A day in Paris

Paris! The fashion capital of the world and one of the best destinations in the world for a vacation. After a tiring day at Strasbourg, I took an overnight bus to Paris. It is quite surprising that my bus was late by an hour at Strasbourg and I reached Paris an hour early! Either the bus driver was an awesome one or I had the wrong time table ;) Strasbourg is a small and a beautiful city and I would like to go there again when I am back to Europe. 

I arrived in Paris at 6 am in the morning and had exactly 12 hours in hand to explore as much as I can. If you ask me, 12 hours is a lot less to learn "Paris". I took the subway train from Gallieni station towards Trocadéro - my first destination in this romantic french city. This is the first thing that comes to a person's mind when he thinks about Paris - The Eiffel Tower. It was useless to buy a day ticket for the metro as I traveled only twice and  the rest of the time, I explored a part of the city on foot. It is best to walk around rather than taking transportation if you are near Champ de Mars. The metro is not something anyone would be impressed with. The trains are quite small in dimensions. It was not easy to get a seat even at this morning hour. Paris wakes up early it seemed. People kept reading newspapers or sipping their morning coffee on their way to work. The sweet voice of a couple of women speaking in French was a good getaway from the German language I am used to hear in U-Bahn in Munich, which I believe is certainly not the sweetest language in the world. It looked like I was the only tourist at this time heading towards Champ de Mars.

So here I was, getting off at Trocadéro my first sight in Paris - The Eiffel Tower, an engineering marvel and I could not think of a better time to see this magnificent structure. It was almost sunrise and the first rays of light made a fantastic view of Champ de Mars. An Asian couple in their wedding dress were getting their photos clicked in Palais de Challiot overlooking the Eiffel Tower. The warm sun ray, the morning breeze and this magnificent view took off all the stress and my mind was completely blank for those few moments.

Eiffel Tower as seen from Palais de Challiot

Firstly, it was hard to believe I was there. A few years back, I would not have imagined myself to travel around in Europe alone as a backpacker. And here I was, having my breakfast right beside the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was nearly a dream come true, but not quite there because I wanted to spend my whole day here which was not possible as I just had 11 more hours in hand with so much to see. So I could not go up the tower to see the restaurants in the first and the second floor and Gustave Eiffel's residence at the top of the structure, the engineer after which this tower is named. I am glad that the City of Paris did not bring this tower down in the early 1900s after Gustave Eiffel's ownership had expired as it proved to be valuable  for communication purposes etc. The tower is still used for TV broadcasting and radio communications and is the tallest standing structure in the city of Paris. The price to go up was nominal and people had already queued up for the tickets. I took a walk down the Champ de Mars towards École Militaire occasionally stopping in between to take pictures. The locals came here for morning walks and exercises. I sort of envied them for living in such a beautiful place and having the chance to come here everyday. Nevertheless, though it was not even an hour since I came here, I had decided to come back to Paris one day and spend a part of my life in this city. God knows if this comes true. 

With a map in one hand, camera in the other, a backpack, I strolled around to Musee des Plans-Reliefs, the museum of military models. Most of the cafes were closed at this moment but I can imagine the ambiance around this place in the evening. One gets the feeling of being in France, contrary to Strasbourg which still seemed quite similar to German cities probably because of its proximity to the country. The walk from the military museum to the Place de la Concorde is splendid. One passes numerous beautiful buildings, la Seane river and lush green gardens. Place de la Concorde, a major square in Paris was one of the busiest crossings I encountered. The distinguishing feature of this square was the central structure - an Egyptian Obelisk. 

Musee des Plans-Reliefs

The Obelisk at the center of Place de la Concorde

Originally located in the Luxor temple in Egypt، this structure was moved to the square in 1836. All around the sides of the Obelisk are symbols in ancient Egyptian language called heiroglyphs praising the reign of king Ramses II. The rest of the Obelisks are still at the Luxor temple. Making my way from the Square through Jardin des Tuileries، I had some crepes at the entrance of the garden -one of my favorite food in France. I sat on one of the benches kept at the center of the park beside a fountain، relaxing to the sound of sparrows and ducks preening in the warm summer afternoon.

The fountain at the center of  Jardin des Tuileries

After having lunch at one of the pizza places nearby، I went to see one of the largest and the best museum in the world - Musee du Louvre. 

Musee du Louvre

I have been crazy to see this place when I saw Da Vinci Code. And indeed, this place is enormous. I just had 3-4 hours to see it, but if you ask me, this museum itself will take about 2-3 days to see it completely. Losing your way in this place might be easy, so I had to end up walking a lot to find the exit gates, ending up at various new sections of the museum in the process. Of course, when I entered the museum, I had one main destination to find: Mona Lisa. You're not supposed to use flash cam anywhere in the museum but there were hell loads of tourists and it was impossible to stop anyone from using the flash. Mona Lisa has been kept in the center of Salle des États in a climate controlled enclosure behind a bullet proof glass and it was the most crowded place in the whole museum.

Mona Lisa

The museum was filled with what seemed like millions of art works by notable artists around the world, including the Egyptian antiquities, Roman and Islamic works and some of the sections even contained modern art work. I am certainly not gonna tell you about everything that I saw but the point is- the museum is huge and one gets tired after walking the entire thing.

I was glad to be out of the museum into the warm sun again. I took a short nap near the fountains outside the pyramid and was probably the best nap I have had in months. It wasn't awkward as it might seem because literally everyone was doing it, so even I did not mind. I gathered the strength to wake up and walk towards the Pont des arts bridge over La Seine river - a bridge where love gets locked forever.

Lovelock bridge over La Seine

One can see thousands of golden locks on this bridge with the name of a couple on each of them. Many tourist couples attach padlocks with their first names on it and throw away the key in the river as a gesture for their everlasting love. Locals sell souvenirs and arts works depicting various places in the city of Paris all along La Seine river and I was able to get a mini Eiffel Tower myself as a remembrance for this place. 

I have not mentioned yet but I was a vegetarian till then. So all I got in french shops was a cheese sandwich with nothing but cheese in it and pizza places were quite hard to find sometimes. Tired of having such small amounts of food every meal, I broke my vegetarianism and satisfied myself with a hot-dog. So Paris goes into my history as the place where I finally decided to be okay being a non-vegetarian. And this happened right beside Notre Dame de Paris, the famous Catholic Cathedral in the city. In Munich, I am used to see churches, but in France and Switzerland you see a lot of cathedrals with beautifully designed windows. And the best thing is, inside it is decorated with numerous candles which make a great ambiance around the hall.

Notre Dame de Paris

Cathedral window over the main entrance

Sitting in one of the benches, I closed my eyes to reflect on what all I saw for the past week. This has been one of the most eventful days of my life. Walking around continuously for the past 2 days in two of the beautiful cities in France، I was able to see a new culture which was apparent from the monuments I saw during this time. I was one of the few people who was alone and was having a great time just walking around and learn as much as I can about the place. My bus departed around 7 pm from Paris and my next destination was Berlin، the most historic place in Germany. But Berlin will be a subject of a different post. 12 hours was certainly not enough to live "Paris". But it is enough to make you fall in love with it :)