Découvrez Paris

Découvrez Paris - Day 1

Amazing experience in discovering Paris:

View of Paris tower from Seine River

It was a bright sat morning in Paris on the 26^th of Oct 2013, started from Gallieni Metro station about 30min travel to Colonel Fabien station where we had pre booked hotel room.

What you need to know before you start your journey:

· Must download the android app “Visit Paris By Metro” from Google Play, it really helps to understand about where to go-how to go-what to do. This is an offline app, as you won’t get free internet in metro stations.

· If you are planning for a two day stay in Paris then you can avail a 2 day metro pass for zone 1,2 & 3 access, it costs about 17.5 €.

· About the people here they are used to tourists which contribute to a great portion of the crowd. Language here can be a problem at times for English speaking, so keep your Android App handy and watch out the big “M” symbols for the nearest metro station.

· Also watch out with your valuables, as the city is diversified with many ethnicity and it is hard to distinguish between locals and tourists and also pickpoketers, yes you heard it right.

Back to the travelogue...

Day1:

We had planned for two days in Paris and were totally unplanned (with ZERO knowledge about where to go and what to do).

Although, Paris is one of my dream destinations, getting lost in Paris is really fun, trust me!!

So we went through the Paris map which we got it from the Hotel, and decided to start the day from Arc de Triomphe. We planned to go on a heritage tour to explore the buildings and monuments only the exteriors and not interiors, as it requires a lot of time to explore each of these monuments from inside.

We caught the metro from Colonel Fabien to Charles de Gaulle-Etoile station, which is the nearest station for Arc de Triomphe. One of the top three attractions in Paris, located at the center of Place Charles de Gaulle, around this you can see twelve roads. The monument is about 50m in height and was built to honor those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Watch out for the four main sculptural groups on each of the Arc's pillars. One can even go on top of the monument with an entry fee to get the aerial view of the twelve streets pointing towards the monument.

Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe - View of the Arc from ground

Main sculptural groups on each of the Arc pillars

We started to walk towards the Champs-Élysées. This is one of the most popular street in the world, also the real estate prices here are among the most expensive in the world. The street is filled with cafés and luxury shops. Some of the exclusive shops here were Mercedes, Toyota, Peugeot, Disney store, Rolex, Sephora, Swarovski and Louis Vuitton.

Peugeot Showroom

Mercedes Showroom

Put up for a rental ride

Champs-Élysées

Typical Streets of Paris

Champs-Élysées

After Franklin D. Roosevelt circle we took the right towards Avenue Winston Churchill. This road is covered with all the heritage buildings including the Petit Palais, Grand Palais, leading to Les Invalides. It was a pleasure walking around with the Petit Palais and Grand Palais on either side of the road and then passing by the beautiful bridge Pont Alexandre III on the Seine River. Through this bridge we got a wonderful view of north front of the Les Invalides. We spent the afternoon here and after relaxing for a while left to the most exciting part of the tour.