Before heading out, from Amsterdam we had a hearty breakfast more close to the meals at home. Soon enough we were on a train to our final destination on the this trip… Paris !!
The journey went quitely liatening to music, video games, eating wafers and some sleep. At Paris the weather was cold but partly sunny.. Checked into the hotel and headed out for Louvre. The museum itself turned out to be much more huge than expected. Well, after all its set in a building what used to be a palace. Saw some of the famous artifacts from around the world like Monalisa amongst the many famous paintings, statues of Venus and the ‘dying slave’ by Michelangelo, Egyptians Sarcophagus and the ‘portrait of a young women’ etc…
After that headed out towards Eiffel tower while walking over the oldest stone bridge that Paris has to offer. The view of the city is beautiful over the bridge at Siene river.
Further down near the St Chapel took a metro to Eiffel Tower. Immediately as you see it you can feel the gigantic size and the tons of steel used in it. The tower itself was lit up in the evening lights and looked majestic and beautiful.
We decided not to climd the tower as it was getting cold, late and we were feeling hungry. Headed back to the hotel after a quick meal near the tower and ‘one last picture’ of the tower for the day :-). My partner was hating me for stopping at every nook and cornet to see the beauty of the city through the eyes of my camera..
After the breakfast we headed towards opera house – Palias de Garnier. It is a majestic building and immediately on entey the grand staircase gives you a royal feeling. We have seen chandeliers earlier also but the collection of them in an extremely royal French palace had a different aura altogether. The expense done for this visit was worth it.
Next we headed to Sainte Chapel to see some world fame stained glass windows but the world fame queue outside demoralized us enough to drop the idea :-)
Took a walk of the surrounding areas, went to Notre Dame and took pictures from outside. Weather was colder than yesterday and was getting colder as the evening pressed.
Going on the top of the Eiffel tower was still pending. So we headed towards that direction.
Had to go through a long queue to buy the ticket that actually moved pretty fast… but when we reached on the top, every part of our heart and brain said that it was worth the effort. It truly was a feeling of being on the top of the world…
The 360 degree view of the city below is magnificent. Thanks to Gustav Eiffel who gave this spectacular tower to this world.
Paris is a wonderful place to be.. People say that… We experienced our bit of it in these few days of what Paris had to offer… Seeing the famous monuments, being on top, wow’ing the massiveness of everything, lights of the tower and the city beneath… But then we decided to just take a walk, do a bit of mixing up with locals through shopping and eating and visit some of the local not so famous parts of Paris. We took the north walk and was stopped on the way by the unmistakable smell of roasted corn. It was a Bangaladeshi guy on the street roasting corn and we felt closer to home having the charcoal roasted snack.. :-) We walked to a place and unexpectedly found a beautiful hill between a market and housing community where there was this lovely church perched up on the hill. Folks were just sitting and enjoying the sun while watching the city’s local hustle bustle from their vantage point. Continued up the street to a place called ‘Wall of love’ where in a simple small park by the local community and on a historic wall someone has pained the simple but yet powerful ‘I Love You’ in languages (scripts) from around the world. We spent some good time at the park then did some shopping and mixing with locals.. It was just another moment of finding our inner self.. Later we went back up the hill and took some lovely pictures of the church with the sunlight of the setting sun falling on it. From the top, the city looked beautiful. To close our last evening of the tour we had a toast of champagne and some local food from the stalls of the very happening little hill top near the church..
With a heart filled with many lovely experiences and moments we took one last look around and bid Au revoir to France and headed back to the hotel. Later we packed and took the morning flight to Delhi.. I
t had been a wonderful experience in these 10 days !!
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