If someone asks me how PARIS got its name I would probably say its derived from the English Word PARADISE!!! and this is just seeing it in the day, for a day (if you get what I mean, reminded of CAT?? :P)
A day trip to Paris for always planned and chucked out because of some reason or the other but today it finally happened and Boy AM I HAPPY!!
Leaving early today morning at 6 am was not easy especially after having worked on a case solution most of last night. But its been worth the effort and the wait!
We began our day with the Catherdral of Notre Dame and it was a nice way to start off visitng Paris... mainly because the place has a calm which was very nice, reminded me of the beautfiul churches in Italy.
NExt we headed to the Louvre, now the Da Vinci Code and Dan Brown were responsible for bringing this very famous and hugely popular museum into common knowledge globally and let me tell you its ............. oh chuck it, I aint trying - SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT!!!
IT houses amongst other things the MONA LISA and boy is it Tiny! hehehehe,,,, yes it is really really smaller than what I expected it to be. Beautiful no doubt :-) and the smile was really ..... what can i say.. Nice ;-)
From the Louvre we headed to the Champs Elysees and this is one of the most important streets in Paris, reasons are many, mainly commercial and political cause all major brands have huge stores here and political cause the parades and other ceremonies happen here often.
I wouldnt say it was something unique probably because today, a standard mall would house almost the same brand width and depth. Some years ago I would have liked it more..... the famous Parisian cabarets, moulin rouge and Lido both happen here and are awfully costly at 100 Euros per head .....
The Arc de Triopmh is where the Avenue des Champs Elysees comes to an end! Its a memorial with its very own version of the Amar Jyoti commemorating the unknown World War I soldier who is buried beneath it.
Next on the itinery was The Eiffel Tower, probably the most popular symbol of Paris. Surely one of the first things you recall when you think of Paris. The Eiffel tower, to say the least was BREATHTAKING!!
The reason is not only its beauty but also the fact that we chose the cheaper tickets up which only allowed us staircase use... huge number of stairs over 500 for each level and then we reached level 2. At level 2 chaos reigned supreme and the lift to the 3 level was just 2 mins :-)
The views from the top can only be expressed in pictures and for that you must visit my web gallery on http://picasaweb.google.com/pranav10/PARAdISE
Another wonderful thing was the timing we visited the tower, on our way up it was daylight and we could experience it in natural light and when we made our way down it was lit up those giving us many more photo Ops :D and great views...
However to point out 2 things,
1) At many places they had these signs that said DO NOT LEAVE ANY OBJECTS ON THE EIFFEL TOWER!... and i wondered whether it was just bad translation or had people in the past really left back "objects" on the visit to the tower! if yes, then i wanna see a list of the most bizzare and funny ones... sure to be a good laugh....
2) On the top level they have important cities of the world charted in the direction they are in from the tower along with the distance. Now Delhi and Mumbai were most likely going to be there but I was pleasantly surprised and happy when I also saw Madras, Bangalore and Hyderabad which takes the toll to 5 Indian cities probably second to no other country there, which had a maximum of 3 cities (USA)
Also I personally suggest, one spend a little extra time and walk as much as possible in Paris as it sure is beautiful and the people there are really very helpful.
Thus came to an end a great trip to Paris....right now back in Lyon and cant wait to crash... have had a long day and a longer week awaits us ahead....
Au revoir till then...
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