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Published: January 16th 2013
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We woke up around 9 AM and went to a boulangerie for some breakfast. I ordered a pain au chocolat and a croissant and Lise got a croissant with some coffee. Our first destination was the Eiffel Tower today. When we arrived we bought metro cards for the duration of our visit, so we used the metro cards to go to Trocadero, which is directly in front of the Eiffel Tower. When we came out of the metro, there were opera buildings on other side of a large square with statues, but the statues seemed pretty neglected because everyone was taking advantage of the view that the area offers of the Eiffel Tower. On the way to the Eiffel Tower,
We headed down the steps and towards the Eiffel Tower. We took some pictures when we got there and talked to the employees about the availability of tickets. There was a huge line to get into the elevator and it turns out that walking up the tower is an option and is also much cheaper. We decided to go with this option and proceeded to make our way up the 669 steps to the second floor of the tower (of
which there are 3). There was an intermediate floor during the hike where the individuals that decided to walk could read about the construction of the tower and take pictures of Paris.
The Eiffel Tower is home to a really expensive 5 star restaurant as well as a number of gift shops. There was a second gift shop on the second floor as well as another huge line to take a second elevator to the top of the tower. The ticket booth wasn’t going to open for another 45 minutes, the line was already an hour long wait, and it was a foggy day so I doubted the view was very spectacular, so we decided to stop at the second floor. We took panoramas around each side of the tower and asked a couple to take pictures of us in exchange for taking pictures of them. We were able to take the elevator down without a ticket and it was packed from wall to wall. Lise and I kept a close eye on our belongings because there are lots of pickpockets in touristy areas.
Our next destination was the Champs-Elysées, which is the high-end expensive stuff street of
Paris. Lise checked out the Disney Store as well as a few clothing stores and we got some free tea from a fancy tea place. We walked into a Renault building and saw some nice looking cars and took a silly picture behind a cardboard car. Lise suggested that we go to a chain restaurant called Flam’s for lunch, which is an all you can eat buffet.
Flam’s was on one of the side streets of the Champs-Elysées. We each ordered a combo that included a salad and the buffet. The salad was unusually filling and so we weren’t really able to take full advantage of the “all you can eat” aspect. A flam is kind of like a very thin pizza with no tomato sauce. The flams we ordered had mushrooms, ham, cheese, and onions on them. They were also bigger than I expected them to be and so we only ordered 2, which would have been cheaper without getting the all you can eat part. The food was good though and the price would have been great if we were a little hungrier, as food can be pretty expensive in Paris.
After lunch we took the
After stairs
She was miserable from the cold air because she has asthma metro back to central Paris to get a better look at Notre Dame, which we only got a glimpse of during the tour. It was celebrating its 850
th anniversary, so there was a large platform in front of it that isn’t usually there. The church was pretty but to be honest it looked a lot like the church I had seen in Reims. More on Notre Dame in the following blogs.
After Notre Dame we took the train to Montmartre to see an older version of Paris. This area of Paris is apparently the Artists district. There was a group of guys that would try to tie a string around your wrist when you walked by. Lise said they would tell some BS story while they slowly wrapped the string around your finger as a distraction for pickpockets. We rounded one corner and found dozens of artists asking passersby if they could draw/paint them for a fee. Their skill was certainly good but I didn’t really feel like paying 50 Euros to have them draw a picture of me. We walked into a chocolate shop that had a 6 foot tall chocolate Eiffel Tower on display and decided to
each buy one macaroon (me lemon and Lise blackberry) to eat at a later time during our visit.
We decided that our next destination was the Sacré-Coeur (Sacred Heart), a large cathedral that Montmartre is famous for. In front of the cathedral, there were a number of peddlers selling stolen or counterfeit goods on top of a sheet that was designed to be very easy to pick up quickly. Some sirens were heard and all of the peddlers evacuated the area as a group in no time. There was no cost to get into the Sacré-Coeur but pictures weren’t allowed. There was a huge mural on the ceiling that I managed to sneak a picture of.
After the Sacré-Coeur, we went out on the steps toward the train station. There was a singer who spoke a variety of languages and sang some songs while playing acoustic guitar. He encouraged the audience to look at the songs that he preferred to sing and also to get up and sing with him. There were guys walking around with 6 packs of Heineken trying to sell them individually to tourists. We listened to the music and each ate our individual macaroon
until the smoke was getting to us and then we left.
We headed back towards central Paris and went to BHV (Bazaar de Hotel de Ville) to buy a lock for the love lock bridge. Now it was time for dinner. We had agreed that we should have one nice meal and then try to save money on food the rest of the trip, so we ended up going to the supermarket for dinner. We called our hotel and asked if they had a microwave we could use. They indeed did and this opened up the door to buying frozen dinners. We bought 3 small frozen dinners to share along with a 1 Euro fruit smoothie in a bottle. We also bought a baguette and a small jar of jam for breakfast the following morning. We headed back to our hotel and heated up the gourmet frozen dinners, ate, and went to bed.
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