Euro Trip - Part 7

Day 11 :
Left Antwerp in the morning and drove to Paris , pausing on the way for a rest stop . Entered France and drove straight to Paris and to lunch which was the local meal .. chicken , mushrooms and rice . Drove straight from there to the Novotel Hotel Pretty big hotel and we were made to wait a while while the rooms were being prepared .. After goin up to the room , restin for a while and gettin ready , we came down for the city tour of Paris

With over 30 million foreign visitors per year, Paris is the most popular tourist destination in the world. The city hosts numerous iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame cathedral, the Champs-Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe, the Invalides along with world famous institutions such as the Louvre and popular parks like Disneyland Resort Paris.

We were first taken to meet our local guide outside the Louvre museum which we were to go to the followin day , and while waiting took photos of the famous glass pyramid




The local guide turned out to be a Punjabi , called Maninder Singh , who was a professor in one of the colleges there .. Very Knowledgeable man .. but very apt to stray from topic to topic .. Drove around the streets of Paris and he was explaining all the way , stopping whenever there were any interesting sights to allow us to disembark and take photographs .. Drove past the famous Notre Dame Cathedral

Dint go inside as buses are not allowed anywhere near there these days and it was too time consuming to park and walk .. Went past 2-3 kilometres of Old , Beautiful buildings in the centre of the city .. Went past the Golden bridge , Parliament , Jacques Chirac's house etc .. We stopped at a place which had the Grand palace to the left and the Invalides to the right for a photo shot



The next place we stopped at was a square where there was this obelisk , built by the Egpytians 2000 years back , which had been donated to the French some time back .. It was gold tipped as well .. Around this area is the famous elite hotel, The Ritz, where the winner of the Tour de France gets to stay after his win



Surrounding this place were statues of women depicting the states of France .. For example the lady representing Bordeaux was holding a basket of grapes cuz that region was famous for its wines .. After some more pics here we left this place and went to the Champs-Elysées, Saw tons of car showrooms on the way ... Peugot , Ferrari etc and then saw the Arc de Truimphe ... Circled this about 3 times and took pics ... There was a rehearsal of sorts going on there as navy men were preparing for their National day parade on July 14th




Passed the bridge where Diana had her accident after that , they have a bronze flame statue there to commemorate the tragic event and the pillar her car crashed against is still left unrepaired .. From there we went to a vantage point from where one gets a nice open view of the Eiffel Tower .. Saw lots of Africans illegally hawking Eiffel tower replicas here .. While we were there we even saw a cop run after , chase down and arrest one person guilty of that offence .. 5 mins after the cop had left tho , his compatriots were back and resuming their activities .. Took pics of the Eiffel tower from this viewin area after this incident





Saw a guy practisin his skateboard stunts there as well .. After this we left and went to the Eiffel tower itself , passing on the way the Paris Hilton ( The hotel , not the girl :P )

Had to go and wait in line @ the base of the Eiffel tower for some time .. Had some fries while standing in the queue ( i guess the "French " in French fries was rendered redundant there ) .. As i had said in an Earlier post , Europeans take their dogs everywhere from restaurants to shops .. One man was even standing in line with us to go up the tower with a dog in tow :o .. As i had also said in an earlier post , any open space will do as a venue to host a concert there and the huge park near the base of the Eiffel Tower was no exception ,as preparations were underway and speakers were being set up




The black thingys on either side of the lawn were in fact , speaker decks


Craned (Almost sprained ) my neck and took some pics of the Tower from the base up as well




The queue we were waiting in was the Group Queue , where all the tour groups with a size of above 20 people were supposed to wait .. There was this couple behind our group in the queue as well .. When we got to the security check , the guard told them " Sorry Sir , this is queue for groups only " , To which the man retorted , pointing at himself and the woman " One , Two .. Group ! " Needless to say he was refused admittance and had to go and join the general queue :))

We went upto the 2nd level on a 2 level elevator which could hold about 90 people .. From here we had to take a different elevator to reach the 3rd level and had to wait in queue for that as those elevators had a lower capacity .. While waiting in the queue , we managed to get some nice pictures of Paris from that height




After ascendin the next set of elevators we reached Level 3 , which was the highest one was allowed to go up the Eiffel Tower . It was quite a spectacular view of Paris,with the river cutting across it, from up there and we spent most of the time takin pics




Also , from that height we could see the 12 major roads meeting at the Arc de Truimphe and also the exceptionally busy roundabout in which the Arc lies.



At the place where we came back to , to board the elevators to take us down , there were many boards with distances to major cities the world over displayed on them .. They informed us that Chennai was 8047 km from there .. There were lights on the Eiffel tower as well , which we were told would light up every hour for 5 mins starting from 9 Pm .. We had to leave there earlier than that tho

Proceeded from here onto the cruise on the famous Seine river .. Near the dock we saw a statue , which was a smaller replica of the famous Statue of Liberty in New York .. On the boat ,which had been booked exclusively for our group they served dinner and unlimited wine .. They had also arranged for music to be played and turned one part of the boat into a dance floor .. The whole group was up and dancing pretty soon , especially after some wine had been downed

At 10 pm , we were again treated to a fantastic sight as the Eiffel Tower ( which was visible from the part of the river we were in at that time ) lit up and continued to sparkle and twinkle for 5 minutes





After a fun couple of hours ,the people going for the Lido show (a famous dance and music extravaganza ) went below and changed into formal clothes adhering to the shows dress code ..Thereafter we left the boat and got back onto the bus .. The people who had opted and paid for the Lido show were taken to the theater where it was gonna be held .. It was scheduled to start quite late , past midnight and after dropping off those people there , the rest of us were taken back to the hotel .. We dint particularly want to go for the show as we had seen similar one earlier in Thailand and dint think this was a big deal .. We wanted to walk around the Champs-Elysées , where the activity peaks only as the hours grows late and goes on until the early hours of the morning .. This was the place that the French public came out onto in huge numbers to celebrate the 1998 football Wc win and was shown prominently on TV .... But , Some people in our group were not upto it after a long day and wanted to rest , so the plan never came to fruition and we ended up retiring to the hotel .


Day 12 :

As it was quite late by the time the people from the show returned , we had a late morning start .. Asked the others about the show over breakfast .. Responses ranged from "fantastic" to " ok " .. First stop today morning was the Versailles Palace

The king of France at that time , Louis 14 was looking for a site where he could organize and completely control a government of France by absolute personal rule. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles, and over the following decades had it expanded into the largest palace in the world. Versailles is famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy which Louis XIV espoused.

We went there and met our local guides and proceeded to enter the palace .. The first impression upon seeing the palace was marvel at the level of opulence that must have existed .. Everywhere we looked we could see beautiful paintings , sculptures , decorated ceilings , Huge rooms indicating quite a lavish lifestyle that the kings must have enjoyed at the expense of the peasants




They paid the ultimate price for this luxury though .. When the revolution struck the king Louis 16 and his family were carted away to Paris and executed by guillotine

The guide took us from room to room explaining its purpose and what the paintings and other art in the room symbolized .. First we saw the chapel where there was a balcony from where the king could sit and look down at the commoners .. The next room was a nobleman's reception room , where the important guests of the king would be met





The next room was the ballroom , where there would be dancing .. The king was quite fond of hosting parties with food , drink and dance and would do so at least thrice a week ( instead of ruling his kingdom ) .. This room had a fireplace so huge that people could actually walk into it .. The next room had a sculpture of Louis 14 .. The sculpture ,on orders from the king , falsely portrayed him as slim and muscular, whereas in reality he was neither





The next room was the war room with a ceiling covered in gold coated sculptures and paintings where important discussions were held .. There was an official painting of the king and the queen as well .. In the queen's picture , there was a little dog present as well .. This was supposed to indicate that the queen was faithful to her husband .. The kings portrait on the other hand had no dog ;) .. The next room was the bedroom of the king , where his bed is still there



The bed was so short because in those days people did not sleep fully reclining , but rather sitting up .. This was so because it was believed that if u sleep lying down u may be in danger of death caused by swallowing ur own tongue .. The next room was the waiting room where people would wait to meet the king and tell him their problems .. The room beyond that was the Throne room where the king sat and conducted his daily affairs .. The original throne which was solid gold , was molten down for money long back and now there rests a replica in its place

After this we entered the famous Hall of Mirrors , aptly named as one side of the hall is covered wholly by mirrors and the other side has windows open to the dusk sunlight





In the evenin the light coming in would be reflected back by the mirrors creating a amazing optical phenomenon to the people present , as mirrors were not widely known in those days .. This room was also covered in chandeliers and paintings .. This room was basically used to impress visitors to the palace

From here we proceeded to the next wing , which was the queen's and ladies' quarters
The first room was the queen' bedroom which even had a secret door along the wall through which the king could enter at night .. This was followed by a ladies' waiting room , for the ladies who came to meet the queen .. The next room was covered with paintings of Napoleon , who grabbed power and declared himself akin to a god .. There is a famous painting there depicting the coronation of Napoleon .. This painting is unique cuz unlike other kings who got cornated by the Bishop or some holy authority , Napoleon coronated himslef and then crowned his queen himself



All of Napoleans sisters are also present in this painting , but one of them is dressed in pink and is clutching her belly , whereas all the others are in white .. This was done by the artist to depict his love for her and that she was pregnant with his child .. After this we passed the shop , a room containin sculptures of all kinds and went out onto the palace grounds

The grounds outside are Huge , over 800 acres and there is a beautiful garden just outside the palace with a fountain .. Beyond this lies the massive grand canal ..Even farther into the distance lie the dense woods of the King's hunting grounds.




After takin a few more pics of the palace from outside,





We left the gardens and went to look at the exotic plant garden and storage area from up on a balcony




From the balcony , we could see , beyond the exotic garden , a huge lake .. This lake is actually rectangular but they created an optical illusion to make it look square when seen from a distance .. After this we saw the Changing gardens .. These were so named because these lay just outside the Queen , Marie Antoniette's window and every night the gardeners would remove the pots containing the flowers and replace them with a different set , with different placement .. This was done so that when the queen woke up every morning and peered out the window, she would see a "new" garden .


We left the palace after this tour and went straight to lunch .. After lunch we had the visit to the Louvre museum

The Louvre Museum is the most visited and one of the oldest, largest, and most famous art galleries and museums in the world... It houses many treasures and its popularity soared when it was used as a central setting in the plot of the bestseller , The Da Vinci Code



We entered it right under the famous glass pyramid.. The museum is huge and to see all the exhibits on display would take decades .. We were given a map containing all the important and popular attractions and directions to get around the museum .. It is divided into 3 wings , each of which is further subdivided into various categories


The first thing we saw was the Winged victory of Samothrace , a marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory) .. This is thought to date from the period around 200 BC




We then passed a few corridors draped with beautiful painting on both sides to get to the most famous occupant of The louvre - The Mona Lisa .. This merits an entire wall to itself,even warranting a special protective glass covering .. It looks surprisingly small when seen first hand , maybe accentuated by the whole empty wall behind it .. As expected there was a huge throng of visitors swarming the painting , trying to get their picture taken with it




We went to the next floor and entered the sculptures section ... Saw various famous sculptures such as the Venus De Milo,




a sacrophogus of a married couple , a statue of Caesar , a gladiator .. Entered the Michalangelo room after that .. Here there were famous statues like one of Cupid and The Dying Slave .

We left this wing of the museum and proceeded to another wing , an excerise which in itself took 5 minutes ..After navigating our way to the Mesopotamian quarter we saw some old pottery , some metal sculptures and the famous pillar containing the Code of Hammurabi




This is one of the first written codes of law in recorded history .. It was even written in the common language of Babylon so that any literate person could read it .. It was the first proponent of the famous "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth philosophy"...The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also suggests that the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence

After looking around a bit more , we discovered that our alloted time was up and hastened back to join the group and got back onto the bus

The last place we visited that day was a place called Montmarte .. Montmartre is a hill 130 metres high,primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit




We went upto the top , looked around , went inside the church where they had some pretty impressive paintings .. Walked around the church , rather impressive view of the city of Paris from up on this hill as well .. Came down and saw people makin arrangements for a concert to be held here at the base as well ! Bought some french crepes from a surly old lady and ate them after coming down :D

Returned to the hotel after that , signalling the end of a long day and an even longer post :P