Paris Pranaya...

Paris, the City of Love, the City of Lights... and after my visit, I have no doubt why they call it that :). The city has so much to offer and if you are planning to explore the whole of Paris in one small trip, forget it, its not gonna happen. We went for a 4 days trip and could just get a small glimpse of the City.
We started on Thursday evening and took Eurostar from London to Paris. It was a pleasant 2 hr 20 min journey. The speciality of the train is it goes through English Channel Tunnel for 20 minutes or so. We stayed at a Hotel Called Louvre Forum at Rue du Buloi [pronouced as ruju-bulva]. The area was very close to Louvre Museum and its a pretty decent place to hang out. The rooms were pretty small, but we were fine with it, since our main agenda was mainly roaming around.

On Friday, we started with Musee Du Lourve. It was initially built as a Palace which later was turned into a Museum. If you do not plan what you intend to see in the museum, you'll definetely get lost! We spent around 4 hours, and could see only the much talked about paintings of Leonardo da vinci.

A small trivia: It took around 700 years to construct this historic monument :O. So, Hero & I were joking aroud it like this: if you go ask anyone in Paris what their father was doing, answer would be constructing Louvre, what about grand father, ditto, what about their grandfather, ditto would be the answer :) he he

Inside the Museum...

Some beautiful Paintings...

[The Museum entry fee was 8 Euros and audio guide was for 6 Euros. I'd recommend the audio guide, without which you'll not explore anything as all the boards and descriptions of paintings are in French :]

As you come out of the Louvre, you find a huge garden known as Tuileries Garden which was built in the memory of Tuileries Palace which was burnt in 19th Century.

The other end of the garden is Place de la Concorde. During french revolution, a guillotin was erected here and this place has witnessed many notable criminals being executed.As we moved ahead, we entered a retail heaven called Avenue des Champs-Elysees. Its known in France as the most beautiful avenue in the world. The whole street is covered with Chestnut trees on both the sides and all the big brands of clothing, bags and shoes, which makes it look very beautiful :D :D. Whoever said money cant buy happiness... sigh!

The other end of Champs Elysees is Arc de Triumph, to honor the soldiers who fought for France. We can take tickets for the elevator and go up for a better view of the city, but since there was a long queue, we did not climb up. Underneath there is a tomb of an unknown soldier from world war I. There is also an eternal flame lit in the memory of the dead who were never identified in the World wars.

Day two was at fantasy world, The Disney land. Since both of us were very keen on taking all the rides, we took fast passes and could go to only 4 rides. [Pirates of Carribean , Rock n roller coaster avec Aerosmith, Big Thunder Mountain and Finding Nemo]. We also loved a theatre show called cinemagique which was a combination of live performance synchronized to different movie scenes stiched together. Its a good watch if you want to take a break from the rides and relax. Again, one day is just not enough for this magic land! Day three: We started with Sacre Du coeur [a Roman Catholic basilica dedicated to sacred heart of Jesus]. Its a very beautiful church atop a hill (Montmarte). The architecutre will leave you stunned, but one thing I did not like was there is neither information written in English, nor do they give audio guides. So, we just ended up seeing a beautiful building without knowing anything about it.

Around this temple is artist street where you find so many people writing caricatures. The area around this Church is very nice to look around.

After that, we took a train and headed towards Notre Dame de Paris [meaning, Our lady of Paris]. It is a stunning gothic architecture marvel! They took around 3 centuries to Construct this Church. It was finally completed in 1320. We took audio guides and it proved really informative. There is a small Museum inside which has a nail and a small peice of the Cross which was used to crucifixion of Jesus. Also, this church holds the official chair of Archbishop of Paris.

Inside of Notre Dame Church, is filled with Colorful Stained glass windows. remember Knowledge tree?

We had lunch at an Indian Restaurant (after enough craving) and then headed towards Pantheon. This was originally constructed as a church, but later was made into a Burial Place. inside the pantheon...
Day Four was the last day of our trip, so we wanted to take it slow. We checked out from our room and kept the luggage at the front desk since our flight was in the evening. Our last day was completely dedicated to The Eiffel Tower. It was constructed by Gustav Eiffel in 1889 for the 100th year celebration of French Revolution.

The tower has three levels; we took tickets for the 3rd level and descended down to the other 2 levels. The whole city can be seen from the top of the tower. And one more must-do thing in Paris is taking the Siene river cruise. We went on the 3rd day and had a glimpse of the City of Lights. We couldnt capture much of it in our Camera, but look at the Iron Lady in all her glory. Every 15 minutes the lighting changes and its a treat to watch :)

As all good things come to an end, so did our trip and we headed back home.

One word to describe Paris is Beautiful! (No wonder, i've used that word so many times in this post :D)

Paris Pranaya..... for sure you'll fall in love with it :)