Following the Chippenham travel, together with my girlfriend on a suny January Saturday in a national holiday week, we just got into a travel agent and bought tickets to Paris. On the same night we have arrived in Paris CDG Airport, and by asking the lady on the information desk we got into a bus to central Paris.
While I do not remember exactly where we got off the bus, Paris is so compact compared to "mega" cities like London and Istanbul, we somehow ended in deciding between hotels found in the Rue de l'Arcade. I have always heard and I continue to hear that French refuse to speak english. In our experience this was a total lie. Every single person we tried to speak in Paris were trying to help us, many of them were very good english speakers, the security people working in the underground (metro, subway) bus drivers, people on the information desk were all very nice.
The first night we stayed in Tim Hotel, it was a room looking into the central space in the building, and was somehow depressing. In the 2. and 3. nights we stayed in a room looking to Gare Saint Lazare and this shiny beatiful hotel (picture on the left).
The Hotel had only 2 stars but we vere very satisfied with our room for only 65 euros per night for 2 persons.. On the 4th. day we are told that the hotel was full for next days, and we had to leave. We have loaded our backpacks and started walking around Paris looking for a hotel. On that day we have travelled 1/2 of central Paris by walking, visited three Gares (train stations) and wew hired another room in a 3 star hotel Rue de l'Arcade. The hotel was 100 euros per night for 2 persons and I think Tim Hotel was much better.
One of the impressive things I have learned in Paris is that many of the historical looking buildings are not so historical, the Petit Palais, with a very nice statue of a french woman is only built on 1900 for the world fair. We have met a nice Turkish guy, working as a member of the security who gave us his MSN adress, unfortunately I have lost the paper, and was never able to add him. So anyone knowing him, send my greatest regards to him.
And in our last day, we have visited Notre Dame de Paris climbed upstarits for a very nice panoramic view of Paris accompanied by gargoyles... A nice day in Winter. There is much more to write about our 8 day visit of Paris, vicinity of Sorbonne, St. Dennis, Sacre Cour, Foacault pendulum, Versailles, Pantheon, Louvre, the river tour... Trying to explain Paris in a blog would be too ignorant for my taste. No matter how hard I try to write about, there would be something left. Rodin, Mona Lisa, Arc de Triomphe...
Overall I liked Paris very much, the subway system is great, very tasty Bordeaux Wine was sold at Carrefour for only 1 euro, different types of cheese were very cheap, the city itself is very beautiful the cafes and all the waiters were very very nice. Paris is a nice city for a tourist, and living there should be as nice.
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