Paris Day 1

Hey everyone! We left early this morning for Paris, but didn’t get in until about 3:30 because of traffic in Paris. Apparently this weekend is a holiday weekend, so everyone was flocking into and out of Paris. Because of the traffic we missed our appointment to go to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. We got to the hotel we are staying at and dropped our bags off and hopped back on the bus for a quick tour of the city. Of course I forget my camera, and realize it as soon as the bus is taking off. But we went around the city for about an hour and saw some of the big highlights like the Arch of Triumph and the Eiffel Tower. The bus dropped us off at the river around 5:15pm for our 5:30pm boat tour. I didn’t enjoy the tour all that much because you couldn’t see all that much from down on the river, but I was really too busy planning how I was going to get my camera and tour the city. I decided I didn’t want to miss out on taking pictures in Paris (who would?) so I decided to go back on to the hotel to grab it. I left the groups (people had split into a few smaller groups) and headed back using the Metro which I’m fairly accustomed to now.

I grabbed my camera and McDonald’s for dinner and headed out to view Paris, “The City of Lights.” From my experience today, I would say Paris is one of my favorite European cities; I would put it second behind Florence. Paris is a gorgeous city with tons of sites to see. I started my solo adventure touring the town around 8:15pm and took the Metro out to a stop near Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral was real pretty and had similar appearance to the cathedral in Strasbourg (different brick and towers). I weaved my way across the city viewing the different attractions as I made my way toward the Eiffel Tower and Arch of Triumph. I hit up sites like the outside of the Louvre which is enormous. I learned that it used to be a palace for the French Monarchy, but it is breathtaking. The entrance to the Louvre is marked by a glass pyramid sitting outside in the courtyard of the palace which is pretty cool. I walked up and down the river seeing the different sites for most of the night. On my way to the Arch of Triumph I came across some really cool cars parked on one of the side streets. I saw three Aston Martin’s, a Mazeradi, a Lamborghini, a Jaguar, and a couple really nice Mercedes. I continued to see the Arch of Triumph and then headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We had been told that every hour (9-12pm) that the Eiffel Tower would “sparkle” for 5 minutes. I was right on time to catch the 11pm light show and got a really good view from the top of a hill and got some cool pictures as well as a video of the lights. Overall, it was a really good evening. I enjoyed spending some time alone and just walking (with Ipod in of course) the city. It was a really peaceful evening just being able to go at my own pace and head wherever I wanted without having to consult others. I effectively covered the entire city of Paris, minus a few attractions, in just about 4 hours. I guess I walk pretty fast J Update everyone again tomorrow!

Jonathan