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Published: September 5th 2008
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i've decided to separate these blogs into counties so they aren't in a large boring block, well not as large as they could be, so hope you enjoy reading though our experiences and adventures.
Day 1
we were up at some un-godly hour to get to the globe trotter hostel to meet the people we would be spending the next 24 days with, this proved to be a little more difficult than we thought as the trains wern't as freequent as usual, but we made it there just in the nick of time. we jumped on the bus for our first leg of the drive, destination Dover to catch the ferry across the english channel to Calais. From Calais we drove through France to our Hostel, which sat about 20 mins outside of the city centre. Running a bit late, we had a quick dinner and some time to freshen up before we set out for a driving tour of Gay Paris.
Our trip into Paris started with a drive to Scare Core, a large church that sits atop a hill overlooking the city. On our departure from the bus, our tour leader Zoe warned us of
the String Men, and if we bumped into any of them to keep well away. For apparently, the String men will entice you into letting them wind a string around your wrist, a kind of friendship band, then demand up to 10 EUROS for their trouble. They are notorious for getting quite abusive and violent if you oppose this payment, so it is better off not to let them do it in the first place. Sure enough, our walk up the steps to Scare Core was interrupted constantly by groups of these men, our group led a charge through them, and no one was caught out, we did see many hapless people get caught in the webs though.
From Scare Core we did a driving tour of the city, seeing the Moulin Rouge and the Red Light District, then we saw the Louvre, the Opera house, The Arc de Triumphed with the craziest round a bout you will see in your life, 9 converging lanes of chaotic hell. We drove past the Champs Elysees, and past thru river Seine, ending up at the one and only Eiffel Tower, where it, at 10pm every night explodes into an array of
dazzling lights and flashes.
After the driving tour then returned to the Hostel where most of us went to bed at a reasonable hour, some stayed up late, but a great start to the 24 day Journey.
Paris Day 2.
The next day we had our driver drop us off in either two spots, the Louvre, or the Eiffel Tower, the group decided to get off at the Louvre as we would see the Tower later. We went inside the vast corridors of what is the Louvre, probably the largest museum dedicated to art in the world. We saw the essentials, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the winged Nike, Madonna on the rocks, and glanced at many other paintings of the Renaissance, but could not stay long, as they say, to look at every painting for 10 seconds or longer would take you 9 months to complete, and we did not have the time to do that.
From there we walked down out of the gardens of the Louvre, down the river Seine to Notre Dame Cathedral. We were going to go in, but the line was too great, instead, Alex and I decided to go to
Saint Chappell, a smaller church just down the road which was famous for its stained glass windows. And rightfully so, a beautiful mosaic of hand cut glass windows that cover the walls of the entire church. From there we went to the Pompidou centre, a modern museum for modern artists. We did not pay for the exhibition though, instead we wandered through some of the free exhibits they had in the main forum. From there we walked down the Champs Elysees, doing a bit of shopping, didn’t buy anything as to shop in that street means you are probably someone important, not like little me. But at the end of the main street lies the Arc de Triumph, the Arch created by Napoleon to commemorate his many victories, and to showcase his power over Europe. We then walked back down to the Eiffel Tower, waiting in line for 40 mins to ride to the very top, where we took some great shots of the city, funnily enough though is the city blends into one big mass of grey from that height. At the bottom of the tower, we met up with the rest of our group and had a picnic
where we tried French champagne and snails and other French delicates. After that, we went on a cruise down the Seine, where we saw the city from a different view whilst some of our group went to a Cabaret show. After all that, and quite beat from a long day, we returned to the Hostel, had a few drinks with some of the people we had met, and crashed for the night, for the next day, we left France for the Snow capped Mountains of the Swiss Alps!!!
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Milesy
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French Champagne
Isn't all champagne french by default? ;)