Finally, the Paris holiday

A couple of weeks ago, bek and I took a nice weekend trip to Paris. We left on a Friday and caught the Eurostar which was a lot of fun. Even though we were traveling between countries, it seemed really strange to get on the train at Waterloo station and get off in France. It was relatively easy to get on the train, not as much waiting as a plane and you just kept your luggage with you on the train, so no waiting for baggage claim.



After we found our hotel, which was 500 pounds a night but we managed to get it for 100 pounds a night, we decided to go to the French Open.

After Bec expertly saying "I would like to go Roland Garros" (yes thats the translation), some guy on the bus helped us to get off at the correct stop.All the tickets were sold for that nights play so we headed off to the Eiffel tower.


I had read somewhere that if you go at night, there is no one there and the queues for the lift as quite small. How wrong we were. Not only did we have to queue on the way up, but we left when it was closing so we had to queue all the way down.

Last time I was at the tower I only made it to the second level, which is about 2/5ths of the way up. This time however I went up to the top.

It was great being up there at night, we really had an amazing view seeing paris at night.

I experienced quite a lot of vertigo on the second level and the top level as I could feel the tower moving so much.

We ended up getting home after midnight and after our 5am start, we were quite stuffed.

We were up again early on day 2 and headed to Roland Garros to try and buy tickets for the French open. After Bec expertly saying "I would like to go Roland Garros" (yes thats the translation), some guy on the bus helped usWe caught the tube this time and managed to get there and line up. The lining up however was a shambles and lots of people were pushing in and talking in french to us (very bad for queuing). We managed to get about 50 tickets from the booth and they sold out. The next days play was the boys and girls so we just laughed, were glad we nearly got to the front of the queue and headed off into central Paris.

After we wasted 2 hours going to Marchee, which is basically a massive trash and treasure where people were selling all sorts of crap like a whole pile of single shoes and broken videos, we decided to hit the Champs Elysee so we could do some shopping.

I have to say that I was really excited about going to the Champs Elysee however when I looked at all the shops there, they were the same as the ones in Cambridge or London. All big name corporate brands, no specifically Paris styles. It really felt like we could have been in London (although it was sunny) with all the corporate shops. I think with globalisation occuring, and the whole corporate feel, there was some authenticity missing. We were in a tourist area however.





Look, bloody Quiksilver in Paris! Must be for all those waves!!












We reached the end of the Champs Elysee and had a look at the Arch De Triumph. It hard to explain how truly massive the arch is, without seeing it. The side was covered in scaffold, which looked quite funny, but it still is a massive monument. I managed to hide it behind bec in the photo.

We were pretty tired at that time so we headed back to our hotel room to recharge and watch the French Open on TV.



Day 3 was time for some art and authenticity. The Louvre and Musee D orsay and these were awesome. Not only did I get to see a lot of famous art, but also pieces I have seen in books since I was young.

The louvre is amazing. I never realised that Napoleon lived there, and his apartments are like nothing you have ever seen. The photos do not do the place justice.










I'll continue this later...