Yep! That’s right! Paris was my next trip on the “tour”!
19 June 2016. That was the day, when we had one of the best planned journeys till now. We left on 18th, the Saturday on (obviously) Flixbus. We reached Paris the next morning at around 9:00 am, at Porte Maillot bus station.
The first work was obviously to find a McD. And voila! We find one right at the bus stop. Have breakfast, and take a metro to go to the Eiffel tower. Obviously, we get lost a bit, and reach this beautiful square containing Arc de Triomphe:
Pretty impressive! Now we find the correct bus to go to Eiffel. However, we reach the tower after quite a lot of walking and getting lost. Once we reach the tower, we find this:
Not very impressive, right? That’s what I felt. I still have a tinge of regret of not going there are night, when there are some excellent light shows. Nevertheless, we take a trip up to the top (12 Euro, I must say its not worth it; a 5 euro trip to second station is enough), and have a look at the entire city of Paris from 450m! I must say here that the security at the tower is pretty strict- they threw away our water, our ketchup and we barely came back from throwing away our curd rice (Yogurt rice, for the angrezi junta). We just roam around a bit, at the shops, where I buy a souvenir for a friend *If the correct junta read, they would know who it is :P* (anniversary it seems; Lol, that’s gonna haunt him for ages to come :P ), and then proceed to go to the Louvre museum.
Louvre is one of the largest museum in the world, and houses the world famous mystic smile, Mona Lisa, among various other artifacts. We do go there, but we find it to be 15 euro to enter. My insti seniors had a student card (perks of being an exchange student), so they could go in for free; well, we couldn’t, so we just glance everything from outside (I know, I am stupid, trading Louvre for Eiffel, but we did not know Eiffel will not be worth it, right?). There is a huge garden, with a maze in front of the “Louvre Pyramid”, as its called, where we had our lunch (curd rice: Yay!!).
Well fed and watered, we (I) make Karthik roam around and go to Notre dame. I have read a lot about Notre dame, and all the other chapels (courtesy: History of Art and Art appreciation), but I wanted to see it all live. And karthik.. well… let’s just say he neither bothers to plan, nor bothers to walk and see stuff like this,, but he was the only person enthu enough to go to Paris (others were all either in Paris, or would be going soon). So, I convince him, and start for Notre dame.
We thought it did look impressive from outside, but we we had a feast awaiting us inside. The place was just- WOW! I had never seen such architectural grandeur in any chapel or church, and the place was really peaceful. We stayed there for an hour, and then left.
Dunno what happened, but Karthik was actually inspired to roam after Notre dame. He wanted to go to Catacombs, where some coffins are present, for 10 euros, but I flatly refused- why the hell would I go to see some tomb for 10 eur, if I can see Mona Lisa for 15?
Next what happened was the most random thing- we had a lot of time left, so we just chilled around at a park at Chatlet. And we plan to visit the Eiffel again, IF it gets a bit dark, which of course, does not happen. So, we leave for Porte Maillot again, and go the McD for dinner (4 eur gone on French fries and Cappuccino…not at all worth it). Only while eating we realize we are running a bit late for bus- we were busy watching the Euro match of France, and don’t notice time go by!
But yeah, no drama ensues, as we go to bus stand on time, to return to the comforts of our house, laden with wonderful memories- from Notre dame to the first person whom we asked for directions- who told us “Dude, I am high. Please don’t ask me “. Yeah such people exist, and we do have these memories!
P.S: I later got to know that there is a Saravana Bhavan in Paris, at Gare du Nord. We had taken the bus to that place infinite times, but shit, we missed a 5 euro Masala Dosa :’(