The first non-weekend trip while staying in Amsterdam was to the City of Lights, Paris!! An early morning Thalys from Amsterdam Central dropped us in over 3 hours at the Gare du Nord station. Our Airbnb was in Rue Monte Cristo close to the Alexandre Dumas station. Fun fact: every street is Paris is named in honour of some person like Rue Abel, Rue Galilee, Boulevard Voltaire :). We had installed google translate as English is not very common in many European cities. We also brought with us a borrowed Lonely Planet. Their series is highly recommended for exploring any city.
Montmartre
The first day, we had decided to explore Montmartre, the city on a hill. This was very much in our list as the Eiffel tower as were big fans of Amelie. A metro from Alexandre Dumas station to Blanche, Montmartre brought us right outside famous Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge means a Red windmill characterized by the Red windmill on its roof. We had skipped buying tickets for the Moulin Rouge as it was too pricy and it kind of required a proper dressing. We were travelling light and on a budget! Montmartre, unlike today, used to be bohemian haven with many a great artist from Picasso to Van Gogh falling in love with the then pastoral beauty of this place. Currently, it very expensive and is home to only many a “bobo”. Montmatre is also home to the famous singer Dalida, and there is a square with a life sized bust to honour her. We then came to Sacré-Cœur, a roman catholic church that stood on the summit of the Montmartre hill. From the vantage point, it offered a panoromic view of the entire city of Montmartre. We decided to venture out in the streets of Montmatre in search of the place where Vincent Van Gogh had stayed. We finished a nice dinner at the Café des Deux Moulins (where Amelie worked!!) and called it a day well spent!
Château de Versailles
The next day, we took a train and a bus to the Château of Versailles. The palace of Versailles was the residence of king Louis XIV till the French Revolution. It is a UNESCO heritage site known for its lavish royal apartments, the Trianon and the Hall of Mirrors where the Treaty of Versailles was signed ending WWI.
Walking along the gardens(huge, about 800 acres),reading about the book “How to show the gardens of Versailles” written by Louis XIV himself, we came to the scenic Hameau de la Reine, the Queen’s Hamlet, built for Marie Antoinette. It portrayed a stark contrast to the lavish palace with little cottages, farmhouses and a small lake. Apparently the queen had intentionally requested a nature based retreat to escape the surrounding grandeur. The palace with its trianons and gardens takes an entire day to cover.
Notre-Dame & Louvre
The next day we decided to cover NotreDam located in the heart of Paris on an island(Île de la Cité) across the beautiful Seine. Notre-Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) is a gothic cathedral built for Mother Mary and is the most visited monument in Paris. Some very vivid sculptures includes the Last Judgement, Chimera, Gargoyles, Strix. Outside the cathedral, is a small plate called Point Zero from which all French Roads are measured.
The Louvre museum known for Mona Lisa and the Da Vinci Code is the worlds largest museum initially built as a royal palace till they moved to the Versailles. In the main courtyard stood the famous pyramid(from the Da Vinci Code movie) which is the main entrance to the museum. The crowd graudually lessened as we came to the Turkish tiles, pottery, sculptures and suddenly thickened on one particular floor. When we followed the crowd and pushed our way inside, we came face to face with none other than the Mona Lisa. It was a tiny painting compared to the other paintings but attracted the most crowd trying to take a selfie with her. We tried to, but couldnt get a nice picture despite multiple attempts. After lossing patience, we continued with other paintings. Some of the other marvellous works that we came across were The Raft of the Medusa(Le Radeau de la Méduse), The Four Seasons, Coronation of Napolean, Joan of Arc, St John the Baptist, the two sided painting of David and the Goliath. We closed another marvellous day with a nice dinner of french onion soup and salad.
Arc de triomphe & Eiffel Tower
On the final day of our trip, we set out to visit the Arc de Triomphe. This is one of the landmarks of Paris and was ordered by Napolean to celebrate his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz. Climbing to the top provides an panoromic view of the entire city and Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Louvre museum and the 12 avenues originating here(Place de l’Étoile) forming a star shape.
Walking from the Arc to Eiffel Tower we came across the Statue of George Washington and Statue of Athena(La danse triomphale) opposite the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to climb the Eiffel in the evening inorder to experience both the daylight and the night lights on the top. To kill sometime, we took a cruise that gave us a beautiful view of the landmarks from the Siene. After a long wait in the line, we climbed the Eiffel tower and once on top, we got to look at the entire city. Shortly the lights came out and it was a magical experience to be standing at the top of the most iconic moment in the world.
That brought us to the end of our 4 day trip to Paris. Gathering all photos and uploading it to the cloud, enjoying a nice dinner, we caught our return Thalys back to the next most beautiful city.