The Eurostar has been running since 1994 and it takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes to make the 333km journey to the Gare du Nord in Paris. We were both really impressed with the ease and speed of checking in and boarding the train, you just have to show up about 30 mins before and take all your luggage with you which is a nice change from airports. The journey itself was relatively uneventful as it was dark and you couldn’t see much, although Lou was relieved at how little time you actually spend underground, which is only about 24 minutes.
We arrived late on Thursday night and began the challenge of deciphering the Paris Metro system, which we did quite effectively thanks to the research that Louise had done (under Hamish’s supervision).
We found our hotel in Vanves (slightly south of the city), but getting into it proved a little difficult. Lou had learnt how to say “My name is Louise and I have a reservation tonight until Monday”. So she said that ok and then didn’t anticipate that the lady would then think that she spoke French and try to have a conversation with her. Eventually we were checked in and shown to our little cubby hole of a room. This ‘apartment’ was only slightly bigger than the room we had in our Hong Kong hostel and came complete with a double bed on a bunk and the worlds smallest bathroom.
Exhausted, we fell into bed and proceeded to have the worst nights sleep ever as the wooden bunk tended to creak at the slightest movement.
Friday morning and it was Lou’s birthday (where she turned 24ish), and she got a lovely present from Hamish but alas no breakfast in bed. We jumped into action and headed out into the brilliant sunshine.
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| Lou devouring her first croissant in Paris! |
We navigated our way to the Tower to join the queue before it had even opened. ‘La Tour Eiffel’ was built in 1889 for the World Fair by Gustave Eiffel and is one of the world’s most iconic monuments. We queued for a good hour or so to get the lift right to the top. While we were waiting we were harassed by hawkers trying to sell is Eiffel Tower key rings which we were soon to discover would haunt us around Paris. We made our way to the first observation deck and then headed straight to the top.
We were lucky that it was a perfect morning and were blown away at the views you could see. You don’t realise how big the Tower is and how many Parisians use it as a navigational device as you can see it from anywhere in the city.
We took about 5 million photos on top of the tower, see below, and then went to the gardens opposite the tower to take about 5 million more, including the infamous jump shot (which actually took about half an hour of Hamish fiddling with the camera and Lou not being able to jump).
Hungry for more carbs, we went to the local supermarket and made like the French and bought some baguettes, ham and fruit for lunch and went and sat in the gardens of the Imperial War Museum (where Napoleon was laid to rest) and had a picnic. Quote from Hamish “This nectarine is in the top 5 that I have had in my life”.
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| Imperial War Museum |
Next stop was Notre Dame. This is probably in the prettiest areas of Paris, and I loved all the bridges and little cafes that lined the River Seine. We had a look around the interior of Notre Dame, which was a very impressive structure and was completed in 1280. It was of course made famous by Victor Hugo’s novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, we didn’t see the Hunchback but we did light a candle in the church, which is considered to be one of the best examples of French Gothic architecture in the world. It was also one of the first buildings to be built with flying buttresses.
We made the call to line up to go to the top of the church. This proved an interesting decision. We waited for about an hour and a half and after about 400 steps completed the tour of the top in about 18 minutes as we had to head back to get changed for our exciting evening plans. It was a cool view and we saw the massive bell and all the gargoyles up close but had to bounce.
We then made our way by metro back to our cubby hole to get spruced up for our evening out. We went to the tour meeting point where we quickly discovered that we were the youngest people there, but this didn’t stop us having an amazing night and a birthday Lou won’t forget anytime soon.
The evening began with the lift up to the first level of the Eiffel Tower (the bit with the horizontal slabs across it) where we were seated at a table with the most amazing view of the sunset over Paris – very romantic.
We drank yummy French wine and had 3 courses of delicious food, of course accompanied by copious amounts of French bread (but not enough to fill Hamish). Then it was back down the Tower to the boat for our river cruise, we sat outside as it was so warm and watched the lights on all the buildings come on, and passed Parisians having wine and cheese on the banks of the river, a definite highlight of the trip. The peace and romantic air was only spoilt by a bunch of Aussie tourists deciding it was the perfect opportunity to do their “Aussie, aussie aussie” chant. Nice one losers.
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| View from the restaurant |
Leon, our little Asian French speaking tour guide whisked us away to the Moulin Rouge where we waited in another line (we were quickly discovering that this was to the theme of our trip). We were seated with a glass of champagne and the show began. Not really knowing what to expect, we sat for 2 hours watching a variety of singing, dancing, circus acts and the like, all with naked ladies. It was weird. The best part was this one lady who jumped in a pool with all these massive pythons in it.
Highlight: The River Cruise, amazing sights and warm nights!
Lowlight: Other tourists, mainly Australians and Americans. Why are you so ignorant and loud?
Interesting fact #1: The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet high, and Lou was a little nervous at the top…
Interesting fact #2: The Hunchback of Notre Dame took Victor Hugo 2 years to write. Interesting fact #3: Many thought Hamish would propose (you know who you are) but he managed to hold out (just).
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