Big Adventures, Little World

We were up nice and early and found out that the campsite didn’t have any hot water so cold showers it was. At least the weather was warm though so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I don’t think I would enjoy the tour if it was winter. After a breakfast which reminded me of my attempted omelette, we go going nice and early to get into Paris for a free day where we could go off and explore the city. Two and a half hours later we got there. The traffic in Paris is just insane, and no wonder, as it is a massive city with a population of about 12 million people.

Bel and I had planned out what we wanted to see while on the bus, and a lot of it was what we had seen the night before, but getting up close and actually going inside some of these places is so different to just driving by in the bus. There was three drop off points for people to start their day, the first one being at Mont Marte area which is home to the Sacré Cœur, some great views of the city and the famous Moulin Rouge. Being that this was a bit out of the city we stayed on the bus and took a couple of photos of the Moulin Rouge and kept going to the next drop off point, which was the Place De L`Opera, which is where the Phantom of the Opera is from. We didn’t get to go inside and see the Phantom, but we did get out and take some photos and have a look at the building. It’s such a big building and has some statues of some famous composers out the front as well as some other statues on top of the building made of pure gold. The building has so much gold all over it, as do so many of the buildings throughout the city. Truly amazing and would be worth an absolute fortune. We got back on the bus to head to the final drop off point, the Place De La Concorde.

Our long day of walking began from there, as we made our way down through Tuilleries Gardens, and a fair of some kind that was going on, although we weren’t really sure why, but possibly for Bastille Day, which was coming up next week. The garden is so big, full of statues, and used to house the home of Marie Antoinette, until it was stormed by the Parisians and destroyed, with Marie Antoinette captured and beheaded. At the end of the garden is the Arc De Triomphe Du Carrousel, which is a smaller version of the Arc De Triomphe and can fit under the arch of the bigger version. It also runs in a direct straight line all the way down to the Arc De Triomphe heading through the Place De La Concorde.

From here we had reached The Louvre, and made our way down through the big glass pyramid, bought a ticket to get in, and made our way through the Denon wing of the museum so we could go and see the Mona Lisa. While we could have spent hours there looking at the artwork, over half a million pieces we are told, we weren’t really sure what we were looking at most of the time, and all the descriptions were in French which made it a bit hard to know. So we checked out the Mona Lisa, along with a few hundred other people. The Louvre is such a busy place and makes it that much harder to look around, so after we had seen the Mona Lisa we made our way out of the Louvre, where we saw a few army men just walking around casually with machine guns. Such a strange thing to see, but I’m sure they are used to it over here, where we have nothing like that at home.

We walked all the way to Notre Dame which is such an amazing and beautiful building from the outside, but looks so different when you actually get inside the building. The thing that amazed us the most was that from the inside it is full of some of the most beautiful stained glass windows I have seen, but then from the outside all you see is dark grey/black colour so you wouldn’t even know without going inside. It also had the first ever gargoyles on the building which were used to cover up the drain pipes, but they looked more like a cheetah coming out of the building.

We started another long trek all the way down the river Siene and to the Musee De L`Armee which holds the sarcophagus of Napoleon, but was buried outside of the city originally, ad was moved there after 19 years of being buried. Along with the museum there is also the Hotel Des Invalides, which was the last building the Germans had held during an invasion of France, until it was stormed by the French people, and til this day you can still see the bullet holes in the building from the French running at it and shooting at it to take it back from the Germans.

We made our way to the Champs Elysees after that, looking for somewhere to try frogs legs and escargot (snails), but unfortunately no really had frogs legs and only a few places had escargot but they were so expensive being that it was along the Champs Elysees. We kept walking down to the Arc De Triomphe and the crazy roundabout, which was a lot busier than the night before, and everyone still managed to make their way around it somehow.

By this time we were starting to get hot and tired, but we managed to find a little café to sit down in, have a drink, and they even had some escargot for us to try. We thought it was a bit strange, as they came out still in their shells, but we had to at least try them. They didn’t taste too bad, they were done with garlic and parsley, but were a bit chewy and had a bit of a grassy taste when you would eat them. I don’t think I would choose to eat them, but am glad that I tried them. It was disappointing that we didn’t find anywhere to try frog’s legs, but that just gives me a reason to go back again, as there is so much to see and it really is such a beautiful city, although I don’t think I would ever want to live there, but it is definitely a great place to visit.

Even though we were so tired from all the walking we had done, we pressed on as we made our way to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to climb all the way to the top, but the line for it was probably about 4 hours long, whereas we had about 2 hours left before we had to meet the rest of the group, and we didn’t really want to wait that long anyway. So we found the line for going to the second level, rather than the top, which we only waited in for about 10 minutes, with the only trade off being that you had to climb the stairs yourself rather than get an escalator. I think this was much better anyway, as being stuck in the elevator with about 40 other people would have been disgustingly hot, and also, you get some much better views as you make your own way up the stairs. We got to the first level, which was so high up itself, and had a look around while up there, and then pressed on up the next lot of stairs. I have no idea how many stairs we climbed but they seemed to just keep going on and on. By the time we reached the top we were so worn out, but it was most certainly worth it as the views were incredible. You could see out so far across the city and it just went further and further out, and it is such a big city in width and the buildings size. It seems that just about every building is about 3 stories high, and most of it is all of similar height which makes it look strange but really wonderful. Although we didn’t get to go all the way to the top, I don’t think that it would have been that different in views from there, as even the second level is so high up you can see out over most of Paris. It would have been nice to be able to say I had been to the top of the Eiffel Tower however, but again, just another reason to come back.

We had some time before we had to meet the rest of the group so we went and lay on the grass of the Champs De Mars, which is right next to the Eiffel Tower and you can just lay there and look up at it. I didn’t realise it was as big as it was until being underneath it and looking at it from right beside it. It truly is such a spectacular building and I am so glad that I have seen it, though I am sure there will be so many other things I say the same thing about.

We went off to find our group as we were meeting in the Champs De Mars for a picnic and views of the Eiffel Tower. The tour guides and chefs had spent the day preparing our picnic, all we had to bring were the drinks, so we had picked up a couple of bottles of red wine, French of course, and sat down to a great meal and a few glasses (or in our case, plastic cups) of wine. The tour guides had told us to be discreet with the drinks as it is now illegal to drink In the Champs De Mars, where previously it wasn’t. For our picnic, we again had some escargot, but they didn’t really taste any different to the ones we had had earlier in the day. The picnic was such an amazing thing to do, and I think anyone would enjoy it.

The final thing for the day we had to do was a riverboat cruise down the Siene, with the second bottle of wine to finish off. It was nice just to sit down and cruise down the river with a few plastics of wine, again being a bit discreet about it, as apparently it is frowned upon, but many people still seem to do it. The cruise went for about an hour and a half and was interesting though we weren’t really paying attention to the guided tour coming through the speakers as it was in about 7 different languages and by the time they went through them all you had usually missed what they were talking about. We just sat and took it all in and drank and chatted. It was a really good end to the day. We then just had to make a stop off to pick up the rest of the group, who had gone to a Cabaret show. We had a bit of time to kill before they finished so we stopped off and had a beer and met a few other people on a different TopDeck tour who were really cool, and who I think will be at the same place we are staying in Switzerland, so hopefully will be able to catch up with them for a few more drinks.