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Published: March 18th 2007
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Paris really turned out to be a fantastic trip. I had been told the city was beautiful, but didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. We had three full days to explore and see as much as we could, and I think we saw just about everything. The Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, and Notre Dame were just a few of the highlights.
We left early Friday morning to catch the Eurostar from London to Paris at 5:30am. Since we were leaving so early, the tube wasn't yet open and we had to take night busses at 4am, attempting to make our way to the station. We only got lost once while switching busses and having to walk between stops. It was all very confusing--finding the right busses, waiting for them, looking for our stops. We were a little under prepared and must have looked like horribly confused tourists. Luckily, it was 4am in London, so no one was around to see us. (Except for the garbage men who were no help in directions anyway!) I have to say we cut it a little close getting to the station and we were all a bit nervous. However, we made our
train on time and settled in for the two-hour journey to Paris.
We checked into our hostel, and found it quite nice. Their were six of us and we had a room all to ourselves. We stayed at the Aloha Hostel, which was about a 20 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. The beds were fairly comfortable (sheets were an extra charge, we didn't bother) and the room was very clean. The showers were small and seemed to only have luke-warm water. Overall the hostel was a good deal for being one of the cheapest in town.
It rained on Friday morning, so we tried to do as much indoor activities as we could. First we went to the Paris Opera House, which is where "Phantom of the Opera" takes place. The building was beautiful. Seeing the 'Grand Staircase' and the famous chandelier in person were amazing. It was a little disappointing that the auditorium was closed due to rehearsals, but we still got to peak inside and get a picture of the chandelier before they kicked us out.
Friday night we spent at the Louvre, we found online that every Friday night is free for students
from 6-10pm, which was a great way to save some money. The museum was huge, I couldn't believe it. We were there for four hours and probably only saw 1/8 of it. Of course we made sure to see all the famous sights. It was pretty surreal to be looking at the real Mona Lisa! The greatest part of the museum in my opinion was the outside. The glass pyramid entrance was beautiful, especially at night.
Saturday we woke up early and did a lot of walking and stair climbing. We pretty much walked around the entire city. First stopping at the Eiffel Tower to take lots of pictures (I can't believe how many I ended up with) and continued our walk along the river, stopping at all the little stands with food and souvenirs to buy. We eventually made our way to the Cathedral Notre Dame and took a tour of the interior. Then we climbed the stairs all the way up the tower and had an amazing view of the city and Quassimodo's bell.
Felling energized by our first round of stairs, we next climbed the Eiffel Tower. We really did the Tower at the perfect
time of day. We got there about an hour and a half before sunset, so we were able to see the view from the middle of the tower in the day light and at sunset, then took the elevator to the top to see the view at night. I think this was probably the highlight of the trip for everyone. I never actually realized how tall it was!
On Sunday we did a lot of little things that we still wanted to see. First we took the Metro to the Sacre-Coeur, a beautiful church that sits high up on a hill overlooking the whole city. We briefly walked through it, but then spent most of our time sunbathing on the steps while we listened to one of the many musicians play. Then we headed over to the Moulin Rouge, Arc de Triomphe, and Cemetery du Pere-Lachaise for some pictures. We finished off the trip sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower sharing a bottle of wine and some baguettes on Sunday night.
Monday we had to leave the Hostel by 5:30am so that we could make it to our train on time. We even made it back to
London to go to our 10am classes! (although we were probably all falling asleep). We didn't get very much sleep on our vacation but we got to do everything we wanted to! A lot of time was spent enjoying a walk down some of the busy streets and sitting in one of the many parks. We saved a lot of money by eating baguettes...but probably made up for it by eating too many banana and nutella crepes!
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