The Bride of France

The bride of France

From Barcelona we took our bus to Paris. It was a long journey of about 14 hours but as I said in my earlier blog I was quite used to such long journeys by then. We reached France quite early in the morning. Instead of buying a daily pass, we rather bought 5 tickets for each person as most of the sites were walking distance from each other, this option proved t be more economic for us.

The earlier forecast said that it was going to rain in Paris that day, but our prayers worked and the sun was shining nicely on us.

Our first destination was the Louvre and I think that the museum and its surroundings such as Place du Carrousel and Perrault's Colonnade are enough to make any one fall in love with Paris.

And you know what the best thing about Louvre Museum is! - The entry is free for students. Bingo!

I am not a very big fan of museums; however I admired and enjoy the painting inside even though I couldn’t understand most of them. But we were there for Mona Lisa, and I suppose so many other people as well. And I don’t know if it happened with anyone else as well or we were the dumb ones. But it took us a lot of time to find her. We were going and coming back through the same halls, and were following the signs, but it took us quite some time until we finally found her. It undoubtedly was the most crowded place in the entire museum.

We saw other statues and roamed around in the Museum. We then went out to sit in one of the beautiful gardens near the museum, if I am not mistaken it was Jardin de l'Infante. We sat under a tree there, took out the food we got packed yesterday. It was Biryani actually, if you are from South Asia you would know it’s more than just a dish, its love. Even though it was cold, and it was packed quite well, still my friend made sure to check it and yes it was perfectly fine. So we enjoyed our food.

We took some minutes to capture and admire the beauty of Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. Just to mention don’t mix it with the famous Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. I mean this is also famous, and is almost impossible to ignore it, as it is just next to the Louvre Pyramid; however it is the other one which often appears as symbol or main attraction of Paris. It might be interesting to note here that the both were designed the same year, however the construction of Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile took a lot more time than the other was as it was twice as big as the other one.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel was built to commemorate the military victories of Napoleon Bonaparte.

We then continued our walk through this beautiful Tuileries Garden towards the Grand Palace. The garden is some 500 years old and sculptures of many notable people can also be found. It was full of life that day, and the amazing weather was adding to its splendour.

At the other end of the Park was the Place de la Concorde. This Public Square somewhat marks the centre of the City. In the square you will find two attractive monumental fountains. This shade of sea green and golden as a combination can be found on numerous monuments across France and In fact in other countries as well. The south fountain serves as a memorial to the maritime commerce and Industry of France, while the north fountain commemorates the navigation and Commerce on the rivers of France.

In the centre of the square lies the Luxor Obelisk. So what was this more than 3000 years old Egyptian Obelisk doing in Paris? Well, it was given to France by one of the rulers of the Ottoman Egypt- Muhammad Ali Pasha.

Well we continued our walk to the Grand Palais. We didn’t go inside as were running short of time, and from the size of the palace it was evident that it needs a lot of time explore it. Just In front of it was located the Petit Palais.

We got tired by then and cancelled our earlier plan of going to Eiffel by walk and instead took a bus. So we went to this palace Palais de Chaillot which lies in front of Eiffel and is specially built for people to get a nice view of the tower. It was full of people and we were not shocked at all because we know what Eiffel means to people. Like that live music band in Lungern, we got our bonus for Paris. There was this group of 4-5 people who were doing very interesting and entertaining acts along with the dance. Everybody was sitting on the stairs, watching and applauding them. They had DDM written on their shirts which probably is the name of their group.

We spent some time there. Took a lot of photos and then walked to the Eiffel for an even closer look. It was amazing, and I think we don’t need to mention it. It’s the most visited paid monument in the world, and this fact says it all.

Again it was time for food. We found a Pakistani restaurant like always. Its name was Restaurant Lahore - Lahore is the name of one of the most famous cities of Pakistan. It was quite cheap.

After that we went to Notre Dame. What a beauty it was- Its architecture, colours and the peace and holiness inside. The architecture is of French Gothic Style, and this Cathedral is considered as one of the finest examples of this category. You will be surprised to see the views from different directions. For a moment you might wonder is it the same building. It’s a renowned and one of the biggest churches of not only France but of the world. The day we visited, there was some special ceremony being held inside, of which I have no knowledge, but still it was good to see.

And then we went to the bus station to catch our bus to our last but not the least destination Prague. I know that spending just one day in Paris is no less than an injustice to the city. However, had we spent more time there, it would have been an injustice to my studies as all this time, while I was doing my 5 countries tour, well I was skipping my classes.

Note: I have not inserted all the photos into the text, therefore you can take a look at the photo gallery if you want.

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Photo gallery