Walk, walk, walk
After two cold, grey days, Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be warm and sunny. I took the opportunity to have a walk in Paris city and checked out all the iconic buildings; places that people say you must see if you’re in Paris.
My friend Shwu told me to take the metro to Trocadero, which gives the full view of the tower. From there, I walked towards the tower only to find a long queue for those who wanted to go up and catch the city view. I decided I didn’t want to wait. So I continued walking and took photos along the way. I still don’t know yet if I should regret for not going up.
Place Monge – Jardin des Plantes, La Grande Mosquee de Paris, Pantheon, Jardins du Luxembourg
I was to meet Shwu and her mom along with another friend, Pauline at the Place Monge station. Found out that Monge is the fifth district in Paris (in total there are 20) and is one of the oldest districts in the city. Shwu has been living in Paris for the last four years so she was our guide for the day. First destination was the Jardin des Plantes, a garden just down the road. Trees are in yellow and brown and against the clear blue skies, they looked beautiful. Across from the garden is the largest mosque in Paris – the city has the largest Muslim population in the country – and we took the opportunity to take a break at the tea house in the mosque and have a cup of mint tea with some Turkish dessert.
We continued to Mouffetard, a market area with narrow cobbled street with cafes and bakeries on both sides. The market was already closed by that time but it was still a nice walk uphill, checking the various shops available. The Pantheon was just further up. I took photos from the outside but didn’t go in since I was the only ‘tourist’ in the group. We ended our walk at the Jardins du Luxembourg, which was a beautiful park with a large pond at the centre. We stopped and sat on the lazy chairs and chatted, while watching the autumn day passed us by. Couldn’t have asked for a better day!
Avenue des Champs Elysees – Arc de Triomphe – Place de la Concorde – Notre Dame – Hotel de Ville
Thursday was a walking day on my own. I decided to check out the chic street, Champs Elysees which has all the expensive shops. The Charles de Gaulle Etoile is the metro station to stop at and immediately coming out of the station, I could see the Arc of Triumph ahead of me. Traffic was busy so it was quite a task to cross the street to have a closer look – I didn’t bother.
The Champs Elysees Avenue is quite a long street and it has huge shops of every brand one can imagine. Louis Vutton has its own entire building on the street, right next to HSBC! It’s quite interesting to watch people going into shops and coming out with bags and bags of stuff. Makes it hard to believe that Europe is in any crisis; at least not in Paris or at Champs Elysees 😉
The street straight from the avenue leads to the Louvre Museum. It’s quite a walk and I passed by Place de la Concorde where the Obelisk is found standing. I skipped the garden which I visited last Sunday and took the street leading to the Musee de Orsay metro station. I wanted to get to Notre Damer without having to walk the rest of the way.
I found the church standing spectacularly against the warm sunny blue skies. There were hundreds of people (of course). The entrance into the church is free. There was no service at the time but the signboard indicates to keep silent at all time while inside. A song of hymn was playing in the background. I sat down to rest and basically to recollect myself from the adventure of the day.
As I get on the way, I found a little garden behind the church, which golden trees sparkled in the sun. I sat down again and watched people walking by and wondered what stories are their lives telling? 🙂
I had wanted to head home but stumbled upon Hotel de Ville on the way to the metro station. A huge majestic building with many interesting sculptures and carvings on its walls. It’s not a hotel, hotel. It actually houses the administration of the City of Paris. Sun was setting while I was there and the light of the sunset against the building was gorgeous.
So it’s been a productive two days and I’m glad that I got the list over and done with despite not seeing all the iconic buildings. Think for the remaining last few days here, I’ll just take it calmly and enjoy Paris without the rush.
For more photos, click here.
