Paris pt. 2
- Tara Larkai
- Feb 10, 2015
- 4 min read
The first thing on our list to explore was the Lourve, Palais Royale. So apparently Paris is broken up into numerical districts as their neighborhoods. The Lourve is located in the 1st district of Paris. We met an American family at cafe who explained all of this to us and how easily accessible the metro was. They gave us a map and showed us how to get to the Lourve with the metro. The metro station was a short walk away from where we were staying. Although every sign at the station was in French, it was quite simple to purchase tickets from the machine. It is cheaper to purchase in bulk than one at a time.The train had maps and signs and made it easy to find our stop.
Boy was it cold that day. After 15 minutes, I couldn't feel my toes even though I had on tights and too pair of socks. After a while, you kind of get numb to the cold or you either care more about posing for pictures than finding warmth. lol Even on this cold day, it was packed. We tried to go see the Mona Lisa but the museum was closed, apparently it's closed every Tuesday.
We escaped the cold a bit to have tea at the Grand Lourve cafe. It is a tourist trap, everything is overpriced for no reason and the service was horrible. We did not care though because we enjoyed the heat.
Arc du Carrousel and other museums are also nearby (walking distance). The eiffel tower can be seen from the Arc. We watched the nightly eiffel tower light show from there.
We ended our first night with dinner at a semi-french restaurant near our apartment. We were not impressed by the food but wine and liquor made us forget all about it.
Our second day was spent at the Palace of Versailles. Our plan was to get an early start and be in line at 8am before it opens but of course our plan did not go well. We did not wake up until 9am and did not get there until after 10:30am. That line though! The longest line I have ever seen, it was so long it had been formed into a zig zag. We met an Australian family the night before who told us that they were there the day before and had to stand in line for 2 hours. I did not believe this until I saw it for myself. Oh and it was cold as hell that day too. The temp was around 30 degrees F. I was dressed as warm as I could that I felt and looked like a balloon but I was still cold. If it was up to me, I would have left. It is not that serious to me to stand in line for that long but Chloe and Jackson really wanted to see it so I tolerated the cold. After 20 minutes, I couldn't feel any part of my body as they were frozen. We were in line for an hour and a half in the cold before getting in. FYI- it helps to save time in line if your tickets are purchased in advance which we did. Thank Goodness! It was so refreshing to finally get in some heat. We were exhausted from standing out so long that we did not fully enjoy being in the Palace and it did not help that it was massive. One needs an entire day to explore it. We did notice that there was no line when we were leaving at 4pm.
The Palace is absolutely beautiful and worth us standing in the cold (well not entirely).It is massive and I do not believe we saw everything. We were exhausted so we only stayed for a couple of hours. We had lunch at one of the cafes. Again, expensive for no reason and there was hardly any place to sit and enjoy our snack.
Our next stop was Champs-Elysees- a boulevard in the 8th district of Paris. It reminded me of times square except extremely busy but that was expected being that it was New years eve. There are plenty of stores, restaurants, tourists etc. Picture Times Square times ten. The famous Arc de Triomphe can be found here too. The Arc stands in the center of Charles de Gauile. We had planned to go to the top of the Arc however it was closed off that day for the New Years eve fire works and light show.
We rang into the New Year at a little bar restaurant in a district I cannot recall. We got there only a few minutes before midnight, the restaurant was full at that time but right before midnight, everyone left the restaurant, why? I have no clue. We watched the fire works at the Arc du Triomphe on TV(kind of like how we watch the ball drop on TV in America). Everyone rushed back into the restaurant after midnight. It was weird. We were the only ones dressed in our New Years top hats and beads. lol We then went to "turn up" at the W hotel club located in the Opera area. We had the time of our lives especially with some free liquor. They gave us our first 3 drinks for free. Thanks to Jackson for her negotiation skills. lol We met some Brazilian girls and turned all the way up. They kept buying us shots because they said they liked the way we party. The girls told us that it was their 6th trip to Paris. I told them I was not impressed so far by Paris so they assured me that they had the same feeling their first 3 trips to Paris but after that they started enjoying it and now cannot get enough of it. So I gotta go to Paris 2 more times before I can begin to like it? hmmm
Our ride home was just as lit with harassing our Uber driver with our horrible voices singing the heck of Beyonce's songs. (This was mostly Jackson) Good times!
We had a hangover the next morning so much that it ruined our plans for the day. We had planned to wake up early to visit the locks bridge and eiffel tower before heading to Amsterdam but this did not happen due to waking up too late. We only had enough time for brunch before heading out. We were moving in slow motion the entire day. LOL Stayed tuned for Amsterdam tales!
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