on a shoestring. It’s a phase that’s been coined in many a guide book but often times most locations do not allow for such freedom to explore on limited funding - or lack of as the case may be.
Having returned from a rather expensive three-week holiday in Australia in January, this early Valentines Day weekend trip to Paris was one in which Vicky & I needed to do rather cheaply.
So much so that, we moved the trip to the weekend before Valentines Day in the hope that our costs in Paris may be lower than if we had gone the following weekend.
Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport on Friday (7th February 2003) afternoon, we managed to secure a bus tickets to the centre of town. I had not been to France before so I was more than happy when took the initiative to ask for the tickets in French. After successfully purchasing the tickets however, for some unknown reason, she blurted out “thank you” in Spanish!
Not resembling the five star coaches the cost of the ticket had insinuated we would be travelling in, we boarded the old bus and it rattled and bumped its way into the city centre of Paris. It eventually terminated on boulevard du Montparnasse, which the bus driver said, was “walking distance” from where we were staying, although you wouldn’t know it.
Consulting one of the many maps we had picked up didn’t do us much good because we weren’t entirely sure where we were in the first place.
After getting some useless directions from some of the less than friendly locals and walking for half an hour in various directions, we spotted our currently location on our map.
We eventually found our hotel - The Nouvel Eiffel, which was opposite Volontaires underground (Metro) train station. The area of Montparnasse that surrounded us, on the left bank of the Seine River, was once a haven for up and coming artists and street performers, however on this cold February day it looked as if the street had been shut down for the winter.
Following a large spending spree in Australia, I had vowed not to carry my credit cards with me until I had paid off the debt. Part of that debt was our accommodation at the Nouvel...or so I had thought.
Sometimes booking a room on the Internet with your credit card does not always mean actually paying for it, apparently.
When we arrived at the hotel, the guy at reception insisted on seeing the card that I used to book the room (as proof of identity...and method of payment, of course). After explaining the situation, I was forced to find the nearest ATM and withdraw enough to pay for two night’s accommodation in cash.
Despite our money problems, we decided to treat ourselves and add breakfast to the deal as well.
Up in our room, I consulted some of the Paris literature we had brought with us and mapped out the itinerary for the next two days, to be done all on foot. The sun had set for the day so our agenda for the night was simple - find cheap food.
Wandering through the Parisian streets at 5pm on a Friday afternoon, you would think that the place would be jammed full of people either on their way home from work or on their way out for the night.
Not on this night. In fact, we struggled to find any people at all.
We wandered endlessly through the streets before spotting the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Using the tower as our centre point, we worked our way outwards in search of anything that might be open serving any type of food at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the only places we found were restaurant cafes serving traditional French delicacies for an extravagant amount of Euros.
Pushing on, we found each new street began to look strangely similar to the last and it wasn’t long before I declared that we were lost.
It didn’t help that the map we had did not have street names for the ones running horizontally, only vertically. It made finding a crossroad very difficult indeed. To add to our little situation, a misty rain began falling from the sky.
After almost two hours of being soaked and walking around in circles, we found the street of our hotel. Albeit we were approximately two miles away from the hotel, but we had found the street none-the-less. We still had not eaten however.
Half way up the street we stumbled upon a bakery (which was about to close). The shop keepers and other customers laughed at our attempts to order in French but we didn’t care when we got some hot pastries filled with cheese & spinach into our hands…and more importantly, into our stomachs.
We made our way back to the hotel, safe in the knowledge that if it came down to it we were probably capable of ordering some form of food in French before starving to death.
The next day, (Saturday 8th February 2003) we made the most of our “all inclusive” breakfast of all you can eat cereal and toast before setting out on our self-planned walking tour of Paris.
Our first stop was the Eiffel Tower. Built to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution in 1889, the “Tour Eiffel” is an amazing structure and it literally took my breath away. Despite our budget limitations and a height of over 300 metres (320.75 including the antenna), I was determined to climb the tower.
Vicky suggested that perhaps we catch the lift to the first platform and walk the rest of the way but after seeing the price of around thirty euros just to get onto the first platform, I was more determined than ever to walk the whole way.
As we set off up the stairs, I made a point of not looking too far in front (or above) me in an effort to keep me motivated to make it all the way to the top platform.
The tower consists of three platforms - an extremely expensive restaurant on the first, the “Jules Verne” restaurant on the second and on the top platform the former office of Gustave Eiffel (the tower’s designer) has been restored - and a bar/souvenir shop has been added.
Unfortunately for us, the rain from the night before had pushed a layer of fog down closer to the earth and the entire top platform of the Eiffel Tower was closed and almost completely covered by clouds.
We stopped momentarily on the first platform to catch our breath and take in the already spectacular view of Paris.
During the building of the tower, a petition signed by over 300 people was presented to the government protesting its construction. The petition read “We, the writers, painters, sculptors, architects and lovers of the beauty of Paris, do protest with all our vigour and all our indignation, in the name of French taste and endangered French art and history, against the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower."
Despite this, construction went ahead and the Eiffel Tower is now accepted and considered one of the most recognised monuments of the modern world.
Our pace was slowing down now and I was disheartened to see that I had been overtaken by the fat American bloke I had overtaken early on the first stairwell (He with the customary camera around his neck and cheeseburger in hand).
As we reached the second platform I noticed the air had become much clearer and our visibility was now spanning the Parisian vicinity at around twenty kilometres each side.
Wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere eighty metres up, I began picturing the moment Roger Moore and Grace Jones leaped off the Eiffel Tower in the James Bond classic -View to a Kill.
Strangely, the bungy jumping werewolf woman in the cheaply made “An American Werewolf in Paris” followed suite in my thoughts.
I took some photos and not long after we decided it was time to get a move on if we were to cover our full itinerary for the day. Instead of fighting the on-coming traffic walking down the stairs, we jumped in the lift and arrived at ground level in a matter of seconds.
We crossed the pont d’lena bridge over the Seine river and headed northwest towards our next monumental sight, the Arc de Triomphe, located in Place Charles de Gaulle. Rather than take Avenue Kleber straight up to CDG, we decided to take some back streets and “zig-zag” our way up.
Along the way we passed a park where a few dog owners were trying to toilet-train their poodles. From the looks of things, the pooches weren’t having any of it.
We soon arrived at the end of one of the 12 avenues branching out from the centre of the Arc de Triomphe. Traffic was fairly heavy that day so Vicky & I each risked life and limb to get to the centre.
About ten minutes later, we had both reached the monument in one piece.
For a second, I had wondered if it was worth all the effort but after reading some of the many inscriptions on the Arch and marveling at the view down each avenue, my thoughts were eased.
The Arch was constructed by order of Napoleon (I) in the 1830s as a tribute to his armies and all of the soldiers names are recorded on the sight, which stands fifty metres high and is forty five metres wide.
In 1920, the Unknown Soldier of World War I was buried at the Arch and the candles of his grave are rekindled every night at 6:30pm by the many local war veterans.
You can catch a lift to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, which I’m told offers spectacular views of the adjoining avenues and most of Paris. Given our budget and the fact we had just climbed the Eiffel Tower, I doubted whether we would get much more value for money so we pressed on to our next sight - Musse de Louvre, and more specifically the Mona Lisa.
Our journey took us down Avenue des Champs-Elysees, which was scattered with various shops and cafes. We stopped for a budget lunch at McDonalds and looked in some clothing stores that we really couldn’t afford to look in.
After lunch we made our way though the Jardin des Tuileries, a park which housed a rather large pond and several statues, half concealed by a miniature maze.
In the lake, small ducks mixed it up with model boats being controlled by young boys. We sat on a green bench to take a breather and watched the ducks darting back and forth, trying to get out of the way of a small speedboat. A small blonde boy was laughing uncontrollably to the left of the pond, so we assumed he was in control of the aptly named “boat de destruct.”
The pathway that led to the Louvre was lined with street artists and small tourist stalls. I stopped to buy a national flag from one of the stalls manned by a rather short French man. I chose his stall because he seemed to try the least to get my business. He was very pleased when I picked out the flag and threw in a few post cards for good measure.
Various artists offered to draw over-exaggerated caricatures of Vicky & myself but with the sun descending fast into the horizon, we needed to press on to the Louvre hoping to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa before closing time.
The illuminated glass pyramids provide a magnificent entry to the museum. There was a small line up of tourists outside but Vicky & I managed to wangle our way ahead of them when they posed for some photos.
Declared a national museum in 1793 containing around 630 artifacts, de Louvre now boasts an inventory of 250,000 works of art.
On this day, unfortunately we didn’t have much time to explore many of these treasures so we headed directly to Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece...the Mona Lisa.
A large crowd gathered around the painting, so we had to wait our turn to get close. When we finally got near it, I noticed a sign noting that it was forbidden to take photos if it. We stood in awe of the artwork for some time before being pushed along by some obnoxious American tourists.
I moved off to the side and with the flash turn off on my camera, managed to sneak a quick photo.
Realising the time, we shot out of the museum and had to cut short our itinerary for the day. We began the long journey back to Montparnasse.
Crossing the Seine, we walked back through St-Germain-des-pres. Dubbed the most beautiful neighborhood in Paris, St-Germain-des-pres is an extension of the popular Latin-Quarter and is home to many art galleries and publishing houses.
The walk back took about forty minutes and as the evening set in, we stopped in at the take-away pizza place across the road from our hotel.
Despite the cold air outside, our room was particularly hot and the smell of left over tuna pizza made that nights sleep somewhat difficult.
The next day (Sunday 9th February) we woke early for breakfast and checked out of our hotel. Any sights we were to see today were subject to our journey towards the airport. We “could” have caught the metro easily but we wanted to continue our walking tour and avoid any unnecessary spending.
With suitcases in tow, we headed northeast through the Latin-Quarter towards Notre Dame.
The famous cathedral took a hundred and sixty seven years to complete, after construction began in 1163. It has played a religious role in Paris for over 2000 years and rather interestingly, was where King Henry IV of England crowned himself the King of France in 1420.
It didn’t last long however because by 1453, the English were expelled from France permanently. The English now use their short visits to France to purchase loads of cheap alcohol and cigarettes.
Not being able to afford to enter the grand Notre Dame, we had to admire the monument from afar and I was pleased that the morning sun had allowed me to take some fabulous photos.
Continuing the theme of relating famous monuments to their appearances in Hollywood movies, I now recall the Notre Dame being the centrepiece for Van Helsing’s battle with Dr Jeckle & Mr. Hyde.
Realising we wouldn’t be able to walk all the way to the airport, we headed in the direction of Gare du Nord - Paris’ central train station, hoping that having walked half way a short train trip to the airport would not be as expensive as a full journey.
With time on our side, we shifted our walking speed down to a pleasant stroll and arrived at Gare du Nord by around three in the afternoon - our flight was at six.
Unfortunately for us, the time we did have on our side did not allow us much flexibility to make a detour and the sight of Moulan Rouge was promptly, but regretfully knocked off our itinerary.
It was replaced, rather woefully by a visit to McDonalds and a bizarre sex shop opposite the train station. Realising the sight of a real-life woman seemed to be too much for the dodgy occupants of the shop we didn’t hang around in there long.
Our earlier reasoning that the closer you are to your destination, the cheaper the train ticket was proved to be rather false when we discovered that the cost of a one-way ticket to the airport from Nord was the same as that from Volontaires - the metro station directly across the road from our hotel.
With that, the train to Charles de Gaulle airport was a fast one and it was only about twenty minutes before we were lining up to check in at the flight desk.
In all, we had walked approximately twenty-four kilometres in the entire weekend and had managed to see what we had considered to be the main attractions of Paris. The budget I set had taken a little bit of a beating but I was still in good shape to see out the remainder of the month back in London.
Around the year 2000, I discovered I had been stuck in a rutt. I was living the same day over and over again. At the time, it didn't occur to me that I was doing it from the comfort of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but I knew I needed to get out. The opportunity came up for me to accept a job in London, which I did, in August 2001. My parents offered to send me on a round the world trip instead but I was convinced moving to London was the best thing for me.
When I arrived was then when I caught the travel bug and discovered that, with each new country I visited, came a seem... full info
