Roseyland

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Are you excited? Today is the day we take the train through the chunnel to Paris. I have been fascinated with the chunnel since high school when I saw a documentary about its construction. This train ride was one of the things I was looking forward to most on this trip. Turns out, it was a little anti-climatic, but still cool. Here is St. Pancras station in London, where you catch the Eurostar. A nice thing about this station is that getting through security is pretty quick. We showed up an hour before our train, but I think we would have been fine with 30 minutes. Another nice thing about this station is that you can buy Paris Museum cards and Metro tickets here. That way you are ready to go when you arrive in Paris. My aunt and I each bought a 4-day museum card and 10 individual Metro tickets. This turned out to be almost perfect. The museum card gets you free admission to most of the museums and attractions in London (except the Eiffel Tower). It’s debatable whether or not the museum card is worth it money wise. It probably won’t save you that much, unless you are a very aggressive sightseer. The museum card is very convenient though, because you don’t have to stand in line to buy tickets. You do still have to stand in the security lines unfortuanatly. All in all, I would buy the museum card again, but buy it in Paris (or London). There are services that will send you the card in the US or have it waiting for you in your hotel, but they charge surcharge that sort of negates the value of the museum card (in my opinion). Also, I wouldn’t bother with the unlimited use metro pass. It is unlikely that you will ride the metro enough for it to be worth it. Okay, enough advice, let’s get on the train.

This is a picture of the seats on the train across from us. One nice thing about train travel is that first class is just a little more money, so I went for first class tickets. It’s only a slightly large seat, but they serve you a meal which was much better than airplane food. I also liked that they had so many different seating arrangements. Four people could sit around a common table, and two people can sit side by side, or facing each other across a table.

Two and half hours later, we were in Paris. I didn’t even notice when we went through the chunnel. I thought it was just some random tunnel, and then we came out and my cell phone told me I was in France. Below is a picture of the Eurostar train in the Gare du Nord in Paris. I was kind of shocked that when we got off the train we didn’t have to go through customs or anything, we just walked right into Paris. I have to take a quick moment to say that the train travel experience was so much better than the air travel experience. You can show up 30 minutes before your train departs, your luggage stays with you, there is more room to walk around on the train, the food is better, and when you arrive you just get off the train and go (no waiting for luggage). I would love to be able to take a train like this to Chicago or Memphis. Okay, I’m done. Oh wait, one more thing. In Europe at the airports and train stations, you get all these random people coming up to you asking you if you need a taxi. Do not take a taxi from these people, only take taxis from the official taxi stand areas.

Right across the street from our hotel we had a McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I knew McDonald’s was everywhere, but I was a little surprised to see a KFC.

We had lunch at McDonald’s, because I get a strange kick out of eating at a foreign McDonald’s. The picture below is from inside the McDonald’s, you can click on it for a larger version. I love the way the menu says “Notre menu Golden Best Of”, Notre means our, so I guess they are saying “Our menu Golden Best Of”. It’s like english words with French grammar. In case you are wondering, I had the Royal with Cheese.

After lunch, we took the Metro to Montmartre and headed to Sacre Coeur (pronounced Sack-ra Ker, I think) which is a church at the highest point in Paris. These are the steps we hand to climb to reach Sacre Coeur with the city of Paris in the background. This was the first thing I really saw in Paris, and it was a bit of a culture shock. Paris is filled with gypsies and immigrants. Many of these immigrants can’t work legally, so they try to sell things to tourist. Some of them can be very pushy. At the bottom of these steps, one guy even poked me in the chest when I ignored him. It’s a good thing I don’t have anger management issues, or I probably would have been in a brawl with an illegal immigrant within my first hours of being in Paris. Now wouldn’t that be a great story. Don’t let that scare you away though, this was the only semi-bad experience I had with these people.

This is the Basilica Sacre Coeur at the top of the steps. I’ve heard that this is one church in Paris where they strongly enforce the no pictures inside rule, so I didn’t risk it. Notice the guy singing on the steps. This was a very cool environment. The guy was singing Video Killed the Radio Star and the crowd was singing along in about 10 different accents. Also, the pushy immigrants did not hang out near the church, so that was nice too. You can see a YouTube video of a guy singing on the steps here.

Here is another view of the crowd at Sacre Coeur with Paris in the background.

This is the Eiffel Tower in the distance as seen from Sacre Coeur.

This is the Moulin Rouge, it’s not far from Sacre Coeur, so I had to take a picture on our way back to the metro. I actually would have liked to see a show here, just because it is *the* Moulin Rouge, but I was with my aunt, so um, no.

Next we took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. I think the Arc was commissioned by Napoleon, and it is a tribute to France’s war veterans. Underneath it is France’s Tomb of the Unknown Solider. The Arc is also much bigger than it looks in this picture, and you can climb to the top.

These are the steps to the top of the Arc. There are 284 of them. According to Wikipedia, you can also take an elevator. Huh, that would have been nice to know.

This is a view of Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. In the distance, you can see Sacre Coeur, which is where we just were.

This is the Champs-Elysees, which is pronounced Shaams-el-ee-saay. If you say champs elsie, people will hate you. Anyways, the Champs-Elysees is one of the most famous streets in the world that I didn’t know existed until I went to Paris. There were lots of shops and restaurants with outdoor seating on this street. The shops I saw included Louis Vuitton, Cartier, a Disney Store, and a Virgin Megastore. We went inside the Virgin Megastore, and the Michael Jackson memorial was playing on all the TVs. Michael’s daughter Paris was speaking, which confused the hell out of me because the TV kept saying that Paris was speaking, but I was in Paris, and that made no sense. Eventually I figured it out.

Here is the Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. It’s tall.

Here is the viewing platform on top of the Arc. It’s weird, because from below you can’t even tell that there are people on the Arc, but there are actually a lot of people on the Arc.

The is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider under the Arc de Triomphe with the Champs-Elysees in the background.

As much as you plan and plan and plan, no trip goes perfectly. I got a lot of good advice from @Susanisk who lived in paris for like 6 months or something. One of her pieces of advice that I was most looking forward to taking was eating at Le Relais de Venise, which serves steak and frites (french fries) with a sauce that is supposed to be to die for. Here is a picture. After the Arc de Triomphe, we walked all the way to Porte Maillot to eat at Le Relais de Venise. When we got there, there was a sign on the door saying that they were closed the entire month of July for remodeling. Ironically, they have a London location, but I wanted to eat at the original in Paris. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back to Paris someday. Do you want to come with me? I’ll buy dinner. Hell, I’ll even spring for wine.

After the dinner fail, we walked back to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysees to Avenue Montaigne. Avenue Montaigne is a street filled with very fancy and expensive stores of designers like Dior, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, and Jimmy Choo. In other words, I could care less about Avenue Montaigne. Here is a picture of Dior.

The Eiffel Tower has a way of popping up everywhere in Paris. Here it is as seen from the end of Avenue Montaigne.

This is the Flame of Liberty. It was given to France by the International Herald Tribune (a english language international newspaper published in Paris) as a symbol of French-American friendship. Thank you Wikipedia. It is also located over the Pont de l’Alma tunnel which is the site of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash. Many people think the Flame of Liberty is a memorial to Princess Di, but it’s not.

At this point, it started to rain so we decided to head back towards our hotel and look for dinner. We ended up eating at Pizza Pino. Pizza in Paris seemed a little odd, but my goat cheese and artichoke heart pizza was delicious. After dinner, we walked by a protest. These are North Africans protesting for the right to work legally in France, or something like that.

This ends another long day. Tomorrow we take a boat trip on the Seine, visit the Louvre, and walk under the Eiffel tower. You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.