Trip to France

Bonjour (Hello)!

Some facts about France:
1. French, founded in 843, is one of the oldest states in Europe
2. French is the largest European country in terms of land after Russia and Ukraine
3. On an average there are about 3 cooking books get published in France everyday
4. French people are biggest consumers of medicine in Europe

Day 1 (02nd April 2010)

As this was our first Europe trip, we were very excited of our visit to France. We toured with Kishor and Swathi. Day started quite early as our EuroStar train from Kings Cross was at 7:27AM, Had to get up as early as 3:00AM to travel from Reading and London to be on time. I was very much looking forward to travel in EuroStar especially the journey via the tunnel but was quite disappointed as it didn't feel any better than our First Great Western train. Only I could say is travel via the tunnel gave us good long pitch dark moments with lot of discomforts to our ears. Anyways, reached Paris - 'Gore -Du Nord' station at around 11:00AM. We were quite intelligent enough to buy most of the necessary travel tickets in Kings Cross itself! Had it we not bought tickets in London, we would have lost much of precious tour time (2hrs) in long queue in buying tickets in tube station. Took tube from Gore - du Nord to Chatellete and then from Chatellete to La Defense -Puteax. My first impression on France, gosh! - It's not hygiene at all, our London is far better than France. From Puteax  reached our hotel Le Dauphin by mid afternoon. We had heard lot about cheating people, thieves in France which made super conscious about belongings and we had even suspected some genuine people who helped us in finding hotel etc. Please forgive us!
Our first sight seeing started on the same day afternoon after the lunch at Indian Restaurant - Mayur. Our first visit was to - 'La Defense'. Enjoyed all super structured buildings specially the one which is square shaped. It's the Canary Wharf of France. 

La Defense

From La Defense went to Arc De Triomphe which is similar to Gateway of India. Initially, we had a walk on the streets of Arc de Triomphe with an evening coffee at Pizza Piano. Wanted to spend much time in Arc De Triomphe and was looking forward to see the view of Eiffel Tower from there. Climbed the top of Arc with the combination of lift and stairs. It was very wet day and we almost drenched at the top of Arc. Though museum in their wasn't that great, we had to make an entry there to shelter us from god rain. By the time rain got almost settled and it was dark and Eiffel Tower was ready with night attire. Also Eiffel Tower started glittering for some minutes around 8:00PM which we never knew. It was really an awesome night view of Eiffel tower from Arc De Triomphe. We thoroughly enjoyed with great pics. Then we decided we have to see this night view of Eiffel Tower with close proximity and started our short tube journey near to it. It was quite crowded and as weather wasn't good we didn't have that great pics of night view of Eiffel Tower from close by. We were dead tired and it was nearly a day with 20 working hours and just wanted to go back to hotel and take some sleep. Unfortunately when we reached hotel no shop was open for food and had to survive with little bit of fruits that we carried from home.

Arc De Triomphe

Day 2 (03 April 2010)
We all did have much needed sleep until 8:30AM. Had super buffet breakfast which included even our previous night's dinner! This day's agenda was to visit Versailles. Travelled from Espenello La Defense to La Defense and then took special train to Versailles. We all felt this train ticket was confusing didnt have any clue how to use it. Anyway we are all engineers ;)

Versailles has one of the beautiful gardens that I ever saw. This garden is believed to have more than 1400 fountains, set in a formal pattern of lawns and walks adjacent to the mile-long Grand Canal. Palace in the Versailles said to have around 700 rooms. Unfortunately, there was really a big queue for the palace entry which made us step back from visiting the palace. However, we spent all good time in beautiful garden. It was again raining  and so chill. However, we managed to enjoy the garden. Had lunch at a restaurant in the park. Roamed in the park for some more time and then headed back to our hotel. It was quite leisure night with some light drinks.

Versallies Garden

Day 3 (04 April 2010)

This day's sight seeing was the great museum in the world - Louvre Museum. As usual had enough buffet breakfast and left the hotel at 8:30am. There is a free entrance in the Museum on Sunday. We thought we can utilize this and hence scheduled our visit to Museum on Sunday. Unfortunately there were many people who thought the same and because of which there was couple of mile queue to enter the museum which took long 4hrs! It was really freezing cold and had to bare hail storm as well when we were in the queue. Finally entered the museum at 3:30PM. All of my energy was lost before entering the museum itself. Anyways, started to enjoy the paintings, sculptures, collections etc. Ha, the world famous Monalisa is in the same Museum. Lucky we could see this. But, we all came to a conclusion that it's not great at all when compared to other beautiful and great paintings. Watched some areas of Louvre museum while we were all said that Museum closes at 6:00PM as it's Sunday. Hmm, we watched only around 1/3rd of the museum. What to do, key is not in our hand :) Then we walked for some time over the Sienne Bridge and then back to our hotel. Had some light drinks and then dominoz pizza as our dinner.

Louvre Museum

Day 4 (05 April2010)

This was our last day in Paris. And we had two places to visit - Eiffel tower in the day light and then Notre Dam. Got up bit early, finished our buffet breakfast and cleared our room as well. However, left the baggage in the baggage room of the hotel. Our first visit was to Eiffel tower. Luckily atleast here we bought the online ticket which saved us from long queue. Went to top floor with lifts. There was queue everywhere and was too crowded. Spent some time at the top by enjoying good views. From Eiffel tower went to Notre Dam. Notre Dam is world famous cathedral. Spent some time in the cathedral. Then came back to hotel to pick up our luggage. I forgot to mention earlier about an unique thing about the hotel - Le Dauphin. It offered unlimited coffee, tea and hot chocolate to guests and hot chocolate was the best that I have ever tasted. Our Eurostar train back to London was at 7:13PM from Gore-du Nord. Reached London at 8:30PM and then came back to home at 10:30PM. Our first Paris trip came to an end!

Eiffel Tower

Group at Hotel - Le Dauphin

© Ashwini

Some suggestions for future travellers:

1. There are quite a lot of people in the train station doors who force us to use their ticket to enter. Please be aware of them, once you use they might ask more money from you

2. Vegetarian people will definitely find hard to survive here. We couldn't find any veg option. Even Chicken was called as veg by some shopkeepers