Where the sunshines through the [Raine]: Ooh La la PARIS!

Contiki tour Day 1 - Paris, FRANCE

We met our room mate today. So far she seems lovely and not a psycho! Unfortunately our assigned hotel room was really cramped and had only two single beds so unfortunately for her she got the folding bed.

Our first dinner was terrible! cheese and tomatoes for starters and some turkey and stale fries for main, followed by some sloppy so called apple tart for dessert. Is this the lowest treshold for holiday inn standards??? tres appaling!

I had my sparkly beret on so the waiters were at my beck and call. When in Paris….

After dinner we headed out to our bright orange contiki bus to check out the famous sites.

First drive through was the Champ Elysees - one of the most famous streets in the world with its high end shopping district and is also the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe. Oh and according to our funky tour manager the Macdonalds there (which was white & black instead of the traditional yellow and red) is possibly the most expensive “Mckerz” in the world. They have everything in that avenue, from expensive label stores, cafes and even car shops i.e. lamborghinis etc (you get the picture). Champ Elysee was so pretty all brightly lit up and filled with the rich, common locals and tourists milling around.

Down the end of the road a massive ferris wheel glowed and beckoned us over. It looked so gorgeous lighting up in hues of blue as it spun and spun around. Directly behind it stood the obelisk of luxor which the Egyptian government gave as a 'present' to the French during the 19th century.

We then headed towards the arc de triomphe. I wasn’t really paying much attention to our Tour Manager who gave us a brief history about the famous landmark. All I gathered was that, it was the largest arch in the world and was built by Napolean’s will to commemmorate the soldiers that died in battle during the French revolution, as well as some unknown soldier was buried at the bottom of the arc. What i really rememebered was it being the massive round about that was featured in one of Chevy Chase’s family vacations.

We went around and around the lanes surrounding the arc de triomphe, and around it some more with our driver Martis expertly maneuvering our massive bus whilst at the same time dodging cars around us. Mind u there were about thirteen lanes without actual lanes! It was a fun and scary experience!

The tour also took us to the Notre Dame..the name says it all! We drove around some more and visited other famous and historical sights. We capped off our night tour by being dropped off at the eiffel tower. The view of the tower from the bottom was perfect. It was so beautiful as it sparkled and changed colours! OOH LA LA!

It would have been preposterous not to ascent the eiffel tower! Being the stupid tourists that we were, we inadvertently bought the tickets to take the stairs instead of the lifts, (coz they were cheap!) and consequently had to climb up the staggering 674 steps to the 2nd level. OMG! I was in heels (thank goodness they were comfortable heels!) Now if you’ve been spending the whole day on foot sightseeing and had barely a nights sleep, that was equivalent to running a marathon and more i.e. torture. By the time we ascended to the next level we were exhausted and huffing and puffing like crazy. We finally realized our mistake and payed extra to catch the lifts up to the very top floor.

The view from the top was breathtaking and absolutely amazing.

Je taime Paris!

The very top of the Eiffel tower...was so windy!

The following day we headed out to go sightseeing and I lost myself in the Louvre. We spent a good 3.5 hours in there and I came to appreciate art, especially when I finally saw MONA LISA, with her enigmatic smile, in person surrounded by a red rope complete with two guards side by side. Impressive yes but very very small. The painting by L. Da Vinci was so simple yet so magical and beautiful in its inexplicability and mysteriousness.