An evening in Paris, & "Ferrari Ki Sawari! By Siddharth Paramhans

17, Dec 2015, Thursday, Paris, 5^th Day

Gare du Nord is one of the busiest and highly connected railway station in Paris, we alighted there after coming from London by Eurostar. Local taxis don’t prefer short distance passengers so we had to take another local train for our destination which was just 5 minutes from Gare du Nord. We had pre booking done through Airbnb, and David the owner was waiting for us at his flat where we planned to stay for next 3 days in Paris. David by profession is an Electric Engineer and creative electronic designer we got to know more about him once we met. One can see beautiful lights in and around Paris, many of these projects had been done by David.

Eiffel Tower

It was almost 7pm, we decided to visit to Eiffel tower and see that magnificent structure in illuminated lights and feel the the beauty of the Eiffel tower. One can see entire Paris from top, specially in night the illuminated Paris is very beautiful, this time even more as entire city was illuminated due to Christmas festival. Paris is also known as city of light. We took the tickets for top deck of Eiffel Tower at 17 Euros for person. Once you reach on TOP of Eiffel tower view from each side is just amazing, long lighted streets, long queues of car, moving trains, festival lighting, illuminated colors, and above all cold breeze stops your breath and you just feel like capturing each moments that you are seeing around at top of Eiffel tower.

Bird view from Eiffel Tower

We also spent some time seeing a small museum, reading brief story of making of Eiffel tower. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French civil engineer and architect who designed this magnificent tallest tower of that time and oversaw the construction. This magnificent tower was open to public in 1989 to experience bird view of Paris. This is just not one of the 7 wonder monuments it is also one of the most visited sight in world by tourists from all around the world.

Last time when I visited Paris, I went up to the first floor only as the third floor was not operative, we came back from TOP floor to first floor by lift, took few souvenirs, and was time to go for dinner. Surprisingly, the restaurant on first floor of Eiffel tower was booked completely, and we had to find another place in city for our dinner. For having a dinning experience at Eiffel tower one needs to book 3-4 days in advance.  Took Uber cab to come back home as we reached home I realized that I have lost my iPhone, felt bad as this had my lot of data, these are some situations and mishap happens that we can not control.

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18, Dec 2015, Friday, Paris, 6^th Day – Visit to Montmartre Church  

Our daughter Shagun had to go back to London due to some of her Visa issue, and she had to submit her passport immediately otherwise her joining would have been delayed so we decided to send her back to London. We were not feeling happy with this, but there was no other option, she went back to London and we were now only three instead of four for rest of our journey. She had been coordinating most of our trip, which now was to be done by ourselves.

We were also little bit tired after last 4-5 days of hectic schedule, so kept light during the day, took rest and evening we had our lunch then we decided to visit Montmartre Church which was not very far from our place so we reached there on foot after walking up for a mile on hill.

Montmarte Church

A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. It offers one of the most beautiful panoramic view of the capital at 400meters above sea level. Inside the building, the ceiling was decorated with the largest mosaic in France. We returned walking through the by lanes, shops around the Basilica – must to experience Paris and its culture.

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19, Dec 2015, Saturday, Paris, 7^th Day – Visit to Cathedral of Norte Dame, Louvre, & Arc De Triomphe

Norte dame

Weather was very pleasant, Sun was shining yellow, we decided to cover important points in Paris city – our itinerary today included visit to Cathedral of Norte Dame, Louvre, & Arc De Triomphe. Just after breakfast we left for Cathedral of Norte Dame of De Paris, the most visited monument of Paris, a jewel of Gothic architecture, construction of Cathedral began in medieval time and continued over several centuries, heavily damaged during French Revolution. The cathedral was restored in19th century. 

A walk on side lanes is must, it’s fun & relaxing, eating at typical French brasseries café was just impossible to resist. We tried Crapes, being made like the way we make Dosa in India but different taste. There was multiple choice offered with Veg and non veg options.

From here we took a tricycle rickshaw to go to Musee De Louvre, which was 10 minutes at distance from Norte Dame. Louvre is the largest museum with best collection of the world. We moved inside, Louvre is just huge in size, very systematically made in various thematic galleries.  For better experience we took audio device to listen commentary of each article placed there in museum.  

The Louvre 

Everyone who comes to Paris, it is the must visit to Louvre to discover the wealth of treasures it contains the museum houses western work of art dating from the Middle Ages to1848 in addition to the collection of ancient oriental, Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations as well as graphic and Islamic art. First we saw the exhibition hall of Napoleon, from room to room the famous royal palace reveals its masterpieces to the public i.e. The Monalisa, the raft of Medua, the Venus De Milo. In total there are 35000 works of art to be discovered with its 800 years old history. We took several photographs here and lastly we visited the Mummies section, where the dead bodies were kept in ancient times along with the belongings. We spent approx. 3 hrs to roam around the museum and could manage the important galleries. If you want to see Louvre museum in detail even one full day is even not enough.

By the time we finished it was evening, the city was decorated with colorful lights since it was Christmas time. Paris is famous as city of lights, it reminded me the famous movie ‘An evening in Paris’, here again we took a tricycle rickshaw and passed through the famous market Champs Elysee. Rickshaw driver, an old person was very interesting story teller, we were really amazed to see very passionate sprit of this person and who kept us entertaining throughout the brief journey and gave a click after dropping us.

Whole Champs Elysee street was illuminated with colourful lights, there were big shops and eateries on both sides of the road. It was a memorable experience, the upper half is devoted to eating out, luxury brands and flagships stores as you walk towards The Place De la Concorde is punctuated with many peaceful green spaces. It is situated at the end of Champs Elysee, the oldest monument in Paris (3300yrs old) the square was originally known for having been a site for execution during the French Revolution, Louis Xavi was guillotined here.

Arc De Triomphe

From here we walked to Arc De Triomphe, it is the largest arch in the world and was built in 1806 to celebrate Napoleons victory. From its terrace roof one can enjoy a breathtaking panoramic view of the French capital. We also visited the tomb of unknown soldier where flame is rekindled every evening, it reminded us Amar Jawan Jyoti back home in India.

Ferrari Ki Sawari in Paris! Ferrari driving will always be a great fun in Paris, whole round around Paris for 1hr cost 150 euro, worth going for it. 


As we walked around the whole day and felt very tired as well as hungry, Sarang our son found one good Indian restaurant ‘Anna Poorna’ with the help of Google search. It was first Indian restaurant of Paris and expensive, we all were very happy to be here, the food was very good and the ambience was also very pleasant. Indian classical music was being played in background, an artist from India was playing on flute, altogether it was a very different feeling to have Indian food along with good background music in foreign land. We thoroughly enjoyed our food and had ice cream. 

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20, Dec 2015, Sunday, Paris, 8^th Day – Visit to Chateau, Champs Elysee, departure to Rome

It was our last day in Paris so we decided to keep our day light, had our light home made breakfast “Tahri”, it was delicious, we also enjoyed some sandwiches and fruits were adequate to start another day. We packed our luggage as we had to go to Rome today by evening flight. Since we had limited time, we hired an Uber taxi for whole day to roam around in Paris. Driver of this cab was a Pakistani Citizen Imran, who certainly impressed us very much, he made us feel very comfortable in Paris for whole day and was helpful in guiding us throughout the journey.

Our driver Imran took us to Chateau, it was 35 Km far from our place, we passed through the country side and out skirts of Paris, it was a beautiful journey. 

Chateau

Chateau is one of the residence of French President, it's architecture has been influenced by eight centuries of royalty from the Capetian dynasty to Bonaparte, the horse shoe shaped staircase, Marie Antoinette's beds and Napoleons throne are amongst its masterpieces, the garden, a masterpiece of landscape designed by Andre Le Notre. The palace also serves as the setting for a series of magical shows. Chateau Rambo willet was acquired by Louis XVI in1783, it is one of the residences of French President and is used to host foreign heads of states.

Now it was 1.30pm, one of my colleague from my previous company, Ruchi is settled in Paris, she called me to meet us at some central place so we decided to invite her and family to have lunch together, we stopped at Champs Elysee, Ruchi came here along with her husband and daughter and we all took lunch together at local French eateries, she was happy to meet us and we spent some time there, Sarang clicked some photographs of us.

We returned back to our place and found David, the owner of our flat was waiting outside. It was time to say bye to him and thanked him for courtesy and friendly gesture during our stay in Paris. We had already booked the shuttle bus to airport, and moved to airport, it was very far and took two hours to reach, our flight was on time. We reached Rome at 11pm, we quickly took a taxi and reached to our destination. As it was already very late at night so could not see much on the way, but we could sense that it is a mediocre city and somehow different from Paris and London.

To be continued...