Day 1: Thursday, 10/21/2010
On Thursday I had a couple of hours after my midterms to pack, run some errands, do some housekeeping things and cook dinner. Then I met Laura at the Namesti Miru metro stop at 6 pm. We took the green line to the end, the Dejvická stop, and then caught the 119 bus to the Ruzyně airport. Our flight was leaving at 9 pm... or so we thought. It ended up being delayed 2 hours and we only got to France in the early hours of Friday morning, at 1 am. After navigating through public transportation and trying to avoid overpriced taxi's preying on tourists, we finally got to our hotel... at almost 3 am. Then we finally got to sleep!
Day 2: Friday, 10/22/2010
We slept in until around 10, and then headed out to make the most out of our short stay in Paris. Our hotel was in a great location and we started walking to the Eiffel Tower. On the way we stopped at a bakery (!) to get food. I got a quiche lorraine, and it was fantastic. French bakeries beat everything. We got to the Eiffel Tower and walked through the park across from it (I forget the name) to get to the tower. Seeing the Eiffel Tower in person was surprisingly incredibly anti-climactic. Maybe I was still tired from traveling, still hungry from not eating for a while, or maybe it was because the weather wasn't that great and the tower was blending into the gray skies. We bought a ticket to walk up to the second floor and looked down at the views of the city. Afterward, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. On the way we stopped at another bakery where I got an apple tart pastry. Somewhere around this time it finally hit me that I was really in Paris.
A look inside my first French bakery!
The Eiffel Tower across from the park
View from the top!
We went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked through it. Then we walked down Avenue des Champs-Elysees, which is the equivalent of New York City's 5th Ave (or Prague's Pařížská street). We wanted to walk into at least one store and chose the Louis Vuitton store. I'm sure half the people in there were tourists anyway...
Arc de Triomphe
Louis Vuitton store
After walking down Avenue des Champs Elysees, we made our way to the Louvre. In so doing, we walked by The Place de la Concorde and through Les Tuileries. The Concorde square is a eight hectares square. It lies alongside the Seine river in between the Champs Elysees Avenue and the Tuileries garden - which leads right to the Louvre. We didn't have enough time to make use of the pricey ticket into the Louvre, so we walked around the outside for a bit instead.
Place de la Concorde: A 3200 year old obelisk that comes from the ruins of an Egyptian temple of Luxor
Musee de Louvre
Next up? Some churches. First we went to Saint-Chapelle, and this was followed by the Notre Dame. After going inside both of these two places, we were finally done for the day!
Sainte Chapelle
Interior of Sainte Chapelle
Notre Dame
Interior of Notre Dame
We went back to our hotel to rest for a bit, and then ventured outside to find some food. We settled on a Chinese place around the corner that was reasonably priced. I had the lemongrass chicken with jasmine rice. Boy, did I tear into my food. I hadn't realized how hungry I was, but with all the walking we did that day, I needed my energy fuel! So, it seemed appropriate to get some dessert as well. We went to Lola, a little French place, and I got the tiramisu, which was served trifle-style in a tall glass. After this, we called it a night... we had more sight-seeing to look forward to!
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