Europe Bus Tour-2010 - Paris

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Switzerland to Paris, France drive

This is the day we leave the European paradise. We had used the locker facility in the hotel. WE checked our passport bag and had a nice breakfast with Poha as the main course. We packed all our belongings and were ready around 9 am. The bus left around 9:30 am from the Hotel Terrace area. We had a a sheet of paper circulated around the bus to collect all the co-travelers addresses and emails. Now, we are in a new bus, comfortable than the other but the seats were a bit narrower. We will be travelling towards France whole of the morning. Our first break was in a rest area around 11 am. Our second break was lunch. By now, we had crossed into France through the city of Basil. Here we had packed lunch from the hotel itself. It was cloudy all day today and as soon as we started our lunch in a wooded rest area, it started pouring. There was quite a bit of downpour. We had to hurry up and finish our lunch. We left the rest area around 1:30 pm and the bus headed towards Paris. It is another 250 kms from there. The roads were smooth and there were lots of sign boards along the freeway. The countryside had lot more cultivated land. We reached outskirts of Paris during Friday rush hour. It took us some time to reach our hotel which was about 10 kms from the city center. We checked into the Hotel around 6:30 pm. Hotel is in the Villette area. Today, we had to take care of the dinner ourselves. A group of fellow travelers decided to go to city center for dinner and the Eiffel tower by night sight. The bus driver kindly agreed to drop us close to Champs-Élysées area. We freshened up and left the hotel around 7:30 pm. We were dropped about 2 kms away from ‘Arc De Triomphe’ There were about 5 families and after trying to find a common place to eat, we split up. We had planned to meet up near the Arc by 9:30 pm, so that we can walk toward Eiffel tower. We wanted to time it such that, we could watch the decorated blinking lights of Eiffel tower at 10 pm. Rest of the gang could eat meat. So, went looking for McDonalds. We found a good pizza place called “Pizza Pino”. We ordered 2 personal pizzas and a pasta primavera. It was good. When we reached the Arc, it was close to 9:40 pm. Now, we had to rush towards the Eiffel tower and reach there by 10 PM. We enquired people and shops around to get to the Eiffel tower area. It was at least a 1.5 mile walk. We reached exactly when the lights started blinking on the tower. We took plenty of photos and enjoyed the surrounding sights for another hour or so. After that, each of us got cabs to reach our Hotel. It would cost us around 18 Euros to get back. We had a sense of achievement of all the walking and sight seeing.

Paris, France

Hotel provides coupons for breakfast. We had to take the coupon to the restaurant to be counted. The rooms here are small. On top of this, the lifts did not work. Only one worked, out of three. This place seems to be heavily unionized. Front desk told us that, the lifts wouldn’t be fixed until Monday. Imagine that in America! Breakfast was not so great. Today, we were touring a perfume company, Eiffel tower and then a conducted quick tour of Paris attractions. We first went to the Perfume factory. There was a bit of introduction to perfume making and some history of perfumes and how they were being used by humans. After that, there was more sales pitch for buying some of the perfumes they create locally there. After completing the tour, we headed to the Eiffel tower. We could get on the fast pass track since we belonged to the tour group. Our tickets were valid till stage 2. One can go to stage 3 by paying some extra Euros. Smaller lifts carry people from Stage 2 to 3. There were a few who decided to go to stage 3 in our tour group. We stayed in stage 2 and saw the whole of Paris city. It was a spectacular sight. We had to wait at least 30 minutes for others to join us before we left for the Kamala Indian restaurant. By now, we would have seen lots of Indian restaurants and their menus for lunch. After lunch, local guide, Mr. Singh joined us. He was well educated and an articulate man. As the bus took us around the city of Paris, he explained the history behind the city sights. We saw obelisk at place de la Concorde, town hall, national assembly, Opera house, dome of the invalides, and Vendome square. The tour guide left the bus when we reached the Louvre museum. We were given a choice either to get tickets to the museum ourselves or spend time shopping in the nearby markets. Bunch of us decided to go to Louvre. We were given up to two hours. All the kids wanted to see Mona Lisa. This exhibit is deep inside the museum, in the Denon section. It took us at least 30 minutes to reach the painting, It was crowded. We spent some extra time in these exhibits. We also saw paintings of other contemporary paintings of that time. We got back to the bus around 5:40 pm. Our next stop is the river cruise. This cruise is on the river Siene. This was a big boat which can ferry more than 300 people. There were bucket seats outside and the weather was very good. We passed many of the Paris monuments, including Alexander III bridge, the Orsay museuam, National assembly, Notre Dame church and the small statue of liberty. The cruise dropped us back to where we started. It lasted for about 80 minutes. Now, we headed to another Indian restaurant for our finale dinner. Here we got free beer and/or wine. The place was small, but food was OK. There were lots of friendly chats and shared memories. After a very busy day, we headed back to the Hotel to pack and get ready for the flight back home. One of our tour friends had scales that we borrowed to check the weight of our packed luggage. By the time we went to bed, it was close to midnight.

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