The Eiffel Tower

Writing this from our ferry from Calais back to Dover called “Pride of Burgundy”. It is really crowded today than last time, maybe because today is a Sunday.

The shadow and the participants of the run

This morning we went to see the Eiffel Tower. Well, we have been seeing it everyday for the past three days but today we actually climbed up, all the way up to the top third floor! The view was beautiful, but more than the bird’s eye view of Paris, I was excited to see the shadow of Eiffel tower fall on the roads from the top.

Paris itself was brimming with excitement today. There was a marathon or run of some sort happening and Parisians were participating in large numbers. From teenagers to the elderly, everybody was up and about in the long and wide roads of Paris. Around the Eiffel tower, we could spot Indians(or Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, we couldn’t tell and even if we did, they wouldn’t admit it because it is safer to call themselves Indians anyway) and Africans selling cheap Eiffel Tower souvenirs. I got Eiffel tower key-rings from an Indian looking guy with a tattoo below his ears who said “ek euro se paanch, sirf Indians ke liye”.

We had to walk from the Bateaux Mouches again today to the Eiffel tower because the roads all around were blocked for the run. We had to wait for half an hour before we could go up so we were hanging around talking to the tour manager Shruti and driver Gauret(sp?). The driver said he hated this place because of the long haphazard queues and the crowd. I wonder what he would say if he went to Juhu beach on a weekend.

The long queue

The Eiffel tower was designed by Gustave Eiffel and the tower was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 World Fair. The most visited paid monument in the world, the Eiffel tower is the tallest building in Paris and stands 324 m tall.

When it was finally time to go up, Cheena was so excited that he started taking photos and videos right from the staircases even after the guard at the gate told him off to stop clicking away. The elevator went sideways up to the 2^nd floor and we had a great view already. We could see huge clusters of people waiting around the square for the run to begin. The shadow of the tower fell down on to the square and I was thinking, “Wow! We are really atop the Eiffel tower!”.  While we were taking in the view, our tour manager got us tickets for the third floor and for some strange reason, the elevator took a longer time to go up from the 2^nd to the 3^rd floor than from the ground to the 2^nd floor. The view was really beautiful but I thought the 2^nd floor was better somehow. We took a lot of pictures and also saw Gustave Eiffel’s office.  We saw a display showing the tallest buildings in other countries of the world but was a little disappointed to see the TAJ MAHAL representing India (and also the Red Fort, I think). Aren’t there taller buildings in India?!

I found good vegetarian food at the restaurants on the 2^nd floor! While coming back, I grabbed food while the husband decided to have ice cream. Yummy food and great views… so we decided to take the stairs instead of the elevators. It was tough considering the state of my legs, but fun nonetheless. Once we were back down, we tried to click multiple selfies of the tower and ourselves but with little success (you will get what I mean when you see the pictures!). We stopped by to grab some food. We had to walk ten minutes to find a store that sold vegetarian sandwiches and guess what the store was called? Publicis drugstore. The familiar Publicis logo brought a smile on my face.

We got back to the bus with the food bags and laid back to watch a Hindi movie called Hassee toh Fassee(mokka movie) and I was vedikai paathufying and eating. Now we are at the ferry and after much difficulty, we found a table to sit. Time is now 1750 and we would probably get home around 2100. Will write again from London! Au revoir!

Expenses: 

• Five Eiffel Tower Keyrings  - 

-->€1.00

Food at Eiffel Tower - 

--> €6.00 

Telescope atop Eiffel Tower - 

--> €2.00

Picture postcards -  €2.00

Loo - €1.00

Food in the ferry - €16.00

Paris by Night

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After Disneyland, we were all set to go back to the hotel, stretch our legs and sleep. But we still had our “Paris by Night” tour left in the itinerary so we had to gear up for that. We went through expensive streets with various international brands lined up one after the other. The tour manager told us that if you went into one of the jewellery shops there and asked for the price of a piece, they would tell you straight on your face that you cannot afford it if you are asking for the price. **eyebrow raise moment**

Apart from the streets and a breathtaking lit up Eiffel tower, all the other monuments were the ones that we had seen last evening (lifts collar up!) so I will just put up some pictures here. We were lucky enough to stop by the Eiffel tower during the “sparkling minutes”. This link has interesting information about the illuminations of the Eiffel Tower - http://www.toureiffel.paris/en/everything-about-the-tower/the-illuminations.html

The sparkling moments

 

The Assembly

Opera house in the background

 

The gorgeously lit-up tower

Disneyland - Paris

The traffic outside Disneyland. You can see the 'D' at a distance

Every kid’s dream-come-true – a trip to Disneyland. We are not kids anymore, I know, but the inner child is still alive and that child was up and kicking today!

We reached Disney around 10 AM and were stuck outside for about 15 minutes because of the traffic. It was a very busy Saturday at Disneyland. 

Disneyland Paris is the largest theme park in Europe. It has five “lands” – The Main Street USA, Frontier Land, Adventure Land, Fantasy Land and Discovery Land and trains going around from one land to another.

Mickey says Namaste

We entered and stared like kids and took the first railroad station at the entrance. The queues started right from there. The wait at the railway station was the shortest wait of the day – 15 minutes. The attenders were smartly dressed and one guy rattled off the welcome message in about five languages at least, I could recognize only English and Japanese (surprise surprise!). We got off at Fantasyland and I ran straight off to meet Mickey. After a half an hour wait during which we were watching Disney cartoons on a giant screen, we finally met Mickey!! I was a kid again and I am proudly going to show off the pictures to my niece who absolutely adores Mickey and Minnie. 

Look at the cutie on the right, staring at the screen

The wait to meet Mickey was more fun than the actual meeting – kids and adults alike absolutely absorbed in the cartoons on screen, kids from across the world dressed like Disney princesses and sitting atop their dad’s shoulders (I even found a Buzz Lightyear!), it was cuteness at its best.

We grabbed some crisps and went off to join the next 30-minute queue to “Peter Pan’s Flying Flight”. In Disneyland, you can take a “Fast Pass” that lets you skip the queues but since we were poor tourists without the pass, we had to wait in the long lines for every attraction (a consolation is, the fast pass is available only for six attractions).

The husband was determined to visit Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean before we step out, so we walked past to Adventure Land and joined the queue (60 minutes) to POTC next. The ride was AMAZING. It was the longest ride that we went to and it was as if we time lapsed into the ol’ pirate world. 

 We then hung around in an area called Adventure Isle, which had a pirate ship, a tree house, caves and hanging bridges. My legs were begging me to sit down and rest for a while, thanks to yesterday’s adventure, and we sat down for a while.

 We roamed around Aladdin’s Baghdad for a while and got ice-creams before joining the Indiana Jones queue which was a little over an hour. We bought chips but we realized they were non-vegetarian only after we joined the queue. Cheena tried eating some, but he couldn't so the chips were thrown away. As if that wasn’t enough, we unfortunately had to stand behind an overtly obsessive couple that couldn’t keep their hands of each other. Cheena vowed to come back to Paris without me and find a girl like this for himself (Ha! I would like to see him try!).  But after the painful one-hour wait, the ride was a disappointment. It was just a usual roller coaster ride, which meant that I had my eyes shut and screamed my lungs off as usual throughout the ride. Ada pongappa.

Non-vegetarian Lay's

We grabbed lunch (a sad salad and fries because that was the only vegetarian option available) and stared at the crowd for a while. We then hiked(?!) all the way back to Fantasy Land to click selfies outside the fabled Disney castle.  We saw people lining up the sides of the roads to watch the parade, but we walked past anyway. I wanted to buy the Minnie bows that many people had on, but at €19.99, it really wasn’t something that we could buy, so we stuck to our standard fridge magnet souvenirs (But I just tried it on once for a picture…hee hee).

Disney Parade

We were both drained of energy by this time, and we walked to Discovery Land and went into Captain Nemo’s submarine. That was the last ride we took. We just walked around and took the train back to the main station and what do we see! The Disney Parade!!  Mickey waving from a tower and Tinkerbell sitting behind him, the Disney princesses dancing and Goofy with his antics, it was the Disney parade in all its glory but all we could see was heads. The entire crowd had stopped by to watch the parade and we had to consider ourselves lucky to get a glimpse of it even though we hadn’t waited for it.

With memories and aching legs, we walked back to the coach. Bye bye Disneyland! We were a little over 15 years late to visit you, but we will come back again someday with kids of our own, and when we do, we will make sure our legs are ready for the ride!!

Expenses:

Lost in Paris - Part 2

Our hotel was located close to a station called Massy – Palaiseau in the southern outer suburb of Paris in a city called Massy, which meant neither the station nor the hotel was located in the map provided to us by the tour guide. 

The sorry meal at Louvre

It was a 20-25 minute walk to the St. Michel Notre Dame station from the Louvre. We were feeling good about making it to the Louvre and even better about finding the station without any aid. But the bubble burst at the ticket vending machine. It was all written in French and it looked so complicated. I went to the help counter and the guy at the counter probably thought I was free entertainment. I told him I wanted to go to Massy-Palaiseau and he told us to get the tickets from the machine. We stood in the queue (along with other equally clueless foreigners who were forever fidgeting with the machine) and when we finally reached it, we were at a loss to choose. I went back to the counter – got instructions – went to the next step, again at a loss – went back to the counter – came back… this went on for the next 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the other tourist gang got the help of a local who was exasperated and helped only because she was next in the line. When another group of tourists asked for help, she hurried away saying she had a train to catch. It was already 8 pm by then and we were both panicking. We somehow got the ticket and we sprinted off to find the right platform. Each line had a different platform and the lines were indicated by footprints on the floor with a colour matching the line. Massy-Palaiseau trains were running in TWO platforms and we didn't know which one was the fastest/which one was coming next. We took a gamble and went to one of the platforms arguing all the way down. A train came and I asked a gentleman if the train goes to Massy-Palaiseau and got in. Cheena refused to believe it was the right train and he was apprehensive to get in because it didn't want to go in the opposite direction. I was inside the train, screaming at him to get in, worried that the doors might close. He got in with a sour face and we got into an argument and I was almost in tears. I decided to have the rest of the sandwich :P The train was getting emptier with every passing station and our anxieties were only growing. After an hour, we got down at the Massy-Palaiseau station.

The desolate roads

We were about to walk out, but when we put the tickets in the ticket barrier, the barrier closed and refused to let us out. We were at a loss and didn't know what to do. We saw some locals jumping the barrier and in a wave of panic, Cheena tried doing the same thing. But as he was jumping, another barrier closed and he was kind of stuck, but he somehow got out. He was out and I was in, and some of the locals took pity on us I guess so one person held the barrier for me while I jumped out. We thanked them and came out.

Enge sellum indha paadhai

With all the panic and stress, we had forgotten the way to the hotel. So we called the tour guide. She tried to guide us and put us through to our driver who gave us vague instructions. We tried to follow what he said, but we always ended up at a fork or crossroads and had to call them again. After calling them for 5-6 times, they stopped answering calls. It was well past 10 pm and we were wandering the streets of Massy without having a place to sleep. Our stomachs were already growling and I dreamt of the “Indian dinner” waiting for me at the hotel. We would have asked directions to at least 10 people – a Telugu guy who had no clue (Indians everywhere, I know), a drunk Paris youth who said something random, a guy on a car who asked us for the way in turn, a black gentleman who pointed us to some three streets away, few other people who just stared at us and walked away. 

Angels in disguise. If you know these people, please introduce us.

Finally, we saw a signboard saying “Hotel Novotel Massy-Palaisseau 300 metres away” and followed the arrow. We still couldn't find the damn hotel. Then, we asked directions to a guy and girl who said they were going towards the hotel and asked us to walk with them. The guy’s mother had apparently been to India, and they were being quite nice. They walked us to the end of a road, and asked us to take a right from there for the hotel. BUT, when we took the right, we were facing another random hotel. We kept looking in all directions like cartoon characters bobbing their heads on all sides, but Novotel was nowhere to be seen. Just as we were cursing and wondering what rude joke this was all about, the girl who walked with us came running to us and catching her breath, she apologized for directing us to the wrong hotel. She mentioned that her friend had gone to get his car, the hotel is a bit far off and that they will drop us. We were grateful for her help, but we were also a bit apprehensive. The guy brought his car and Cheena kept looking at the girl’s phone from the backseat following the map on her phone. After what seemed like eternity, we were finall at the hotel! We thanked the two of them PROFUSELY and took pictures with them(of course). We got back to the hotel and ate the dinner that had been left for us and crashed. Too bad we didn't get their contact details. Wish we could have thanked them more properly.

All is well that ends well I guess. This will be a day that will be etched in our memory for all our lives.

Lesson 1 – ALWAYS carry a phone with Internet

Lesson 2 – NEVER rely on tour guides (no offence, but not-answering-calls but would never happen in India)

Lesson 3 – NEVER argue when you are tired and hungry

Lesson 4 – If you don't know French and don't have a map, maybe it is a bad idea to venture out in Paris

Expenses:

Train Tickets - €6.80

Lost in Paris - Part 1

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The 15-minute walk to Louvre museum from Bateaux Mouches was a LIE. I googled it now and it says 29 minutes. Too bad we did not have our phones with us then. We had Internet back in London, thanks to the generous cousin, but here in Paris, we were navigating using good ol’ maps. Or not. The map looked like a complicated calculus problem to me and even Cheena gave up pretty quickly as well. So we decided we will play it by road sense and follow the right direction.

Our decision to go exploring on our own was a whim. Taking a package tour was a bad idea and taking a tour with an Indian operator was even worse. We had elderly couples clinging on to us for fear of getting lost and the constant loud chatter in Hindi was giving me a headache. I decided I wasn't going to settle for an “Indian dinner” in an Indian restaurant in Paris most likely serving North Indian. So we took the maps and started walking. It was a lovely day indeed and we had fun walking and crossing the WIDE streets of Paris.

We were walking under the bridges for a while and then we climbed up to walk on the roads. We were trying to look for signboards, but all of them were in French. I had an offline iPhone app called WordLens on my phone, which translates between common European languages. It looked pretty cool when I first installed it but in real, it was of little help so we were back to navigating with our huge map. We agreed to disagree and went back and forth some roads (streets?). While we were at it, we crossed various Parisian monuments and were walking through the neighbourhood of Champs-Élysées without even realizing it. Here is the shortest point-to-point Google map.

Our route may not have been the shortest route, but I highly recommend this route because it takes you through some of the most famous monuments of Paris. Or I suggest that you also just get lost and take a random route – you never know what you would find!

Champs-Élysées is like the Ginza of Tokyo or the Colaba of Mumbai I guess. It is famous for its theatres, café and luxury shops. The name is French for “Elysian Fields”, the paradise of dead heroes in Greek mythology. We noticed the Grand Palais, the large exhibition hall and museum complex in Champs-Élysées but were too tired to take pictures. I am sure we looked like silly tourists – with a map in hand and gaping at every building and interrupting coy couples asking for the route to the Louvre. But we were enjoying it. Our legs were begging us to take a break but Cheena would hear nothing of it until we reached the Louvre. It was already close to 5 pm and we were determined to get back to the hotel before it got too late. We were crossing roads hand in hand and I am sure we also jaywalked quite a bit. The Parisian rickshaws looked really cute and after trying to click a picture many times through our moving coach, I finally got down to click one in leisure.

Place de la Concorde with the Egyptian obelisk behind me

Our next landmark was Place de la Concorde. I INSISTED that Cheena take a picture of me here. I recognized the giant Egyptian obelisk from the Bateaux Mouches map. It is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the 19th century. The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time. The Place de la Concorde is the biggest square in France and has a lot of important sites in and around it in every direction. The arch bridge Pont de la Concorde connects the square to the Quai d’Orsay in the left bank of the River Seine.

From here on, I am going to name all the monuments and landmarks that we saw while we were trying to reach Louvre. We did not recognize ANY of these monuments while we were actually there, but frantic internet searches revealed that we passed through a LOT of significant Parisian structures.

Grand Bassin Octagonal

We crossed the Grand Bassin Octagonal where a lot of Parisians and tourists alike were relaxing. I would have loved to sit and relax there as well, but we had a mission to accomplish. We kept walking and it was over 30 minutes since we started, and the Louvre was still not in view. We were going through the gorgeous Tuileries gardens with its picturesque fountains and we interrupted two more people to confirm the route. The Tuileries gardens were originally constructed as the gardens for the royal and imperial Tuileries palace, the residence of French monarchs till 1871 when the Paris Commune burned it down.

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel at a distance

Before long, we were looking at the back view of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, the triumphal arch constructed to commemorate the victories of Napoleon. This one was built almost 30 years before the more famous Arc de Triomphe. The arch is the entranceway to the Place du Carrousel, a public square located at the open end of the courtyard of the Louvre Palace. I ran at the sight of the Louvre pyramid! We were here at last.

The Louvre museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, which used to be a fortress in the 12^th century. Now, it has an underground shopping mall along with the old remnants of the fortress in the basement. With close to 10 million visitors every year, it is the most visited museum in the year. It has tens of thousands of exhibits and we hardly had an hour (museum closes at 6 pm) so we decided that we would stick only to the Mona Lisa. 

The icing on the cake was when we waited in the ticket counter and, as we were about to buy the ticket, the guy asked for our passports and said the tickets are free for everyone under 26 on Friday evenings!  So we used that money to get audio guides instead and went looking for the section that contained the Mona Lisa

(13th-15th century Italian paintings section on the first floor). We did expect a crowd, but we the mad rush for selfies with Mona Lisa was crazy. We somehow managed to get that picture and I wandered off admiring The Wedding, that’s bang opposite Mona Lisa and about 30 times bigger. With a “mission accomplished” feeling, we went down to the overpriced food court and grabbed a sandwich. It was so hard I couldn't complete it despite my hunger, so we stuffed it in our bags and started walking towards St. Michel Notre Dame railway station to catch a train to our hotel.

Louvre timings:

Monday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday: open from 9am to 6pm.

Wednesday and Friday: open from 9am to 10pm!

Closed on Tuesdays.

Basic ticket price is €10.00 per person. Free for all under the age of 18. Free for all under the age of 26 on Friday evenings (so cool!)

Expenses:

·      Toilet - €1.00

·      Louvre Audio Guide - €10.00 for two

·      Souvenir - €3.80

·      Food at the Louvre (two sandwiches, a bottle of water and a bottle of orange juice) - €17.90

En route to the city of love

When we were deciding our honeymoon plans, Cheena’s cousin in London suggested an Indian tour operator based in the UK – Star Tours. After looking up their packages and services (which were pretty good) along with a dozen other webpages, we decided to chalk out the plans ourselves instead of opting for a tour operator because a) this guy did not have private tours b) planning is fun. But nevertheless, we booked a 4-day Paris tour with Disneyland with Star Tours just to try it out.

The first hiccup was that the 4-day tour was merged with the 3-day tour because they did not get enough participants. There goes our trip to the palace of Versailles! We were already regretting our decision to go with these people, but since we had already paid for it, we had no choice but to go. Click here to see the tour details.

We woke up before the sun did

Our nearest pick-up point was Wembley and we were dropped by Cheena’s cousin again, bless her. The pick-up point was in front of the Star Tours office and we could see Indian uncles and aunties covered from head to toe. While we were all exchanging tentative smiles and guessing each other’s backgrounds, the bus arrived. Our guide Shruti was a 2^nd generation British Indian, whose ancestors were from Gujarat. She had a British accent and spoke Hindi like me. Okay, like my husband.

We stopped at two other pick-up points and reached Dover in about two hours, stopping only for a pee break. We got our visas checked at the Dover port and we took a 1.5 hours ferry ride to Calais in France. We were riding along the white cliffs of Dover so we went up to the top deck for a better view. We also had our breakfasts in the ferry’s food court and I bought a comb from one of the shops because I had forgotten mine back in London. Must say the husband was pretty disappointed.

The Dover port

After a 4-hour drive with just a 15-min grab-some-food break, we finally reached Paris. We went straight to ride the Bateaux Mouches, the open excursion boats that provide visitors a view of the city from along the river Seine. The river is 776 km long and is an important commercial waterway in North France. There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city. The tour booklet promised a boat that was "entirely glass fitted with a terrace", this was an open boat. The guide rattled off viewpoints in multiple languages and with all the noise, it was hard to figure out which one was English. So we gave up trying and instead tried to match the buildings in our booklet to the ones that we were saying. For your viewing pleasure, here is the map(taken from the Bateaux Mouches website). 

I am going to list down some of the monuments that caught our eye during the cruise. The Eiffel tower was the most eye-catching of course, but the tower deserves a separate post.

We first saw the Arc De Triumphe on our way to Bateaux Mouches. One of the famous monuments of Paris, the arch honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces.

 The Institut de France manages a whole lot of museums and foundations. It has a distinct dome-shaped structure that makes it stand apart from the other buildings around.   

You can also see the love padlocks in this picture.  The lovers’ names or initials are inscribed on the padlock, and its key is thrown away to symbolise unbreakable love. Cheena and I didn’t put up a lock though. Our love is unbreakable as it is :P These love locks are not a Parisian tradition though. This phenomenon broke in only in 2008, after it did the rounds in Italy and other countries. In January 2014, there was even a campaign called “No love locks” to save the historic bridges and monuments from the vandalism of these locks. I would suggest couples to refrain from adding their own locks to the already over-burdened bridges.  

 

  Musee D' Orsay located on the left bank of the Siene, houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world (Monet, Manet, Van Gogh et al) from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Behind me is the Hôtel de Ville literally meaning City hall is the building that houses the city's local administration (municipality of Paris) since 1357. It is the seat of a number of historical events in Paris.

   

And that is a bad picture of the Pont Alexandre III bridge – the most ornate and extravagant bridge in Paris. Kangana Ranaut tries to click a picture of one of the bronze status in the bridge in the movie Queen, if you remember. The four bronze statuses are of Fames from Greek mythology restraining Pegasus.

The Nymph reliefs at the centres of the arches over the Seine(on your right) are memorials to the Russian-French Alliance.   
 

But Cheena was most attracted by all the bikini-clad sunbathers relaxing by the Siene. He kept trying to click pictures, but his experiments with the DSLR did not allow him to capture much. 

The real adventure started when we decided not to go back to our restaurant with the group, but go to the Louvre to meet Mona Lisa instead. We were told that the Louvre was 15 minutes away and our coach driver suggested that we take a walk since it was a lovely day. That's a story for another post :-) 

Expenses:

• Star Tours - 3 day package to Paris with Disneyland (link given above) - £330 per person
• Comb(Ferry)- £1.90
• Hot chocolate and Cappucino(Ferry) - £6.00  
• Lunch(Sandwich and cakes) - €7.00