France Day 3: Paris

We took the train from Torcy to Anvers the next day after getting more beignets. Sophie told me about all day passes for students that you can get on weekends, so we got that. It was so convenient and we didn’t get stuck in any more turnstiles. We went to Le Village hostel in Montemartre and dropped our things off. The hostel was nice. The man working at the desk in the morning was very nice, but the man in the afternoon was very rude and unhelpful.

After that we did what any good tourist would do and headed straight to the Eiffel tower. It was so amazing coming out of the metro station and looking up and seeing it. We got on line to get tickets to go up, which took forever. It was much longer than any line we waited in at Disneyland. While we waited men were climbing down the tower on a rope. That was good entertainment. It was cool going up the tower, but I liked the views from other places better. It’s better to have the Eiffel Tower in your pictures than views from it.

After that we got baguettes for lunch and ate them on the Seine right across from the Eiffel tower. Then we took the metro to Notre Dame. It was strange how many street performers there were outside the church, but I guess it makes sense since it’s such a tourist area. Inside Notre Dame was very nice. It’s much bigger than the cathedrals in Dublin. I lit a candle for my grandfather and walked around in there for a while.

Then we went outside and decided to climb up the bell tower. While we waited we ate crepes that we got from the man across from the cathedral. They were the best crepes in Paris – made right from batter in front of you (a lot of places just heat up the crepe and put toppings on). We got banana nutella, and it was wonderful. The line took forever and it got cold and rained while we waited (that seems to be a theme of all my travels). There were 2 girls in front of us from the US Army who were great entertainment. I can’t really explain it, but they were very… interesting.

When we finally got in we began our climb of 400 steps to the top. The first part was easy, and then you end up in a gift shop where they trap you for 15 minutes. And who did we run into but my flatmate and 3 other Dublin girls. It’s a small world. After that we climbed to the first part. They let you out and you can walk around and take pictures. The view was amazing and it was well worth the climb. It was fun getting pictures with the gargoyles. Then you can go into the south tower belfry and see a bell. Then you keep climbing to the top - that part was the worst. It’s annoying because with spiral steps you never know how much is ahead of you. Actually the climb down was the worst because it’s the same grey spiral stairs forever, it’s not very well lit, and your eyes start to go crazy by the bottom. It was actually hard to walk straight after going down the 400 spiral stairs.

Then we headed back to Montmartre for a free tour. The company New City does free tours of a bunch of major cities. We had taken one in Edinburgh, so I knew it was good. We had a cute guy tour guide and we went to Moulin Rouge, saw the last remaining windmill, Van Gogh’s house where the blue room is, a restaurant where Picasso traded paintings for food, Paris’ last vineyard, and the Sacre Coeur. There was also an Amelie theme to the tour, and he showed us lots of places from that movie, but I only saw it once so I didn’t really care about that part.

At around 8:30 we had a nice dinner near our hostel. I had caprese and spaghetti (there is a lot of Italian food in Paris). The weird part was that it was a nice French restaurant, but they had a TV playing a Phil Collins concert. I loved it, but it was definitely strange. After that we did some late night souvenir shopping and headed back to the hostel.