Our hotel room was ok, location good, staff friendly and helpful. It was supposed to be a 2 min walk from the station, but for some reason I still don't quite understand, a 2 min walk turned into a 40 min trek! So before we left, we made sure we knew how to get to the station and timed ourselves... even with heavy luggage, it only took us less than 10 mins to get there, so how lost were we on that first day?!
As we were both kind of knackered the first night in Paris, we thought we'd take it easy.... never happens the way we want. After dinner with Lu's friend, Ling (who also happened to be in Paris) we walked and walked and walked. Ended up making our way to the Louvre and it was just stunning at night all lit up with lights and better still, not many people around so I could take many many photos all by myself :) I really do hate crowds.
From the Louvre, we made our way past the Jardin des Tuilleries and down the Champs-Elysees and headed towards the Arc de Triomphe. On our way we saw in the distance, the Eiffel Tower go bananas. It was lit up with a billion flashing lights, enough to to cause a severe seizure and it certainly looked like the Tower was having one - very beautiful though.
Had one very expensive dessert at Laduree's on Champs-Elysees, apparently it's famous for its macaroons, but it was quite posh and upmarket, I felt quite out of place with my beanie hair and over-sized rain coat and backpack sitting amongst the well-groomed set. It was only after I started eating my macaroon dessert thing that I remembered that I don't particularly fancy macaroons.... oh well, at least I can tell people that I had something to eat on the Champs-Elysees and it wasn't McDonald's :)
By the time we got back to the hotel, we were absolutely buggered.. Good thing about Paris is that no matter how late we're out, I never feel unsafe because there are just so many people around, even at silly o'clock at night, the metro is still full of people, can't say that happens in Melbourne. Back home, I sometimes feel frightened catching public transport when it gets dark at 7-8pm at night.....
I can't imagine what peak hour would be like if at 11:30pm at night the metro is still packed with people!
People never tell you this, but I will because I'm nice. Paris stinks!
I thought Lyon smelt bad when I got there, it's all the ciggies, BO, dog poo and wine but -pooey- Paris REEKS! It smells of all of the above plus a bit of urine and add a little French arrogance, multiply by 10 and you just about have it. It smells like piss just about everywhere you go, on the streets, in the metro, in decent-looking shopping centres..... nearly everywhere! No wonder the French love their perfume so much.
It's so wrong but this is what happens when you start charging people to use the toilets!
I miss the smell of home.
On the second day in Paris, we went to the Louvre. WOW! What an amazing place. I really really really love it there. I wanted that place to be my home.I know I've written about it before, how we raced through and wished we could spend more time there. What I realised while in Paris, that we Aussies are taking over here. If you were wondering why Oz was so empty, where everybody went, well they are all in Paris!! It was great to hear the familiar Aussie twang everywhere we went, made me miss home a lot. The hotel where we stayed, I think it was about 80% full of Aussies - ok, I may exaggerate a little (it could be only 78%) but I'm telling the story here, so there!
We did many things on the last day in Paris, but I've mentioned most already. Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, la Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame etc.... the Refuge Fondue... ahhh, the fondue place. That was the the second highlight of our stay in Paris. Good food cheap, welcoming and funny hosts, entertaining, weird, good next-table people, it was fun and we had a good time.
That was the tour of Paris.
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