Paris Day 1

16 October 2007

Paris

As the Lourve was closed on Tuesdays, we decided to make this the attraction day, then tomorrow we can go explore the Lourve. Having being forewarned of the horrible queues to go up the Eiffel Tower, we decided that we would try going up at night, but I still wanted to take daytime photos of the Eiffel and so we headed there in the morning.

It was breathtaking to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time, and up close. Look at the photos and you can probably see why…

The interesting thing is that Paris was hosting the World Rugby Cup during this period, so there was a giant rugby ball hanging right in the middle of the tower, and even the All Blacks had their own rugby ball on the ground. And yes, Paris loves Les Blus (even though by the time we arrived, Paris was already kicked out of the competition).

We headed to Hotel Les Invalides just to see what it’s like and take some pictures. The Napoleon’s Tomb really looked spectacular from the outside, especially the Dome.

Entrance of Les Invalides

Napoleon's Tomb

We wanted to squeeze some time to tour the Musee d’Orsay, a museum that was converted from a railway station, but by the time we got there, it was late, and we were pretty put off by the queues, so we left to find lunch.

Beef Steak with Fettuccine, Chicken Salad

Next on the itinerary was a stroll down the Champs Elysees, past the Petit and Grand Palais, towards the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was out, the weather was lovely (about 22degC) and we took lovely pictures.

Grand Palais

Entrance to Petit Palais

Champs Elysees is a great place to shop. And I found Sephora there! Girls can really go crazy in that store, lotsa lovely, tempting perfumes and cosmetics! Had to practice a lot of self restraint, but managed to get gifts for the family as well as the girls too!

Super sleek car in the Citroen Showroom

Disneyland Paris was not on our itinerary cos we didn't want to hear Mickey Mouse and friends in French, but I still took a picture outside the Disney store

The Arc de Triomphe is situated right in the middle of a “star”, 6 streets radiate outwards from it, so although it was a pretty long walk scaling the monument, we were rewarded with breathtaking views. But if you are just there for some history, do you’ll be much better off joining the rest of the crowd downstairs admiring the Arc and it’s architecture and sculptures. While we were there, plenty of military personnel gathered around for some ceremony, and it was very interesting to see their decorative ranks, the beanie shaped berets, and the numerous old men who could be war veterans.

It was finally time for us to go up the Eiffel Tower. I was pretty tired by then wearing my cool boots that unfortunately weren’t very suited for long spells of walking but it’s the Eiffel Tower! But the queues were absolutely horrible, I think we spent a grand total of 2 hours queuing for the tickets and lifts up and down the Eiffel. There was a long queue to visit the ladies as well, and I was pretty disappointed with the ang mohs, as there was this old and frail lady queuing up to go to the ladies (the handicapped toilet was out of use), but not one of them let her go first, choosing instead to look the other way. That aside, it was really a once in the lifetime experience to ascend the Eiffel Tower, we even managed to see the sunset which was gorgeous.

Views from the Eiffel

Can you see the All Blacks Rugby ball in the middle?

The giant screen on the Tower plays highlights from the Rugby World Cup 2007.

By then, we were absolutely bushed, so we headed back to our hostel, grabbed a kebab on rice on our way back and retired early.

Switzerland Days 4 - 6

13 October 2007

Golden Pass (Lucerne -> Montreux) -> Lausanne

Golden Pass day, we spent like almost 7 hours on the train, but it was a good, relaxing way to spend the day, made it through plenty of pretty farmland, vineyards etc. refer to previous post for the pictures.

The train stopped at Montreux, we had initially wanted to spend the night at Vevey or Montreux, but couldn’t find suitable accommodation, so we decided to head down to Lausanne instead, a short train ride away. These few areas surround Lake Geneva, a beautiful lake, and you’ll see more of it in the next day’s entry. After finding our B&B and dumping our bags there, we headed off to the old town for a walk around Lausanne.

Lausanne is quite irritating to walk. It’s full of steep gradients and we find ourselves walking up and down slopes a lot, and we weren’t really armed with a good map, and coupled with the steep slopes, we kinda got abit lost. Not to mention a pretty weird experience I had trying to find a toilet, and found one finally near the subway, it was dark, wet, smelly and when I was going to walk in, a guy walked out of the ladies. Not to mention a rubbish bin in the toilet that had the sign of a syringe on it. Don’t ask me what that dustbin was for.

Nonetheless, it was an interesting place because of all the steep gradients, found a couple of churches but I can’t seem to remember what they’re called, and wiki is not helping either. After that, we went to search for a place to have very good and authentic swiss fondue.

Pictures!

Views from the Old Town

The cathedral we went to, near the yummy fondue place.

Fondue! It’s really delicious! And we really finished all the cheese lor.


14 October 2007

Lausanne -> Montreux -> Vevey -> Geneva

We spent the day going around little cities surrounding Lake Geneva. First stop, Montreux, full of rich residents and tourists. Nothing much to see here, as it was a little snooty for its own good, but our main destination was the Chateau de Chillon (or the Chillon Castle). Thankfully, we managed to get onto the scenic ferry to the Chateau, and it was really beautiful. Really enjoyed myself on the short ferry ride (about 15 min). If we had more time, I’d have taken the ferry just to go around the misty Lake Geneva aimlessly.

Chateau Chillon is a very old castle (earliest written record is in 1100) and we liked how all the rooms were accessible to tourists and not sealed off. It’s in pretty good condition too. We spent an enjoyable morning there, not to mention it was free because of the Swiss Pass.

The Freddie Mercury Statue

Lunch was at a little restaurant in Montreux, somehow it was filled with a lot of senior citizens, and we waited very long for our food, but it was delicious! Rosti and salad. We came to Switzerland wanting to eat authentic Fondue and Rosti and we finally did both.

Next stop, a short bus ride to Vevey. Another lakeside resort for rich tourists, it was very very pretty. We had an enjoyable stroll around the lake and had Movenpick ice cream again even though Vevey is the world HQ of Nestle. Nestle even commissioned a giant fork in the middle of the lake, outside it’s food and nutrition museum. We also casually strolled into the Vevey museum, and met the curator who married a Singaporean wife. Interestingly there was a circus at Vevey, and though we didn’t enter, we saw white camels for the first time.

The Charlie Chaplin Statue

From Vevey, we headed to Geneva by train, found our hostel, went out to look for food in the supermarket, and headed back to cook. The City Hostel Geneva, is by far the best hostel we’ve stayed in our entire trip. It was high-tech, clean, had nice, clean and comfortable beds, a good kitchen complete with industrial size fridges, and best of all, it’s the only place equipped with a hairdryer! (note to self: bring a hairdryer when backpacking to prevent bad hair days). Though the rooms were a tad cramped, I totally enjoyed staying there. We also had a roommate, a University student from Argentina who was on student exchange in Geneva. He was very curious to find out about our trip, about Singapore, about Asia. The hostel also sold cheap Swiss army knives, and we bought a couple as gifts for our family.

15 October 2007

Geneva -> Paris

We spent the morning walking around Geneva. It was enjoyable, though a tad cold and misty in the morning. And we also ran into a strike, which I had blogged about previously.

Geneva is a nice city with lots to see and do, not to mention it holds the world headquarters of the fragrance company I used to intern for, so I had heard a lot about it from my ex-colleagues. Anyway we spent a leisurely morning strolling around the old town, yes, it appears that ALL Swiss cities have their very own old town, full of cobbled stones walkways, old tiny buildings and ancient churches.

Autumn leaves in the Bastions Park

The Reformation Wall, a monument that commemorates the major events and figures of the Protestant Reformation. The statues are of Guillaume Farel, Jean Calvin, Théodore de Bèze and John Knox, and this wall is several hundred years old.

The Saint Pierre Cathedral

The oldest building in Geneva, but I can’t remember exactly how old it is.

Bird getting a shower in a drinking fountain

The Jet d’Eau: basically a large water spout in the middle of Lake Geneva. It really can be very beautiful in spring or summer, but because we went on a misty day, you can’t really make it out.

Standing in the middle of a bridge, with a protest going on behind

The bibs that the strikers wore

Manora Café! A Marche concept place where you choose your own food, reasonable prices. And we bought all our Swiss chocolates in Manor, our first and last shopping stop in Switzerland.

Following that, we left the beautiful Switzerland to head for the romantic Paris. Unfortunately, we manage to leave TJ’s camera on the train. Thankfully he transferred all the photos out the previous night, so we only lost one morning’s worth of photos.

We flew to Paris on EasyJet, and it’s really very cheap, I think each ticket costs about SGD 75 only. And it’s pretty nice and new, just that somehow their flights are always prone to delays.

We took super long to get to our hostel, situated on Montmartre, the place where artists like Van Gogh used to congregate. After that, we were so tired so we decided to just walk around Pigalle area to grab some food, though we were kinda lost because we forgot the map, and it was getting very windy and cold, we managed to get yummy kebabs, and retired early for the night.