chair and relax before walking to Roland Garros. We sat in the shade and enjoyed the atmosphere for a while then set off on our big walk. We walked through more café lined streets and headed towards the Champ de Mars and Eiffel Tower we got some photos and had a look around Palais de Chaillot, which was the opposite side of the tower from Champ de Mars. Then we kept walking along the Seine and stumbled across the Statue of Liberty!?! Luckily we had watched the movie National Treasure that had taught us that there were 3 Statues of Liberty in the world! Who said movies weren't educational. We made sure we got some photos of the Eiffel Tower and Statue de la Liberte in the same shot.Further along, by mistake but much to Craig's delight we stumbled across PSG football stadium and there was a game on which Craig was tempted by but we decided to keep going to Roland Garros. We finally made it to Roland Garros and worked out where we needed to be, the line was so long but we joined anyway. We knew that Nadal was already playing because we had seen it on tv along the way so we weren't sure we would be able to see him. We waited in line for 1 hour and hardly moved. A lot of people were leaving but our line wasn't getting much shorter. We didn't really know what was going on but decided that since the line was hardly moving we probably wouldn't be able to get in so we went back to the hotel. Unfortunately a couple of hours later when we got back to the hotel Craig turned the tennis on and Sharapova was still playing and there were lots of empty seats, needless to say we were a pretty gutted.
The next day we headed to Montmertre, the highest point in Paris. There is a busy little hill top village with narrow cobbled streets full of cafes and tourist and fabric shops with artists ready to sketch peoples portraits around every corner. At the centre of the village towers Sacre-Coeur - Sacred Heart Basilica. It was free to go inside but we had to pay to go up into the dome, we did both and it was really worth paying to go up. The views over Paris were amazing. Inside Sacre-Coeur was very impressive. At the end of the building is a huge stunning gold enhanced painting of Jesus looking down over all inside the building. Once we had finished exploring we sat in the grassy square and enjoyed our Snack break, courtesy of the hotel, of baguettes and pastries. Then we took an alternative route back to the hotel via Moulin Rouge (we had to at least get a photo) so we could change before the dinner cruise. We went to the Louvre before our tour and spent a couple of hours walking around the museum taking in art and sculptures. After this there was still time before our tour so we enjoyed ice cream relaxing in shaded chairs followed by coffee at one of the cafes in Jardin des Tuileries.
We started our evening tour with a dinner cruise on the Seine River, very romantic, enjoying a three course dinner of French cuisine. The cruise went for an hour where we got to experience a different perspective of the city's landmarks while enjoying a glass of wine. After this we were taken by bus to the Eiffel Tower and used our priority tickets to jump the queues and get straight to the lift platform. It was a great time to be up the tower as evening was setting in and the sun was starting to set. As expected the views were fantastic. Our bus group was small only 5 people, an American couple, an Asian lady and us. The Asian lady was scared to lose everyone so stuck with us up the tower, she didn't have very good English so there wasn't too much conversation but at the end of the night she gave us a tin of cookies to say thank-you, very sweet. After we had finished up the tower we joined a full the bus for the illumination tour of the city. We were taken to all the major sights and had commentary through earphones. Some of the buildings were very beautiful lit up but others were a bit disappointing. It was nice to be driven around and to hear information on all the sights. The tour was a great way to top off our Paris weekend.
Paris is an amazing city. It's great that you can walk everywhere even though it is big. It is also great that you can do all the tourist things and get a feel for Paris without having to venture into the business district. There were some fantastic looking shopping to experience to but we stuck to window shopping so we didn't blow our budget.
The next day it was back to the airport shuttle and off to catch our plane back to England. The weather had been so fantastic for our whole trip so it was nice to return back to a hot and sunny England. Of course that didn't last long!
- comments