Europe Trip: Chapter 3
Editor's Note: Pictures from the trip are now available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/straxus/sets/72157594161408278/.
At the end of our last episode, our heroes were about 40 minutes late getting into their train station in Paris. What awaits them in the "City of Lights"?
We get off the train, lugging our two backpacks and suitcase with us, and go down to the commuter railway (RER) platform, where we catch the D train. As soon as we get to the platform, the (now-familiar) smell of urine attacks, and we start breathing through our mouths as we wait for the train to appear. Finally one shows up, and we get onboard - it smells just as bad as the platform, maybe worse. We take the train to Gare de Lyon, and get off (as fast as we can). We go to the surface, and start trying to find Rue de Lyon, which is the street our hotel is on. Through some bad navigation on my part, we head in the wrong direction and realize it after 15 minutes when we get to another metro station. We turn around, finally find our road (and subsequently our hotel - Holiday Inn Paris Bastille, 11 Rue de Lyon), and check in. We drop our stuff in the room, and race over to where my family is staying (The Corail Hotel, 23 Rue de Lyon) about an hour later than we were supposed to be. We say our hellos, and catch the train to the Louvre. We wait in a long line to get in, and then stroll around the museum until close to closing time. After that, we head for supper, and go to sleep.
A word of warning about the Louvre - some areas of it are like a maze. At one point, I started mumbling "ou est la fromage?" (where's the cheese?) because I felt like a mouse in a maze - I even asked one of the staff about it, and got a good laugh for my troubles ("je ne sais pas ou la fromage est! Bonne chance!").
After visiting an art museum in Brussels, and then the Louvre, we decided that we wouldn't be visiting any more art museums for the rest of our stay in Europe. I realize that a lot of people like them, but I was bored out of my mind and so was Olga. When my family decided to visit the Musee D'Orsay, we opted out.
Other places that we visited included the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, located on Montmartre hill, followed by a brief stop in front of the Moulin Rouge - meals there are ~170 Euro apiece, so we decided we didn't care that much about eating there. We also went to Notre Dame Cathedral, which is on an island in the middle of the Seine river called "Ile de la Cite" (City island). Highlights of the Notre Dame trip included seeing a fish helium balloon stuck to the ceiling and being greeted by a deformed fellow at the exit who must've been doing his best Quasimodo impression while asking for change. The cathedral itself is quite large, but as with most famous things the image and the story are larger than the place itself - if you buy into the legend surrounding a site, you're almost certain to be disappointed when you visit it.
That night, we also visited the Eiffel Tower - if you're in Paris, and you're a tourist, you basically have to do the Eiffel Tower as a rite of passage. We spent at least 75-80% of our time at the Eiffel Tower in lines of one sort or another, all of them for elevators to get up and down - I found it quite interesting though, and got a lot of good pictures while we were there. There are thousands of strobe lights spread all over the superstructure of the Eiffel Tower, and at night they go off at regular intervals, sparkling randomly in an attempt to make the tower look like a diamond - I found it pretty successful. I attempted to book us some reservations at a restaurant on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower about a week before we went to Europe, but I had no luck - the person laughed when I asked if there was space for any of the days we were in Paris. As well, for those of you keeping track of the date, we visited the Eiffel Tower on May 1st (also known as May Day), which is a major French holiday that makes all the hotels full and all the tourist attractions busy.
The next day, we went to the Palace of Versailles. We spent the whole day there, and wandered around the palace and around the gardens a lot. My main reason for wanting to go there was to see the Hall of Mirrors - me being a history person, I wanted to see where the treaty ending World War I was signed. It was somewhere between a history museum and an art museum - I got a lot of good pictures, but a lot of time was spent staring at paintings, vases, busts and tapestries. The palace grounds are huge - there are giant parks, giant baths, giant fountains, and giant buildings.
We headed back to Paris, and had supper with my family before going to sleep. We met up again the next morning, had breakfast, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways - my family south to Italy, us north to the English Channel. We took a very modern and clean subway from Gare de Lyon to Gare St. Lazare, and caught a train north to Caen. I was very glad that I took some Gravol for this trip, because the 2 hour train trip to Caen was very rickety and shaky and I would have surely thrown up without Gravol, since I came very close to throwing up after taking it!
Our arrival at Caen signalled the beginning of the portion of the trip where we visited Canadian war-related sites. We stepped off the train in Caen...
...and I'll see you in the next chapter.
Interesting factoid of the day: Unlike most cities (major or minor), Paris does not have a central hub train station. It has 6 stations spread around the outskirts of the city: Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare Montparnasse, and Gare St. Lazare. If you need to pass through Paris on your way somewhere else, chances are you'll need to take the Paris Metro from your arrival station to your departure station.
At the end of our last episode, our heroes were about 40 minutes late getting into their train station in Paris. What awaits them in the "City of Lights"?
We get off the train, lugging our two backpacks and suitcase with us, and go down to the commuter railway (RER) platform, where we catch the D train. As soon as we get to the platform, the (now-familiar) smell of urine attacks, and we start breathing through our mouths as we wait for the train to appear. Finally one shows up, and we get onboard - it smells just as bad as the platform, maybe worse. We take the train to Gare de Lyon, and get off (as fast as we can). We go to the surface, and start trying to find Rue de Lyon, which is the street our hotel is on. Through some bad navigation on my part, we head in the wrong direction and realize it after 15 minutes when we get to another metro station. We turn around, finally find our road (and subsequently our hotel - Holiday Inn Paris Bastille, 11 Rue de Lyon), and check in. We drop our stuff in the room, and race over to where my family is staying (The Corail Hotel, 23 Rue de Lyon) about an hour later than we were supposed to be. We say our hellos, and catch the train to the Louvre. We wait in a long line to get in, and then stroll around the museum until close to closing time. After that, we head for supper, and go to sleep.
A word of warning about the Louvre - some areas of it are like a maze. At one point, I started mumbling "ou est la fromage?" (where's the cheese?) because I felt like a mouse in a maze - I even asked one of the staff about it, and got a good laugh for my troubles ("je ne sais pas ou la fromage est! Bonne chance!").
After visiting an art museum in Brussels, and then the Louvre, we decided that we wouldn't be visiting any more art museums for the rest of our stay in Europe. I realize that a lot of people like them, but I was bored out of my mind and so was Olga. When my family decided to visit the Musee D'Orsay, we opted out.
Other places that we visited included the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, located on Montmartre hill, followed by a brief stop in front of the Moulin Rouge - meals there are ~170 Euro apiece, so we decided we didn't care that much about eating there. We also went to Notre Dame Cathedral, which is on an island in the middle of the Seine river called "Ile de la Cite" (City island). Highlights of the Notre Dame trip included seeing a fish helium balloon stuck to the ceiling and being greeted by a deformed fellow at the exit who must've been doing his best Quasimodo impression while asking for change. The cathedral itself is quite large, but as with most famous things the image and the story are larger than the place itself - if you buy into the legend surrounding a site, you're almost certain to be disappointed when you visit it.
That night, we also visited the Eiffel Tower - if you're in Paris, and you're a tourist, you basically have to do the Eiffel Tower as a rite of passage. We spent at least 75-80% of our time at the Eiffel Tower in lines of one sort or another, all of them for elevators to get up and down - I found it quite interesting though, and got a lot of good pictures while we were there. There are thousands of strobe lights spread all over the superstructure of the Eiffel Tower, and at night they go off at regular intervals, sparkling randomly in an attempt to make the tower look like a diamond - I found it pretty successful. I attempted to book us some reservations at a restaurant on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower about a week before we went to Europe, but I had no luck - the person laughed when I asked if there was space for any of the days we were in Paris. As well, for those of you keeping track of the date, we visited the Eiffel Tower on May 1st (also known as May Day), which is a major French holiday that makes all the hotels full and all the tourist attractions busy.
The next day, we went to the Palace of Versailles. We spent the whole day there, and wandered around the palace and around the gardens a lot. My main reason for wanting to go there was to see the Hall of Mirrors - me being a history person, I wanted to see where the treaty ending World War I was signed. It was somewhere between a history museum and an art museum - I got a lot of good pictures, but a lot of time was spent staring at paintings, vases, busts and tapestries. The palace grounds are huge - there are giant parks, giant baths, giant fountains, and giant buildings.
We headed back to Paris, and had supper with my family before going to sleep. We met up again the next morning, had breakfast, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways - my family south to Italy, us north to the English Channel. We took a very modern and clean subway from Gare de Lyon to Gare St. Lazare, and caught a train north to Caen. I was very glad that I took some Gravol for this trip, because the 2 hour train trip to Caen was very rickety and shaky and I would have surely thrown up without Gravol, since I came very close to throwing up after taking it!
Our arrival at Caen signalled the beginning of the portion of the trip where we visited Canadian war-related sites. We stepped off the train in Caen...
...and I'll see you in the next chapter.
Interesting factoid of the day: Unlike most cities (major or minor), Paris does not have a central hub train station. It has 6 stations spread around the outskirts of the city: Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, Gare de Lyon, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare Montparnasse, and Gare St. Lazare. If you need to pass through Paris on your way somewhere else, chances are you'll need to take the Paris Metro from your arrival station to your departure station.
posted by Ryan Slobojan at 07:14
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