Europe #1 - Paris

I was blown away by Paris the last time I visited it over 20+ years back. I was a bachelor with little forex, we stayed overnight at the (free) Youth Hostel, you get the idea… This time though, the trip to Paris would be on vacation, with family, it would be my 12 yo daughter’s first trip out of Asia, and I wasn’t on a tight budget. So I was hopeful that while the experience wouldn’t be novel, it would be better on many fronts.

 

The Europe trip started off badly. We’d planned to fly via Dubai, but with that city facing massive rains and floods, flights to/from Dubai were getting cancelled. So we switched airlines to Lufthansa. Both my wife and I had bad memories of Lufthansa – the cabin crew always felt arrogant. Not anymore. They were very courteous. Unfortunately, with the Iran-Israel flareup, our flight took a longer route avoiding those places, thus got delayed and we missed our connecting flight to Paris. Lufthansa had rebooked us on the next flight automatically – but we now arrived in Paris much later than planned.

 

I was pleasantly surprised that so many Parisians were able (and willing) to talk in English. Nowadays, you can’t just walk up to the popular tourist spots and get in by standing in queue; everything is already booked. So you should book tickets in advance. (True for all European cities, not just Paris). And the city imposes a tax on tourists at hotels – many European cities feel the tourist count is out of control! The weather was much colder than expected, and it was also windy. That dampened the trip to (and up) the Eiffel Tower – remember, there was no option of trying the next day (no tickets). The view from the top was spectacular since the Eiffel Tower is the only tall structure in Paris, and so the view from the top is unobstructed. We got down just before 10 o’clock, in time to see the hourly twinkling lights show of the Eiffel Tower. Great as advertised.

 

I was amused that there were signs everywhere, even inside the Eiffel Tower, warning of pickpockets. Many of my friends and colleagues had warned me of pickpockets on the Paris metro. I had been told of multiple incidents where they’d throw back the bag/wallet into the metro for you just as the doors closed – too late for you to do anything about it, while ensuring that they hadn’t stolen your passport or credit cards. Those are major crimes, so in Paris, they only steal your cash. You can guess what followed… I got my wallet nicked on the Paris metro, and didn’t even realize it until I saw my wallet flying into the coach just as the doors closed. All that was missing from my wallet was the cash. Paris is the new Rome, when it comes to getting robbed.

 

The next day, we went to (and up) the Arc de Triomphe. After climbing the 300 steps to the top, we got to see the nice radial view of the roads. Then we went to the Place de la Concorde – the scene there was ruined by all the construction work for the upcoming Paris Olympics. Next, we walked down the expensive Champs Elysees. Times have changed – when we entered any of the shops even on that street, we were treated as potential buyers, not as Indians-who-probably-won’t-buy-anything. I realized there are a lot of Indian tourists these days with the have-money-will-spend attitude. In one of the makeup shops on Champs Elysees, the salesgirl spent time touching up our daughter’s face – there was a good chance we’d buy some products, in her assessment (We did). We also ate out at a couple of the famed French cafes and the food was great.

 

We visited the Pantheon (quite far from the tourist spots). The structure looks great, but inside, it’s just a museum with the bodies of many French greats. We made the obligatory visit to the Louvre, but not with the intent of visiting it (my daughter doesn’t care for museums, and my wife and I had been inside decades back. We’d already seen and been highly unimpressed by the Mona Lisa). We took pics of the famous glass pyramid outside; and of the two pyramids that almost touch each other – the setup made famous by the da Vinci Code.

 

We had a mini-adventure when we took the bus to the railway station. Buses only accept cash; and the driver told us we could pay him at the station (last stop anyway) by withdrawing cash from the ATM. We left the suitcases with my daughter on the street and went looking for the ATM. The cards wouldn’t work. Frantically, we looked for other ATM’s before going into the station – no luck, the cards wouldn’t work there either. (I realized later the cards in my wallet weren’t enabled for cash withdrawal abroad). We even tried asking one of the shop guys to bill us extra and return cash – of course, he didn’t. It then hit us how much time had passed, and we ran back to the bus. The bus had left (how long could the poor guy wait?) but more importantly, our daughter hadn’t panicked and done something stupid like come looking for us. Close shave.

 

Since it’s cheaper to fly out from the same city as the one you flew into, we had a day in Paris on our way back. That day, fortunately, was warmer and we spent a long time at Trocadero enjoying the view of the Eiffel Tower. We considered visiting the Versailles Palace, but it was closed that day. Instead, we went on a cruise down the Seine – the guide was excellent and she told a lot of interesting things about the various bridges we passed under, as well as the famous monuments on the banks, including the fire-damaged Les Invalides.

 

We also killed time at the Galeries Lafayette, one of the oldest and most expensive malls in Paris. The desserts focussed eatery there was excellent. The mall has an excellent roof top view of the Opera; and it has a beautiful, gigantic stained-glass dome, very popular for taking pics.

 

My experience of Paris this time is best summed up by Heraclitus:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”