¡Hola todos! I just got back from my Semana Santa adventure yesterday! We took 1 car, 1 train, 3 metro rides, ~6 buses, and 5 airplanes to do it, but it was worth it. Even though I really hate flying haha.
Anyways, I met Mary at the bus station on Sunday and we took the airport bus to the Oviedo airport, only 30-40 minutes away. We had a really long wait in the airport because we were paranoid about being able to get the bus there, so we played some cards and sat for a really long time. Finally, we boarded our first plane, a connection to Barcelona. I don't remember how long the flight was, but only one of our five flights was longer than an hour or so. When we landed we had a short layover and then we were on our way to París!!
From the Paris airport we had to take the bus to the city and then the metro to our hotel. It took us a while to figure out the bus, and we could only pay with coins...so we had to get change inside the closing airport. But we managed. Once on the bus, we got off at the wrong stop (mostly because Mary was like, "I think this is it!!" so we panicked and got off. Luckily, we found a map on the street and we were only one stop away, so we walked the half-kilometer to our stop, which was a metro station. We figured out how to do the metro, but when we got off we didn't know where our street would be and it wasn't marked on any map. Unfortunately, the information booth was empty, so we couldn't ask. After a couple of minutes a woman came up behind us and started talking to us in French about the information booth and when we gave her blank looks she was like, "Oh, English?" and I said, "Yes, o español". So she spoke to us in Spanish and helped us ask people around for our street in French and then showed it to us. It was so awesome. First interaction with a French person in France: f(rench)tastic.
Our hotel room was small, but relatively clean. We decided not to stay in a hostel in Paris since they were so far away and not actually that much less expensive for a double room. By the time we got to the hotel it was around 11pm, so we went to bed to prepare for our reeeeally busy day on Monday. Because of our flight-changes and the way the flights worked out, we only had one day to see Paris.
Challenge excepted.
Looking at my guide book I saw that it would be a long walk, but we could go from the Eiffel Tower in the morning, to the Arco de Triunfo, walk down the famous boulevard to the Louvre, and to the Notre-Dame cathedral and geographically it would make sense. I knew it would be a long walk...but I didn't think it would be ~6 miles of walking...Keep in mind that we walked to and from the Eiffel tower a few times and did a bunch of other walking as well, this is just the main route:
 |
| What we walked (in one day) in Paris |
Anyways, now that I've bragged a bit about the exercise I got and explained how we got TO Paris, here comes the good stuff:
Our first mission was to climb the Eiffel Tower. It was the only thing we actually went into in Paris. We stood in the really long line, not realizing that the stairs line was separate and we could have waited less time and walked up instead. But it probably would have evened out, since taking the elevator is a lot faster. We went up to the very tipy-top, 900 feet in the air. It was a closed-in area, but the ride up was terrifying. Pictures on that level were through very dirty glass, so they didn't come out so great. We rode the elevator back down to the second level, which was open-air, so we were able to take some awesome photos:
 |
| Mary and I in front of the Eiffel Tower :) |
 |
| A view from the very top (note the Eiffel Tower's shadow) |
 |
| Similar photo from the lower level |
Pictures of the Parisian skyline are not that thrilling, there was haze (smog?) that disrupted viewing too far away, and there are not too many interesting buildings that make up the skyline (other than the Eiffel Tower, of course).
From the Eiffel tower we walked up to the Arco de Triunfo, not too far away, maybe 20-30 minutes or so, not counting photo-ops or stopping for food. The arch is in the middle of a HUGE round-about, we had to walk through a tunnel under the traffic to get to the middle. It was pretty impressive to see, and I think you could have gone up to the top of it, but we didn't, we already went up to the top of something much higher!
 |
| The best viewing point of the Tower |
 |
| Arco de Triunfo from the other side of the traffic |
 |
| It was so hard to pick a picture of the arch, since in no picture was I able to get the whole thing... |
After we crossed back through the tunnel to the street, we walked the loooooong boulevard Champs-Elysees to the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre. The way we heard about this road, it seemed like Las Ramblas in Barcelona, but it was mostly just shopping and some other stuff, not too exciting. We did see some cool buildings, like the Pantheon, and some nice little parks, though. I understand why people love Paris in Spring, we saw so many blooming trees, flowers, and green trees - it was gorgeous.
 |
| The endless boulevard (Champs-Elysees) |
 |
| Paris in Springtime :) |
We started to get really tired along this walk, so we took a few breaks on benches and chairs set out specifically for people in our situation haha. We eventually made it to the gardens in front of the Louvre and to the Louvre itself. We didn't go in because we didn't have the time, energy, or motivation to spend hours looking at art. But we took a few pictures outside of the museum:
 |
| The Louvre :) |
 |
| An arch outside of the Louvre |
From the Louvre it wasn't too long of a walk to the Notre-Dame cathedral, which is on an island in the middle of the Seine river. It was really gorgeous on the little island, there were even parts of it that no tourists had infested and were actually quiet and nice. The cathedral was very impressive, though, again, we didn't go in. But, honestly, I've gone into SO MANY cathedrals in Europe...I don't really feel like I missed anything. We walked all the way around the cathedral, went to get some food (Subways because we can't afford decent food) and had a picnic-style early dinner outside of the cathedral while watching adorable children playing on a little playground.
 |
| On the way to the Louvre, the Siene |
 |
| Love Locks :) |
 |
| Notre-Dame |
 |
| Notre-Dame :) |
We were so tired from the day that we only just barely managed to find a metro station to take the metro back to the hotel. We regrouped for about 20 minutes, and then went out for a glass of French wine and to see the Eiffel Tower at night :)
 |
| Mary with our wines :) |
 |
| :) |
 |
| Light show - the white lights flashed for about 5 minutes, unable to be captured by photo |
 |
| Moon :) |
Again, we went to bed decently early to get up early the next day. We had breakfast at the hotel on Tuesday because it was just too expensive to eat in Paris, and even though the breakfast in the hotel was €7, that was better than anywhere else we could have gone. We grabbed some lunch to go and went to sit in front of the Eiffel Tower for an hour before we took the metro back to the airport. We got slightly ripped off by the metro because the one stop from the main metro line to the airport costed €8.40!!! The bus would have costed €7, so it was only a difference of €1.40, but still. So ridiculous. And when we got to the airport there was a HUGE line of people and tons of people waiting around - it was crazy. And every flight was either delayed or cancelled. We didn't know what was going on at first, but then we realized that there was a French air strike - the Aircraft Traffic Control were on strike. Of course. Fortunately, we were very lucky and our flight wasn't cancelled, and our delay was only an hour (and we had no connecting flight to catch). Who would have thought, the two days out of my entire life that I was in a French airport there would be a strike? Just goes to show that they go on strike about SOMETHING every other day in France.
Anyways, we eventually got on our 2-hour flight to Lisbon, which (other than terrifying me as usual) was uneventful. Other than the fact that we had the same exact flight crew as our Barcelona-Paris flight. What are the chances?
Blog entry for Lisbon/Portugal coming soon! I hope you enjoyed hearing about and seeing París as much as I did. I definitely need to go back with more time (and more money) and see Paris at a slower, more thorough, pace.
(Now to go through 864 photos to find a number under 15-20 to put in this entry. Sigh.)
*Besos*
PS: I laughed, I cried: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VLcLH97eRw&feature=related
No comments:
Post a Comment