C'etait la reve la plus importante a moi! Quoi? Un sejour a Paris!
From the 14th to 17th March my partner and I went to Paris for a little break..
We booked a nice, cosy little hotel in central Paris, just south of the Montmartre region.
When we got there, the airport bus left us off at Gare du Nord. From there we managed to flag down a taxi to take us to our hotel. The taxi driver gave me my first 'your French is excellent' compliment!! I was so happy but not quite convinced.
Here is what we did:
Night 1 (not long after arrival):
- Dined in a typical little Parisian restaurant, off the Rue Lafayette.
- We headed back to the hotel,as we'd been travelling all day, early night and recharge batteries for the following day.
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| Our room |
Day 2
- We headed straight for the Eiffel Tower - leaving the hotel at 8.30 am. I was so excited!! The weather was nice. We walked along the Champ de Mars - I didn't recall the Tower being so small before! But there were renovations being carried out...
- We visited the Champs-Elysees, by foot, starting at the Arc de Triomphe and walked all the way down! We reached the Place de la Concorde (Egyptian obelisk) and took a nice stroll towards the Louvre Museum....
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| We passed by a cheese shop on the way. |
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| Giant sweet sculpture on the Champs-Elysees |
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| Street sign |
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| View from bottom of the Champs-Elysees |
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| Obelisk at Place de la Concorde |
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| Pyramid at the Louvre museum |
Day 3
- We decided to head up to the Sacre-Coeur and walked up the steps to get to the fountain bit, however ~ there was only one local souvenir shop open at 9.15 am in the morning. There was a group of about 20 tourists that seemed to have crammed into that one tiny shop, needless to say I couldn't buy anything.
- We took a walk towards the Moulin Rouge area, which my partner had wanted to go - to have his photo taken of the famous windmill!!
- Later on that day, we managed to come across an antiques market, which sold old retro comics, music, newspapers etc!
- We went to the Cemetery at metro stop Pere Lachaise, sort of east of the city. I knew that Jim Morrison's grave was there, as well as that of Chopin (composer) and writer Oscar Wilde. This was interesting to see! The cemetery was massive - with an amazing 70,000 graves in it.
- A visit to 'Chinatown'' except it wasn't just Chinese folk there. (I am Chinese by ethnic origin). There were loads of Vietnamese, Thai and Indonesian businesses there too! We also came across by accident, an ''Indian town'' in which there were about three whole streets dedicated to Indian restaurants, shops selling Bollywood stuff and Indian clothing! A little odd for us!
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| Electric car! |
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| The Sacre Coeur |
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| View from the Sacre Coeur |
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| Moulin Rouge |
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| La Patisserie! |
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| French Patisserie (bakery) |
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| Oscar Wilde's grave |
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Day 4 ( final one)
- Again an early start to the La Defense business district, we'd forgotten it was Sunday and nowhere was open. We did feel as if we'd walked our feet off!
- Headed towards the Eiffel tower direction; and stopped by at a supermarket for breakfast
- We arrived at the Pont de l'Alma near where Princess Diana died in 1997. There was an unofficial memorial there (Small statue of liberty), and close by many inscriptions/writing on the walls in memory of her. I read them and tears rolled down my cheeks.
- We visited the George Pompidou centre.
- Finally we went on the Seine River cruise by night!! The Eiffel Tower was stunning!!
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| The arch at 'La Defense'' |
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| Touching words for Diana |
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| George Pompidou centre |
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| The Seine |
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| Glass of rose wine |
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| Town hall (Hotel de ville) |
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| Paris will always remain in my heart. |
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| Eiffel tower by night - taken from the Seine river cruise. |
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