The Beginning Of The Dream, Paris
Day I: The journey began with a Bang, The Eiffel Tower
Finally, the day had arrived. In a few hours, I would be boarding a flight towards my biggest dream. After 4 and a half hours, a Hindu non-veg meal and A movie (83) later, there we were, waiting for our next flight to Paris. In 5 and half hours, I could see my dream turned into reality. In few minutes we heard Bonjour to Paris! In another hour we completed the immigration, collected our luggage and left the airport in a cab towards our Airbnb in Paris. I felt immense happiness, the moment the immigration officer put a stamp on my passport. Trust me! I am not trying to over-exaggerate the situation here but those were the thoughts running through my head.
There were multiple options one could choose to reach Paris, the most affordable one was to take the metro which would cost around 13тВм. We were carrying 24 Days of luggage with us hence we took an UBER which was a bit expensive one though. In India, I would be very satisfied to see Maruti Swift as my cab. So, when I saw Mercedes as our Uber Cab, I became extreamly Happy! For such a cabs I wouldn't mind to pay extra bucks ЁЯШЙ On the way, I get to see the very famous Football stadium State-de-France where the previous World Champions would play all their home games.
Fortunately, We could be able to do early check-in (getting early check-In outside India especially, in Europe was nothing less than a miracle ЁЯШЬ). Despite a long flights, we werent tired because we were in Paris. In no time, We got ready and headed towards Luxembourg Garden. It was cloudy weather with the sun coming out at regular intervals followed by drizzles. We walked to the nearest metro station and bought a Metro Day-Pass worth 13тВм. It allowed us to travel unlimited times within Zone-I & Zone-II. ( Paris has 5 Zones and rates would vary based on the Zones you were travelling. But all the major sightseeings such as Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, Arc de Triomphe, Norte Dame Cathedral or Seine River Tour were in Zone 1. A single ticket would cost you 2.2тВм and would be valid for an hour ) After initial struggles, We understood the Game and there we were, Decoding the routes like a Parisians ЁЯШЙ
We reached Luxumburg Garden. Definitaly, it would be an amazing place but we wouldnтАЩt be knowing it because it was closed ЁЯШТ. It's been 3 hours since we left our hotel and we hadn't visited a single touristy destination. Despite that, we were extreamly happy. Mainly because of the Architecture and the Vibes of the Paris. It was truly one of the most beautiful Cities of Europe. Our itinerary in terms of going to touristy Destinations was very clear. We would never visit a place because Google told us. We would only visit a place if it would offer things of our likings. As we all knew what Naina told to Bunny in the YJHD movie "Bunny, рдЪрд╛рд╣реЗрдВ рдХрд┐рддрдиреА рдХреЛрд╢рд┐рд╢ рдХрд╛рд░реНрд▓реЛ, рд▓реЗрдХрд┐рди рд▓рд╛рдЗрдл рдореЗрдВ рдХреБрдЫ рдирд╛ рдХреБрдЫ рддреЛ рдЫреВрдЯреЗрдЧрд╛ рд╣реА, рддреЛ рдХреНрдпрд╛ рдирд╛ рдЬрд╣рд╛рдВ рд╣реИ рд╡рд╣реАрдВ рдХрд╛ рдордЬрд╛ рд▓рд┐рдпрд╛ рдЬрд╛рдП!"
The next and only Destination left for the day was The Eiffel Tower, which was considered as one of the most visited tourist destinations of the world. According to me, the best place to enjoy the view of Eiffel Tower was from Trocadero Square. If any of you would be visiting Paris, I would suggest you to go there, enjoy the view and Of course! Thank me later ЁЯШГ
The most of the metor lines across the Paris was underground except the Metro Line 6. We were in metro line 6 and reached to above the ground part. I heard the view from the metro was magical. but hearing was one thing and experiencing in real was another. The moment, I saw the Eiffel tower from the window of the metro while crossing the Siene river, I got amazed. I was uttering words like Wow! Incredible! Awesome! Insane! Crazy! withing a few seconds, I ran out of adjectives.. Apart from Trocadero square that was another place which would offer you an amazing view of Eiffel tower. If you won't believe, just look at these picture and let me know if I was over exaggerating.
We got down at the next metro station and moved towards Trocadero Square. After a few hundred meters we reached at the Square but there was no signs of the Eiffel tower for which we came all the way. Indeed! the Square looked really amazing but where was the Eiffel Tower? Just then towards my right behind one of the beautiful buildings (which was museum btw ЁЯШЙ ) I saw the Eiffel Tower. Wow! It was magical and love at first sight! I had seen the pictures of the Eiffel Towers from the Trocadero Sqaure on Google but watching it in person was something else, something beautiful. I was so amazed that for first few minutes I got confused. Now what? What should i do at such a beautiful desitination? Which pictures to take, Which videos to make and so on. I always wanted to take hyperlapse videos and Eiffel tower would be the best destination for that. There I was. Moving slowly towards Eiffel tower by holding the camera in timelapse mode. That's my first hyper-lapse video ( inspired by my Jiju who recently took a similar video at Austin ) Let me know How was it?
I know most of you might think it was lame to do the photo shoot at the most romantic Destination in the World but sometimes It's good to do Lame things especially, when you were with your BBF wifeeee. Yeah! We did some photoshoots at Eiffel Tower and I would suggest those visiting Eiffel with their Wife/GF to do it as these were the things that would stay with you rather than the $ you would have in your Bank Accounts ЁЯШЙ We spent something like 25тВм on Photoshoot. See the Result and let me know!
We have booked the Eiffel Tower tour with Viator (It's like GetYourGuide/Klook which organizes those group Tours ) at 8 PM. So we moved to the location near Eiffel Tower and met our Guide who btw looked exactly like my Cousin including the way of speaking Which was the reason I missed him a lot for the rest of the day until I called/messaged him. Our guide told some interesting facts about Eiffel Tower. Coincidentally, The day we had visited the Eiffel Tower which was 31st March was its Birthday. It was built exactly 134 years ago on the very same Day. Also, when It was built, it was the tallest building in the world with the height of 300 meters from the ground until the Americans who built Empire State Building which was around 320 Meters. Well, Parisian didn't like it and thought of building a taller building than that so they converted the Tower into a television tower by adding an antenna of 30 meters which made the Eiffel again the tallest building of the world with 330 Meters height. Again, Americans built a building to broke the record but by then Parisians had already made their peace with this record. Though France has passed a law by which no building in the France can be built taller than the Eiffel Tower.
It was very windy due to which entry to the Eiffel Tower summit was abandoned. I got disappointed because for me it was once in a life time opertunity to be a the top of the Eiffel Tower but due to the bad weather, I couldn't be able to be go to the summit. Though, the view from Level II had made some sort of amends. We could see major famous sights of Paris such as the Louvre, the seine river, Luxembourg Garden and Versailles Palace.
After spending an ample amount of time at the top, we got down and tried some street food with the million$ view of the Eiffel Tower. I loved Churros and Pork hotdogs. It was very late and we were damn tired. Hence, we decided to end our day and head back to our room.
Day II : Louvre & A Surprising end
When you go to Europe or similar costly destinations, bringing snacks would save a hell lot of money. Which was why we were carrying a lot of snacks with us. From that I made white sauce pasta for breakfast. Post breakfast, we headed towards our first attraction of the day, Aquarium De Paris. It was a huge aquarium with a variety of marine creatures of different shapes, sizes and colours. The best part of it was the Jelly Fish section, an incredibly huge orange Crab and Sharks in the main Aquarium.
Next on the list was the worldтАЩs largest Museum, Louvre. Museums werenтАЩt our cup of tea but If the museum contained the original Monalisa painting, which was considered as one of the best paintings then we had to visit it. I was amazed by the mesmerizing Louvre Pyramid. the first thing we inquired after entering the Museum was тАЭWhere can we find Monalisa Painting?тАЭ And we got an answer тАЬMonument No 711тАЭ. Where ever we were going, we could see the sign boards with directions towards Monument no 711. We visited all the monuments we found on the way to 711. Some of the memorable ones were the Crown of NepolianтАЩs 3rd wife and the original Crown of one of the FranceтАЩs King & Replica of Zeus Temple.
The Monalisa moment came, needless to say, the place was over crowded and not in terms of Europe standards but the Indian standards. I felt as if I was at one of the religious temples of India ЁЯШЬ. After waiting in Queue for some time, we got our Monalisa moment. The painting was so tiny yet beautiful. The unique thing about it was you remember that Hutch Dog (Vodaphone Puppy) with the tag line "Where ever you go we follow?" Similarly, monalisa followed me wherever I went ЁЯШЬ. When I moved towards my rights see looked at her left and when I moved to my left she looked at her right, Throughout I felt as if she was looking at me or i would say followed me. WasnтАЩt it amazing? We spent over 2 hours in the Museum and trust me! we could hardly be able to see 1% of the total content the Museum had to offer.
There was a saying as well as a fun fact about the Louvre: тАЬIf a lady would visit the museum on the day she got pregnant and hypotheitcally if she would spend 5 minutes per monuments, still she would deliver a baby before visiting the Museum completelyтАЭ
We heard great things about Norte Dame cathedral and went there from Louvre. A few months/years ago Norte Dame cathedral caught Fire and since then it was under maintenance. Still, there was a stage where people could sit and admire the view of the Norte Dame Cathederal. We were hungry as we didnтАЩt have anything post breakfast, hence we went to one restaurant and had some sandwiches, hotdogs & Pancakes.
After filling our stomachs, we moved towards the thing the Nepolean stole from the Roma or you could say copied from the Roman Hitory, The Arc-de-Triomphe! All these places were a few stops apart. We came out of the Metro station and there it was, Arc-de-Triomphe. To me, it felt like the India Gate! WasnтАЩt it looked like it? We didn't go in the middle as it was chargeable and ofcourse, we werent aware of much of their history ЁЯШГ
Time for the SurprisesтАж You guys remember, yesterday we couldnтАЩt able to make it to the Summit of the Eiffel Tower? Yeah, regarding that. we thought of trying our luck one more time. So we went to Eiffel tower and inquired if the way to Summit was open and tickets for it were available? It was Open!!! Wow! I couldnтАЩt able to control my emotions. I was extreamly excited and stood in Queue for the tickets. We reached to second Floor and ran towards the Summit LIFT. Finally, we were in the LIFT and in a few seconds we would be at the top of Eiffel Tower. What a view, Everything I looked since coming out of the lift was magical. I understood why the Parisians were proud of their architectural and why they hated all the tall buildings built aorund the Paris such as Montparnasse. As our guide said, Parisians hated Montparnasse Tower and compared it to the middle finger of Paris ЁЯШЬ.
Reagding tickets, I felt enough tickets were available and one shouldn't over pay to getYourGuide or Viator for advanced ticket bookings. As the other day, I paid almost 60тВм double than the actual price which was just 28 тВм.
Time for the activity: Seine River Cruise. Another activity we hadnтАЩt booked in advance. There were many operators with different options such as dinner cruises or Normal cruises. We bought a normal cruise worth 20тВм and I booked the one with Heineken beer which was around 24.5тВм. paying an extra 4.5тВм to have a Beer with that out-of-the-world view was indeed a Bargain of a deal. One could choose a Wine or a Champagne instead of the beer with few more additonal тВм. but those who know me they knew тАЬI loved Beers and would choose Beer over any drink ЁЯШЬтАЭ. Watching Eiffel Tower at night under the lights from the Cruise with Heineken was an experience I would never forget.
By the time, we got off at the boarding point, we were super hungry and we liked the food the other day so we went to the same place and order the same food. Who would want to go to an expensive restaurant when you could have dinner with Eiffel Tower in the background ЁЯШЙ
Day III: A Day dedicated to the 10 years Old Me, Disneyland Paris
When I was a child, I had seen Disney Castle on Television and from that moment, I decided that someday I would be visiting It. Fast Forward to 25 Years and there I was, standing in front of the magical Disney Castle. I got nostalgia. Everything felt dreamy. They had multiple rides/activities themed around Disney movies/Characters such as Pirates of the Caribbean Zone, Indiana Jones, Aladdin, Star Wars which had a Roller coaster probably the best ride of Disneyland and many more.
Our adventure got started from the Star Wars and in 5 hours with many unforgettable memories it got ended inside the Disney Castle. We had seen Micky Mouse, Chip N Dale, Princesses and many more characters while roaming. In terms of rides, I felt most of them were made for the Kids. Though, I loved Big Thunder Mountain: Le Train de la Mine ride. It was themed around the scary train journey in the dead mountains of Hollywood. There was another ride similar to the Roller Coaster which gave adrenaline rush. But in terms of the adventure Junkies, It was a below-average place.
We had completed most of the rides by 5 PM and then entered Disney Castle. As soon as I entered the Castle I felt as if It wasn't real but a dream. To me it felt like i was playing some sort of characters in some Disney movie/Cartoon. Everything was incredibly pretty. We skipped Micky House as Queue was more than an hour. It was time for the most fun activity of any Disney Land, The Magic Parade which started from the DisneyCastle and ended at the entrance of Disneyland. In the Parade we saw all the Disney characters such as Micky Mouse, Donald Duck, Peter Pan, Star Wars Cartoon Characters, Dragons and many more. Did I forget someone? Of course The Disney Princesses. The Parade ended with insanely beautiful princesses who were waving at the crowd. Wow! The whole 30 mins experience was unique, everyone was dancing to the beats of the Magic Parade and indeed this 30 mins Parade made 10-year-old kid in me extremely Happy!
They had parades every hour from 5 PM onwards so we waited for another Parade and around 6:30 PM we left Disneyland and moved towards our room.
Few important things about Disney Land
There were 2 Parks
1. Walt Disney Studio: mainly related to Disney shows and non-adventurous things.
2. Disneyland Park: where all the fun took place and I would suggest you visit that.
That concluded our visit to Paris but not without the exciting story of how we caught our first EU Rail Train the way Simran caught her train in the movie DDLJ.
Our Journey to the next two countries will be available here 👉 Surprisingly Incredible Brussels
