Paris - Day 1 (Metro & Notre Dame)

Read my blog from the bottom post first:

French Cafe Music: A Stroll in Paris

- super soothing.....Try playing this as background when you read my blog :)

Metro:

We walked about ten minutes to the metro station, we were quite excited :) 
We booked our walking tour at 2pm (meeting up at Notre Dame). 
We went to the metro staff and he pointed us to the machine.  We lined up to get the metro tickets from the machine.  The person in front of us had trouble getting tickets, I think the coin was stuck or sth.  When it was our turn, we didn't know which station we should get off at and which option we needed to press on.  We went to the metro staff again, he pretended he couldn't speak a word of English, which we later figured he spoke ok English.  Anyway, he refused to help in the beginning and then eventually had to move his butt over to help.  In the end, it was the 5 Euro bill that was stuck in the machine and he had to fix it. 

this metro station was quite new, but once you got in...

Notre Dame:

Once we got off the metro station, we walked up the stairs, we exited the crappy train station.  Wow.

So amazing.  So beautiful. Mind "blasting"!!

~ Exterior of Notre Dame ~

Apparently, we were very lucky to see someone was actually cleaning the Notre Dame.  Our tour guide said she came here so many times, and it was her first time seeing someone cleaning this.  A very rare phenomenon in Paris, as it takes forever to get someone to work. 

This was where we met up with our tour guide :)

So there was a story behind this statue outside the Notre Dame.  The statue that was holding his head is Saint Denis.
"According to Christian tradition, Saint Denis is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after 250 CE. After his head was chopped off, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way, making him one of many cephalophores in hagiology. (Wikipedia) "
But I remember the tour guide said something about this guy kept talking non stop during his walk onto the hill, so people chopped off his head and he was still continued talking even with his head chopped off.  I might remember it wrong. 

~ Interior of Notre Dame ~ 

     

 

   

 

Paris - 3 days in Paris

Highlights of Paris:

First of all, when I was typing these blogs for Paris, I needed to listen to some French music to get me into the mood.  And I found this on youtube:

French Cafe Music: A Stroll in Paris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJWn8_HQ4hw&list=PLFAD477EF0F5FC085

- super soothing.....Try playing this as background when you read my blog :)

My 3 days Highlights of Paris:

Day 1:

      - Arrived to Paris, took lots of deep breath of the French air :p

      - 4 hours walking tour along the Seine River

      - Pedi-cab to Arc de Triomphe

      - Laduree & Berthillon

Day 2:

      - day trip to Versailles

      - Des Invalides (Napolean's tomb)

      - 3 hours dinner 

      - strolling in Paris

      - Eiffel Tower

Day 3:

      - Lourve 

      - St. Germain

      - Love-Lock bridge

      - food food food

      - more strolling in Paris

Paris - Hotel selection

Paris:

We did a lot of research on the hotels in Paris.  The ones that are close to the Eiffel Tower are very expensive and vintage (aka: old).  There are a lot of negative reviews on many hotels from trip advisor.ca, people complained about huge spiders, bed bugs and dirty rooms, etc.  After careful considerations, we picked Le citizen hotel.  

Le Citizen hotel:
 - near the Canal St. Martin (very quiet and peaceful, yet it was very hard for taxi drivers to find)
 - one of the top ranking hotels from Tripadvisor
 - super clean from traveller's photos (I love looking at traveller's photos as the hotel's photos are usually deceiving

          

 - breakfast and minibar are included: freshly made scramble eggs, freshly made special coffee drink..yummy pastry..etc etc
 - the staff were the nicest and most helpful people I had met in Paris
 - excellent services - Excellent website to provide all the info you need
                             - I booked their private car to pick us up from train station.  only 15 Euro
                             - They answered their emails promptly 
                             - 10 minutes walk to the metro
                             - Window faces the Canal St. Martin
                             - Offered iPad at no cost for us to use in every room
                             - They sold their own (Le citizen) stamps! So I could mail out the postcards!
                             - There's always a person at the front desk to open door for you even you go back to the hotel late.   None of them would frown at you when you get back to the hotel late (apparently some other hotels' staff do)
- On our last day, we booked a private car & driver to airport, the front desk kindly found another couple that would split the taxi bill with us.....60 Euro -> 30 Euro!  Awesome
- Staff spoke perfect English (sounded like American English to me)
- Comfortable bed.....
- We love this hotel....but Price was a little $$.  Compared to other hotels, the price was quite reasonable for the quality :) Very satisfied.

Canal St. Martin

Our window view

London -> Paris

Eurostar:

London's St Pancras International train station

So we took the Eurostar from London to Paris. Very comfortable ride for approximately 2.5 hours.
The customs was quick, you only have to check in 20-30 mins before the train departs, very convenient.  The earlier you book the tickets, the cheaper they are.  

London's St Pancras train station -> Paris Gare Du Nord

Paris - Gare Du Nord

London's St Pancras Station

As we were booking seats for the Eurostar, we did read up some interesting posts:

Where is the safest seat on a train if it were to ever crash?

Random Thoughts

So it's been a month since I last updated.  Initially, I wanted to share my thoughts on my travel experience, and eventually I got too lazy.  I guess I would update some blogs about Paris soon.. not that there's anyone reading.  I'm not a good writer but I like to share my thoughts.  I don't mind there's no one reading this because I'm really just venting.  My sister suggested I should type up my travel research for her to read.  Sure why not.  I guess I do have too much time after work, since for the past month I had been doing travel research full time. 

So I was planning on a 1-2 week vacation in between Apr - Jun, here are the stuff I had been reading up on:

1). Vancouver -> Tokyo (3 days hotels included) -> Kyoto -> Osaka -> free stopover at either Beijing or Shanghai -> Vancouver     - pretty good deal (>$1,200 cad)

2). Vancouver -> Honolulu, Hawaii -> Maui -> Vancouver
             - cheap deal from Westjet ($483 round trip direct flight)
             - the ok hotels were quite $$ (plus the resort fee, parking etc etc)
             - checked out the 7 days hawaii islands cruise. ppl commented that the cruise is quite rundown. If I want to go on a hawaiian cruise, balcony option would be ideal.  $2100/per person - then I rather take a cruise to Greece & Turkey :p
             - rental apartment from www.homeaway.com gives better deals on accommodations. probably half of what you pay for hotels.

3). All-inclusive deal from Vancouver -> Cancun (7 days)
             - I only checked out the 5 stars hotels....on average about $1500 - $1800 

4). Vancouver -> Cuba (7-8 days all inclusive) - $1305
              - my colleague complained the bed from the 5 star hotel was too hard, her friend was bruised by sleeping on the bed.  
              - people from trip advisor also complained about the bed too, saying the springs were falling off or sth
              - most people online said 5 stars are just 3 stars in Cuba.  Maybe? I don't know

5). Dominion Republic - Punta Cana is the most popular island for tourists
                                 - but for YVR, there are too many transfer flights (flight's duration is too long)

6). Vancouver -> Paris -> Milan -> Vancouver (12 days)
              - I wanted to give myself in Paris one more chance. I wanted to enjoy Paris more.  I believe it could be better  (~$2100 cad with hotels)
              - pretty good deal from vancouver -> paris ($893 direct - after tax)

7). Vancouver -> anywhere in South America (ex: Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Chile)
             - ok, that would be another post of yapping