Eurotrip 2011 : Episode 3: Paris

Paris: Day 1

We woke up early for our cab. Having done most of the packing the night before, we scrounged around the room for misc. items left behind. The cabby arrived on time. And wishing Rashu Goodbye, we were off to King's Cross once again. I had noted the location of the Eurostar platform and it wasn't very difficult to find. What was a bit surprising was how crowded the waiting area was, I could only imagine that there was a large number of business travellers. We got past immigration and the rest was more or less easy. We were a bit early and had time to grab breakfast on the platform itself. Tina had wanted to hit the same breakfast place as the last two days, but I was adamant that we checkin first and then have something to eat. If I remember right, it was some coffee and some sandwiches.

We found our seats once the train arrived. The cabin was pretty clean and there was room enough to keep our luggage. The seats were fairly comfortable for the 2:15 ride. The train eased out of the railway station and then 10-15 minutes in started picking speed. With a top speed of about 300 Kmph, the country zipped by. There wasn't really much to see, so we settled down for the trip arriving in Paris on time.

Gare du Nord was a very different beast compared to King's Cross. The french central station seemed a lot more chaotic and crowded. The language barrier was also pretty obvious right from the start. We were looking for an ATM to withdraw some money. After a few minutes of a search, we were armed with some euros. Then I headed to the ticket counter for the metro on the sub level to go get a billet-carnet (10 tickets good for most public transport). I had left Tina by herself to watch our bags and was away for a good 15 minutes and I remember she was a bit uncomfortable by the time I got back... Anyways, armed with money and tickets, we made our way to a bus-stop. In retrospect, taking a bus wasn't the best idea. It was a nice route as it hit many of the city's tourist attraction, but was very crowded. And with our bags , it was not the best of ideas. The note to self was to have a bigger budget for Europe.  The bus dropped us in front of the Centre Pompidou.

Although I was quite sure about where our hotel was supposed to be, it took us a bit of time and help to find the place, thanks largely to a foreign student who lived in the neighborhood. The Hotel Beaubourg was literally  50 ft from the bus stop where we had first got off. The lobby was unimpressive, as I had expected for a budget hotel, and the rooms were not quite ready. So we left our bags at the desk and headed out to grab something to eat. We found a small hole in the wall where we had a somewhat nice lunch. 

We then headed back to the hotel to get checked into our room. The room was surprisingly charming. We rested for a little bit before heading out. 

From the hotel, we followed a rather circuitous path to Notre Dame, we fist cut into the plaza behind the Centre De Pompidou, and past St Merry's. This church was quite interesting, as I had not expected it to be there. It is the seat of the oldest bell in Paris. The church was very bare and almost in a state of dis-repair.

St Merry from the George Pompidu Square

We the wound our way through tiny back alleys and then back towards the Hotel De Ville. The facade of this building was jaw dropping. The building stands in front of one of Paris's largest open plazas and has a sequence of fountains. 

Hotel de Ville

Art, by Laurent Marqueste

Tour Saint-Jacques, only standing part of a church.

We followed the throngs of tourists to the Notre Dame Cathedral, which  I remembered  vividly from 2005.  It was a lot sunnier and a lot more crowded than my recollections. I had decided, in the interest of time, that getting in line for the towers wouldn't be worth it, as we hoped to do the Eiffel tower later that day. We figured one tall spot in the city would be sufficient for us. We spent some time in the cathedral. Tina remarked that it was quite dark and overall she wasn't as impressed with the Gothic style as I had been. It did seem a bit bare. However, the sheer size of the space within was awe inspiring. The idea behind the gothic style was to create a massive and overwhelming sense of space. 

Facade of Notre-Dame

Gothic interiors

After Notre Dame, we crossed the Sienne again, on to the other side, to catch some refreshments before catching a bus to the Madeline. The ten minute ride took us past several Parisian landmarks including St Michel Place, Bibliotech Mazarin, Musee D'Orsay, Place De La Concorde. We got off the bus in a very busy avenue overlooking the majestic Madeline. This church is not nearly as ancient as the others in Paris, but built in the Neo-Classical style by Napolean. I had not seen this church before and wanted to get inside.I was quite happy with what I saw. i felt it was one of the prettier churches I had seen in Paris from the inside.

Tina in front of the Madeline.

Interesting relief on the door depicting the ten commandments.

Very impressive interiors.

At this point, Tina was very tired and her feet were not doing too well. So we decided to take a cab back home. Tina decided to take a nap while I decided to do a walk through the city. First I did a 1.8 Km stretch During the first stretch, I saw the Musée des Arts et Métiers ( with its Statue of Liberty), the Porte Saint Martin, followed by a rather boring stretch to the Place de la Republique. The last of these was quite impressive. The sculpture is in the middle of a green stretch, with many avenues converging on the spot.

My First Walk

Place De La Republic

From here I took another metro ride to the 'Place de La bastille', and this was yet another of Paris's busiest roundabouts. This place is made famous by the site of the Bastille prison which was stormed during the early moment of the french revolution. None of the prison stands and its place is a memorial tower. I was fairly disoriented by the size of the roundabout. It took me a while to figure out, after asking numerous people for direction in my VERY broken french. I headed for a 2.8 km stretch starting at Rue St Antoine.

 On this stretch, I covered Maison De Victor Hugo, Place De Vosges, some really cute alleys of the Marais, and then  up Rue De Sevigne. On this stretch, I could see a rather intriguing facade of the Saint Paul - Saint Louis. 

                                        

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My next stop was the St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, which although beautiful from the outside, was fairly lack lustre on the inside. I went in through one gate and walked across the church during mass and came out behind the Hotel De Ville. At this point, i was feeling fairly tired, and found my way back to the hotel Beaubourg. Here I rested for a little bit, before heading out again. 

We took the M1 to the station of Charles De Gaul Etoile. After briefly walking down Champs Elysee, we were at undoubtedly Paris's biggest and busiest , and most definitely craziest roundabout. We were now looking at the Arc De Triumph. This was my third visit to the monument. The first had been with dad, and the next one when I was at Infineon. We took the underpass to cross the busy roadways. Tina was not feeling upto walking up the stairs to the top, so she just rested while I walked around and took some pictures. 

From here we made our way to the Eiffel tower, we got off at the Trocadero, this in retrospect wasnt the brightest idea, since it was a long walk from there to the tower. The reason I had thought this was a good idea was because one can appreciate the surroundings better during the walk. We were late and did not end up waiting in line for the tower either, and there in one fell swoop we had missed all our chances to climb any high spots in Paris. Perhaps next time! We just relaxed and waited for the lightshow, it was getting cold so Tina and I huddled together on a bench. when they show did happen it was quite nice.

By this time, it was getting dark, so I made my way to the nearest restaurant I knew, walking through the Champ De Mars, did seem a little dodgy at that time of the night. After a fairly nice dinner, ( Tina thought different), we then headed off to find the nearest metro. This was the low point of our trip, as tina was not in the mood to walk anymore, and we couldnt find any cabs. We also couldnt find the Metro station for Ecole Militaire and ended up walking a bit. We finally managed to get home very tired and that was the end of a fairly long day in Europe for us.

Paris Day 2:

 The next day our plan was to visit the latin quarter of Paris. Our first stop was the Pantheon, and on our way there we stopped at a cafe to have breakfast. At the Pantheon we did a brief walkaround, and were disappointed to find that the tour of the rotunda was only provided in french. We then headed down into the crypt and saw the final resting places of some of France's greatest names. After the Pantheon, we walked down to Saint-Étienne-du-Mont right behind the Pantheon. 

We then headed back towards the Louvre and the surrounding areas. Here we covered the following destinations: The Louver, where we walked on the outside, knowing well that a trip inside would take up the whole day, the Church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois and past the Bourse de Commerce and onwards to the Église Saint-Eustache. This last church was very similar to Notre Dame and is one of the oldest in Paris. We then had our Lunch in the neighbouring restaurants. 

The rest of that evening we just took it easy, going out to dinner by the plaza overlooking St. Merry. The next day we were off to Versailles. 

The fountain near St Michel

The plan was to catch the RER to Versailles. After some confusion, we ended up at St Michel and managed to buy the RER tickets and got on board a fairly empty train. The ride to Versailles was about 30-40 mintues , and followed by a fairly long walk from the station to the palace. Versailles was more or less a village and remained so for most of its history. The avenue opened up towards the main entrance of Versailles. We were quite shocked to see the line. Winding twice or thrice along the entire length of the massive courtyard. There must have been thousands of people there. We had pre-booked the tickets and patiently waited in line. FOr the greater part the palace has been stripped of its belongings. Only a few of the room along the tourist walkways are full of the splendour of the Sun King. Most of the rooms are off-limits. Tina was quite impressed with the size and magnificence of the rooms. This was essentially the French courts, and the official residence of the kings. This was also the tragic site of the end of the french Monarchy.

The facade of the Palace at versailles

Inside the hall of mirrors.

The entire garden was lined with beautiful sculpture.

We did a fairly expansive tour of the gardens of Versailles after we got done with the palace. We saw the King and Queen's residence away from their grand residence called the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. There was also Marie A.'s model village.

A Gazebo near Marie A.'s model village.

Versailles was a sprawling landscape, and would have required us several days to cover it in all its glory. The gardens were full of sculptures, man made lakes and ponds and water fountains of mammoth proportions. By the time we got back into the city it was late afternoon and we decided to spend the day again quietly enjoying the Parisian evenings. 

One of the things we both loved about Paris, was the culture of sitting out looking on the world go by as one sipped on coffee or had dinner. All the restaurants had at least some seating facing outwards. The pace of people out at lunch or dinner was really relaxed, it almost seemed as if the french organize their workday around lunch and dinner as main events. 

Eurotrip 2011 : Episode 2: London

London: Day 1

Tina in front of Rashu's Place.

We reached London close to midnight on the 20th having lost 8 hours or so due to the timezones. A long cab ride followed to Rashu's place, where we stayed up chatting about a 100 things. Her house was very nice and comfy in, what we discovered in the morning, was a very nice neighborhood.

The next day began with us meeting Tina's really old friend, Tameera. We had bought Oyster cards at the newspaper store at the entrance to the Tube and used the northern line to make our way to King's Cross. It was our ill-fortune that the two nearest tube lines, the jubilee and the metropolitan were both shut down for the weekend. Kings Cross was a nice train hub connected to the St Pancras International Station. The very large concourse could meet all traveller's needs including nice breakfast joints. Our favorite was La Pain Quotidien, this would mark the beginning of both our days in London.

Tina introducing me to her love of breakfast.

After breakfast we headed to Westminster Abbey, we took in the neighboring sites like the House of Parliament and London eye, and got into a line that seemed to stretch forever. I think in our whole trip, the Westminster line was one of the longest, the absolute worst was Versailles. We chatted and the line moved fairly quickly. The doors and the curved arches of the abbey are very much like those of Notre Dame in Paris. And save a few, all coronations of the crown of England, since the early 11th century have happened at this church.

As I entered the building, I was struck with awe. To the eye, it appeared much more of a mausoleum to England's powerful families than a church. This was the first time I had been inside a European church in over 5 years, and I was really impressed. It was unfortunate that no photographs were allowed inside, so we just followed the numbered audio guide. More than a decade ago, when I had been to London with my father, I had been inside this very same church, but I remember little of it. I believe we had a private tour guide and most of the abbey was closed, so we see saw very little of it. The Abbey was really a collection of grave sites of the rich and powerful over the English middle ages. It seemed odd that we were literally walking on the tombs of these "once-august" nobility. Some of the interesting things I remember were the ancient thrones of the old English monarchs. The simplicity of some of these seats of power provide an interesting insight. Despite all their power, kings of yester-years probably had a less luxurious life in comparison to a semi-affluent professional of modern times. This is the true gift of technology and progress.

After the abbey, we did a quick tour of all the attached exhibits and displays including one about "The Royal Wedding" ( Roll eyes)  We then made our way back to the metro and. once again, we found that the most direct line to our next destination was under repair, so the three of us took a roundabout route to the British Museum. We did a quick stopover to pick up a hair iron for Tina, before getting to the Museum. I was pretty excited about this place, since it had so many of the famous artifacts that I had read about. The only problem was that we had only a few hours before the place would close and the place was HUGE. We did some of the sections on the ground level, before heading into a pretty frugal lunch at the cafeteria. After lunch, Tameera bid us goodbye as she had a long train ride back home.

While we continued on with the rest of the massive collection, Rashu joined us. We saw the outcome of the colonial plunder of the ancient eastern civilizations. Reliefs from Athens, entire temples from the middle east, Sculptures from Assyria, Sarcophagus from Egypt, the Rosetta stone, and countless other gems.

After essentially rushing through 4000 years of human history in less than a few hours, they ushered us out of the place because it closed. We then let Rashu lead us through the heart of London on foot and bus, where we got a brief glimpse of the city's bustling vibe. Rashu then took us out to a very nice resturant, fairly close to Trafalgar square, where we had some delicious Indian food and then we were back on our way to her place. She had some plans for the night, but we opted out cause we were really beat and had a fairly early morning to plan for the next day. We stayed up again and chatted away before Rashu left for dinner.

London: Day 2

The next morning, we watched in horror as it started to rain. We had plans to be at the Tower of London that morning, so it was going to be fairly disappointing. We only had one day left in the city and wanted to make the most of it. Fortunately, it cleared up just a few minutes later. Tina and I walk the 10-15 minute walk to the metro and repeated out delicious breakfast at King's Cross. I am fairly certain that this would have ranked on one of Tina's favorite activities in Europe. From there we took the trains to the Tower of London, it was a good thing I had bought the pre booked tickets and we were in fairly quickly. We armed ourselves with Audio guide and off we went. The place was very large and the highlights were the crown jewels and some of the quarters inside the tower. The beef-eater tours were hilarious, and both Tina and I really enjoyed the performances. There was also the fairly large group of bengali tourists in maaaflaars and maaankeey caps that briefly hijacked the crown jewels with their complete disregard for civic sense and personal space.

The picture below shows a royal bathroom where 'the model' illustrates how to take a royal dump... I would take my bathroom any day.

After spending several hours at the site, we had another very frugal lunch of sandwiches by the Thames. Our plans to walk through "The City" were cut short, and instead we headed straight to Trafalgar square and then to the National Gallery. Tina quite liked this one. We saw paintings by several masters, and it was clear that Tina could appreciate the subtleties I could not. We called it an early day and headed back to Rashu's place. 

We spent the rest of the day just chatting and resting.  The next day we took a cab early morning with all our luggage to King's Cross one last time to catch the Eurostar to Paris..... ooooh la la!!!

Eurotrip 2011 : Episode 4 - Rome & Florence

Just walking aimlessly through Rome is quite the experience. Having spent some time reading about roman history adds a lot to that the experience. I could see stories in the facades of churches. I could see the dimension of time. For e.g. the ubiquitous obelisks in rome are mostly from Egypt, from where they were plucked by roman emperors before Christ. In many instances they were lost to time, with the fall of Rome, and were serendipitously found almost 1400-1500 years later by popes who then decorated their papal palaces and churches with them. Only in Rome, can you walk past a 3500 year old Egyptian obelisk and then past a 2000 year old bronze door from the forum of Rome, and finally into a Baroque masterpiece of a church.    

Rome: Day 1

The next day we were going to find our way to the Orly . This is the other place where I wish I had not been so frugal. We ended up taking a bus to another bus which then took us to the airport. It was a fairly long wait before we were checked in. We then boarded our flight to Rome's Fiumocino Airport. We had booked extra leg room seats, which although not a lot was, worth it. 

After reaching the airport we then took the dedicated hi-speed train into Roma Termini, which is the heart of the city. Since we already had euros we were quickly out into a cab and were driven through central Rome to our hotel. Two things are very obvious as soon as you land in Rome. You are instantly aware of its historic depth  and you are aware of the fact that it looks more like India than it does like Europe.

I remember going past what looked like a public garden, but was essentially an ancient roman bath, almost 2000 years old. Just incredible! Ancient, medieval and the chaotic modern all thrown into the fray - thats Rome. I love this city. Our hotel room was most certainly a disappointment. The location was great. 10 min walk to the Forum and the Colloseum in one direction. 5 mins to the Trajan column. 10 mins to the Trevi fountain and the winding streets around it. Just amazing location. The room wasnt too bad, except it was reached through a long winding and fairly unorganized corridor. We had a slew of issues with the room as documented by my rant here: Trip advisor review

We settled in and had a quick lunch at the restaurant attached to the hotel. The food wasnt bad, I quite enjoyed my lunch and then we did a small stroll.We first made our way to Chiesa di Santa Maria di Loreto and then  we strolled past the Trajan forum and then to the Vittorio Emmanuel Monument, We then made our way up to Compidoglio, and the famous staircase designed by Michelangelo and then made our way into Santa Maria in Aracoeli before going into the Capitoline museum.

Inside the Capitoline. Ancient sculpture from ancient Rome.

Vittorio Emmanuel Monument

The columns shown here are all different. Taken from different ancient roman structures.

Here's a link to a great set of pics: External Photo Gallery

The capitoline museum more than anything was a tribute to sculpture from all periods of Rome, with a larger emphasis on the ancient. It was just mind blowing, that 2000 years ago people could produce such masterpieces.

A relief taken from one of the triumphal arches of Rome.

I saw more sculptures in those few hours than I have seen in my entire life. By the time we were done, it had been a long day and we made our way back to the hotel around 6-7 PM. We rested a bit before heading down into the lower city for dinner. On the way we saw the presidential palace (used to be a papal palace), the trevi fountain and some other roman wonders. The best thing was, of course , the pizzeria we went to. A small hole in the wall. I undoubtedly had the best pizza I have ever had in my life.

The staple shot in front of the Trevi.

We then headed back to the room and called it a night.

Rome: Day 2

The next day was our busiest in Rome. We first started the day bay going to the Pantheon, and explored the area around before catching another bus to the Vatican. The buses dont go deep into the vatican and we had a pretty long walk to the entrance of the museums. More sculptures followed, two that were noteworthy are shown below. It was the discovery of these sculptures that inspired the Italian masters in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The last stop inside the Vatican tour is the Sistine chapel, whose cieling was indeed very impressive. we used the audio tours, we had from Rick Steve, which were more than satisfactory. We then took a sneaky shortcut out the back by pretending we were part of a tour group. This helped us avoid more than a 2 km trek back to the entrance of the St. Peters. The Sistine chapel is actually very close to St Peters if you can walk on the inside of the Vatican ( only allowed for tour groups). In my experience, St Peters is hands down the most impressive church I have ever seen. It is not the largest, and certainly not the oldest, but it is impressive in size and beauty. Tina and I trekked to the dome and took some customary pictures.

After doing the Vatican, we made our way back to the hotel. On the way there, we stopped off at Piazza Novano, for what turned out to be horrendous dinner. I wish we had researched better. The piazza itself was stunning. The bad dinner was somewhat compensated for by very nice Gelato, we just wandered around the open plaza and wound down for the day.

Bernini's & Borromini's respective masterpieces. Featured in Angels & Demons.

By this time, Tina was pretty tired and wanted to take it easy for the rest of the day.

Rome: Day 3

The third day in Rome, we planned to get out of the city, to do something a little different. So we decided to visit the catacombs outside the city. Before heading out there, we first went to the forum Romano, and walked around with the help of Rick Steve.

Tina in front of the Palatine hills.

Colloseum

After the forum, we headed off to St John at Lateran, the seat of the pope. My primary interest their was to see the oldest obelisk in existence. This obelisk was already more than a thousand year old when Buddha was running around in his underpants.

Easily the oldest sculpture in Rome and its not Roman!

The seat of the pope.

And then we were off to the main event of the day, the catacombs. The Catacombs of St. Callixtus to be precise. To get to the place we had to walk through open Italian country, which was quite pleasant.  At the site, we chose a guided tour and we were really really impressed. Essentially there are miles and miles of underground burial sites. Over the centuries people have been burying their dead in this tiny vaults. It was great to get away from the hustle bustle of Rome for a bit. I think this was Tina's favorite part of the city. She was, in general, not a big fan of Rome. 

We finished the trip with a long walk to the only restaurant in the area, Antica Hostaria L'Archeologia,  and had a pretty nice lunch.

Lunch 

When we got back, Tina was tired and opted to rest, while I did another walk through Rome. I covered Palazzo Quirinale, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Quattro Fontane, Moses Fountain, Fontana de Tritone. The night ended with a quick walk into the old city and grabbing some pizza for dinner. 

Florence
Next morning we had a cab pick us up and drop us to Roma Termini. From there we took another eurostar to Firenze. It was a fairly short trip, on getting there, the train station seemed quite quaint and was not very busy. We bought some tickets at the local tobbacco store and waited for the bus. For some reason there were no eurostar to the better situated central station, and thus we had to make our way into town from the Stazione Campo Di Marte. The bus ride was about 20 minutes long and we got off at Stazione Santa Maria Novella. We then carted our bags and walked to the biggest building in site - The grand hotel Baglioni. This was to be our home for just one night. The hotel was quite nice on the inside and we totally loved our room. It was all about old school charm in a four hundred year old building.

The concierge was super helpful and friendly and checked us in quite quickly. We were also recommended to try out the lunch at Buca Mario. We headed out to check out the piazza del duomo, which is the site of the famous Florence cathredral. I had read a lot about the history of the building, and it was indeed very impressive. We would be coming back the next day to climb the tower. One of the main highlights was the bronze panels on the door of the baptistry made over 23 years by one man.

We wandered around the piazza and made our way to the mercato de San Lorenzo . We then saw the interiors of the Medici Chapel. This was kind of a let down, as there was not much to see in the museum. The San Lorenzo Chapel was pretty nice but was under some sort of restoration. 

We then headed of to Buca Mario, which was a pleasant little restaurant, where we had a pretty nice , albeit expensive, lunch. After finishing lunch, we headed off to see the Piazza della Signoria. This is a famous open air museum dedicated to sculptures.

This was one of my favorite places in our trip. We then strolled onto the Ponte Vecchio on the Arno. It was quite busy, but a pleasant experience. We turned back at this point back to our room. I left Tina there to rest and headed back to the Commune Di Firenze and checked out the museum and walked past the Piazza Della Republica. We then rested a little bit, and headed out a nice romantic dinner at Trattoria Il Porscopino. 

The next morning we rose late and headed to a very nice breakfast on the open air restaurant in our hotel. The view was brilliant. We then finished the day by climbing the tower of Florence Cathedral.