London Spring 2011: Paris, France

On Friday morning I headed over to St. Pancreas International train station for my Eurostar train to Paris! For those of you who are not familiar with the Eurostar, it is a bullet train that travels at roughly 200mph getting from central London to central Paris in just over 2 hours. It was quite the experience seeing the French countryside zoom past my window at record speed. It was by far the coolest way I have ever traveled somewhere and I wish the Eurostar had service between NYC and Washington DC.

When I got to Paris at about 11am I meet up with one of my roommates Mike, who decided to go on the trip with me last minute, which was great since I was previously going alone (I wanted to see Paris, and no one was going to stop me). After buying a packet of metro tickets we headed over to St. Michael fountain by Notre Dame to embark on a 4 hour long walking tour of the city. The weather could not have been more beautiful as it was a clear blue sky and about 80 degrees. I actually got sunburt! Our tour guide Camille, was a native Parisian who lived in the states for a few years. She was easily one of the better tour guides I have had with my study abroad program since she was a native of the city, was very enthusiastic and gave a well rounded tour which combined fun facts and the history of the places we saw. The tour went to all of the main sights of Paris including St. Michael Square, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Eiffel tower etc. After the tour I really did feel like I have seen a good amount of the city and learned a lot about the history of Paris.

After the tour Mike and I headed back to Notre Dame so we can check out the interior of the impressive church. It amazes me how a cathedral so large and beautiful could have been built in the 1100’s. Unfortunately I didn’t see any hunchbacks going up the tower to ring the bells. After the cathedral we walked around Ponte Maria, which is an island behind Notre Dame and the Bastille area where we eventually got dinner. Later on in the night we headed out to the Montmartre district, which is on a hill on the north side of Paris. Although it was quite a trek walking up all of the stairs to the Basicilia Sacre Coeur, the view of Paris was absolutely fantastic at night. The area had numerous outdoor restaurants and a lively cub scene. After the long day I headed across the city to my hotel to catch a few hours of sleep.

On Saturday morning I woke up when it was still dark out to meet up with Mike so we could take the train to Versailles. Versailles is famous for its palace, which was built by Louis XIV during the 1700’s. The palace is absolutely huge and is extremely ornate to a point in which it is almost disturbing that Louis XIV would spent all the taxpayer money for his own glory. It’s no wonder why the French had so many revolutions. The palace had quite a few impressive rooms including the hall of mirrors, but the most impressive part of the palace were its gardens. The gardens were beautiful and absolutely massive. It would take over an hour to walk from one side of the gardens to the other and it would be nearly impossible to see everything without a car.

After the palace we headed back into central Paris where we went to the famous Louvre museum where we saw the really lame and disappointing Mona Lisa and a bunch of Italian art and other stuff (I’m not into art that much if you cant tell). After the museum we went to the Paris Opera and then to the giant Arc de Triomphe. The road surrounding the Arc does not have any lanes painted into the street and as a result has the most accidents of anywhere in the world with one accident every 30 minutes approximately. That night Mike and I went to dinner in the Montmartre dinner where we also saw the famous Moulin Rouge. At night we went to the Effiel tower which was pretty amazing and a lot larger than I was expecting it to be for some reason. The Effiel tower is a pretty magical place a night, not going to lie, and every hour there is a light show that takes place, which is awesome and was the perfect end to my time in Paris.

Although I went to Paris expecting everyone to be rude French people, I found my experience to be the complete opposite. With the exception of one rude encounter, everyone in Paris was very friendly and helped me out with directions and questions that I had, even with my completely broken French (I can speak like 10 words). Another rumor that I head about Paris was that it was a very dirty city, which could be no further from the truth. Everywhere I went in Paris, everything was extremely clean and there were trashcans on every street corner. The only grimy place of the city was the subway, but it was extremely efficient so I really didn’t care. The rumors of Paris being a very beautiful city were completely true, and Paris is easily now one of my favorite cities in the world. Between people walking down the street with half eaten baguettes, open air cafes on the sidewalk and some of the most famous landmarks in the world, where is there not to love about Paris?

Well, thanks to the three of you who decided to read this entire long post and ill update soon!

- Rees

P.S.- This blog has now reached over 1,000 views, so thank you lonely people without lives!