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Published: March 5th 2006
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To the Front
This is what I saw in front of me after I got of the Metro. Awesome! First Impressions
OK, so day 2 in Paris begins. You should know that so far I really hadn't seen much of Paris. It's hard to get an impression of a place from a train, or Metro, or the 300 meters you walk from the Metro to the hostel. So when I woke up on Saturday morning, I was ready to go see some sights. I figured that the best way to start would be to get on the Metro, and get off in the middle of Paris. So, I picked the "Invalides" stop as our jumping off point, since it was close to the Eiffel Tower. As we were walking to the exit of the Metro I started getting excited. What would be waiting for us when we got outside? Would we be able to see anything? Well, take a look at some of the pictures and see for yourself. Topping the stairs at the Metro exit and walking out into the middle of Paris, my first impression can only be described as "jaw dropping". In fact, I don't think my jaw resumed it's natural configuration until I boarded the train to leave.
An Aside - I'd like to take To the Left
The view to the left after leaving the Metro. That is the "Hotel des Invalides" in the background. a moment to just summarize the overall impression of Paris that I got from the five days I was there. Paris is hands down the most spectacular place I've ever seen. And what makes it even more impressive is that I found Paris so amazing, despite all the hype. Take the Eiffel Tower for example. We've all seen it hundreds of times: on television, in magazines, in movies, etc. It's nothing new, you know what to expect...right? Wrong. I don't think any reproduced image of the Eiffel Tower (or most anything else in Paris) truly does justice to the actual monument. Seeing the Eiffel tower for the first time, with my own two eyes, will go down as one of the most visually astounding moments of my life. And later, when I thought it couldn't get any better, I saw Paris at night...but I'll get to that.
Topping the stairs I had the "Hotel des Invalides" to my left, the "Grand Palais" to my right, and looming over the interceding buildings was the Eiffel Tower. What a place to be! I think the Metro really contributed to the shock value of my first real view of Paris. I wasn't
To the Right
The view to the right after leaving the Metro. That's the "Grand Palais" in the background. walking or in a car, with the sights gradually coming into view. I walked out of the Metro, and was instantly surrounded by the spectacle of Paris. Amazing.
The Eiffel Tower
So put yourself in my situation. What would you do? Probably exactly what we did. Using the Eiffel Tower as our North Star, we made straight for it. It didn't take long to reach the base of the tower, and it was only more impressive up close. We stopped to take a few pictures and then got in line to go to the top. Now, the weather in Paris was not so good. It was cloudy and cold. But one good thing about being in Paris in late February is that was the off-season for tourism, and the sights weren't too crowded. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of tourists in Paris year round, but on this day (a Saturday) we only had to stand in line for about 45 minutes before boarding the lift to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. On the way up the tower, the first stop for us was on the second level. It wasn't the top, but it still
provided a great view, and a lot more room to walk around and take pictures.
Next we headed to the top and the view was great. It would have been a little better if it hadn't been so cloudy that day, but it was still clear enough to see a long distance. It was quite windy and cold at the top, so we didn't linger quite as long as we had at the lower level.
After going back down to the bottom, we walked to the Palais Chaillot to take more pictures of the Eiffel tower from across the Seine. There was a very nice vantage point at the Palais Chaillot that provided a good place to take photos. On the way we were stopped by a group of French girls. I'm not really sure what they were doing, but the best I could figure was that it was a bachelorette party. Daniel and I both had to stand on a scale that they were carrying around, and then bite some candy off of the necklace that the "bachelorette" was wearing. Random.
The Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees
After we finished taking photos of the
Eiffel Tower we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc was surrounded by a busy roundabout, and after asking a policeman how to get across, we walked through a tunnel that went under the traffic and lead up to the Arc. The Arc de Triomphe was quite impressive, yet another visually stunning site in Paris. From so close it was too large to fit in the viewfinder of my camera. Underneath the Arc is the tomb of the unknown soldier.
Next we walked down the Champs Elysees, which lead straight towards the Louvre. We stopped periocidally to take pictures, and took our time looking in the various shops and stores lining the road. The Champs Elysees has everything from clothing stores, to restaurants, to car dealerships, even a McDonalds (I can't seem to get away from McDonalds). We didn't walk all the way down the Champs Elysees. It was getting late and we were all tired, so we went to the nearest Metro stop and went back to the hostel.
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