Bonjour Paris!

The day began for us @ 3:00 AM!

Getting there :

We got ready, dropped Ashish/Nidhi to the San Jose airport and reached Premal's place at 6 a.m. so that he could drop us to the San francisco airport - > Detroit (beautiful airport btw) -> Amsterdam (no brownies @ the airport :( ) -> Paris!!!

Even with the early start and uncomfortable sleep inflight we got off at Charles De Gaulle airport with a lot of excitement. My advice to travellers is to make use of the adrenaline rush you have on the day your vacation begins..make the most of that day..we surely did as you will see..

From the Airport we collected our bags and got on a Metro train towards the city, our route was Train from airport to Gare Du Nord Station, second train from Gare Du Nord to Oberkampf station where the apartment we had rented was. The total time this took was about an hour.

Word from the wise: Travel Light, the Metro stations in Paris do NOT have elevators or escalators, instead they have steep flights of stairs where you will have to lift your bags. Coming from a super "invalid" friendly country this came as a rude shock to me. If you cant travel light, travel with a handsome strong hunk who can help lift your bags like I did ;) I'm sure Dharmen's arms still ache at the thought of those bags!!

We finally reached our apartment, met the rest of our gang, dropped our bags in the living room, freshened up a bit and left for the day!

The Accomodation:

Our Paris apartment was a 2.5 bedroom, 2 bath place with no air conditioner that was advertised to us as a 3 bedroom, 3 bath - airconditioned place. The living quaters were tiny (but this I understand is a Parisian thing, even the hotel rooms have very very less square footage). Over all the place was clean and liveable but nothing to write home about.

Day 1:

On Leaving the apartment we got back onto the metro and went into the city.The Metro in Paris is a superbly connected web covering a large part of the city, so definately plan to use it as much as possible as cabs are quite expensive.

We got off at Hotel De Ville, and entered the city of Paris. My first impression of the city was - its a mixture of then and now. The Architecture, the buildings and statues you see all around you remind you of the old whereas the shops,the fashionable people and the cafes on the streets are all very now! Ah..Welcome to Paris!

We started walking seemingly aimless but with a general idea of where we were headed, taking in the lovely buildings all around us, till we reached the river Seine.The Seine (from the word Sacred in Gaulish) was a river bustling with life, boats passing through on a regular basis, people along its shores and us..taking in the view while standing on one of the 37 bridges that are built to cross this river within the city or Paris.

Moving on we passed the Palace Of Justice and came to St. Chapelle Cathedral which is located inside the palace of justice complex on the ile dela cite in the center of Paris.This Chapel was built by Louis IX, king of France, to house the crown of thorns and fragment of the true cross, relics from the passion of christ.

The Cathedral has a lower chapel (which was used by the palace staff in the 12th century) and the upper chapel, which housed the relics from the passion and was only used by the king and his family and friends. It is said, that in buying the relics Louis IX put France "on the map"!!

The upper cathedral has the most amazing stained glass paintings (most of them original 12th century stained glass!). What was amazing is the entire story of the bible is depicted in these glass paintings, you're supposed to read the panes in a certain order and it has all the stories from the bible.

We had binoculars with us and that really helped us see and appreciate the art on the glass much much more.

After leaving the cathedral we headed towards the most famous cathedral in the world! Yes..we visited Notre Dame!

Notre Dame - or "Our Lady" in French was built in the early 12th century in Gothic Style by the pope of that time because he envisioned a great royal cathedral and did everything to make it happen. The first thing you notice at the entrance are the amazing sculptures, depcting the apostles and jesus among other scenes.Then your eyes move up and you see the famous Gargoyles. Gargoyles are nothing but water spouts, built to take out any water from the roof, but they are built in (often scary looking) human/animal forms. During the rains when water accumulates on the roofs, the water comes out from the mouth of these figures making it seem like they are gargling!!

Entrance to the Cathedral was free and on entering the Cathedral we took the audio tour. Audio Tours we found were available in most places of tourist interest all through Europe and they were a great big help in appreciating the places we were visiting.

Using the audio tour, among various things .. we saw the statue of mary and child that is the first to be brought out of the church even today when there is any official procession in Paris, We saw and appreciated the lovely carvings depicting the resurrection of christ and we saw an amazing collection of gold coins each of which had the potrait of a pope, the collection is up-to-date having a coin for the last pope (John Paul 11) as well. It is difficult to describe the cathedral entirely it is truly a place that must be seen.

On leaving the Cathedral, we were starving!! so we decided to grab a quick lunch. We walked into a nearby Cafe and ordered our first french meal. Sandwhiches and french fries ..lol..not very french eh?

The food was average and I suppose the right thing to do is to never eat near the tourist places (at least that was our experience), the best food we ate throughout the trip was always away from any real tourist attraction.

With semi-full stomach's and rested feet, we started on our way again towards the Seine. This time, we actually got onto one of those boats ! The Batobus (you can see it in the pic), is a mode of transport in Paris, it has 8 stops in total, covering the major tourist attractions like the Louvre, Notre Dame, Musee d'Orsay, Champs Elysee and the Eiffel Tower!!

Our stop was to the Eiffel Tower, we enjoyed the boat ride and got a riverside view of most of the above attractions, it was also fun to see other boats pass by and to watch all the different styles of bridges we were crossing under. Eventually, we got our first glimpse of Tour De Eiffel!

My first reaction, I remember very clearly, was "well, its small". And it did appear smaller to me than what I'd imagined. I guess, with all that I had heard about the tower, since I was a kid, made me imagine it as a behemoth structure, now dont get me wrong, it IS a huge tower and most magnificient to see up front, but I just had to share my first reaction :)

Once at the tower, we were in awe, we took a million pictures (read Ashish did) and as it was getting dark, we saw the tower lighting up! This was the most amazing thing to see, the Eiffel seems to completely change, right before your eyes, into something completely magical!

Once it was compeltely dark, the tower started simmering!! yes, they had these mini white bulbs on the tower that went on n off giving the tower a "disco" look. This was not something we expected and there was a collective gasp of delight from all of us when this show started! At the Eiffel at night..aah..truly stuff romantic dreams are made of!

And what a way to end our first day in Paris..the Eiffel Tower at night truly made it memorable. After spending some time here, we took the boat and then the metro back to our apartment. We were exhausted and thrilled and I think still trying to take in everything we had seen within a day!

Somehow, Dharmen had the strength to make Maggie that night which he shared with Ashish and Nidhi, but soon after that it was beddy bye time for all of us..sweet dreams folks..see you on Day 2!