Europe 2016

We arrived in Paris in the early evening of Tuesday, May 24th. It's Friday, May 27th and we're leaving Paris and going to be heading through the Beaujolais region to tonight's camp spot, so I'm going to take some time while on the bus to share some of my experiences over the last few days...

Traffic coming into Paris was pretty intense (as opposed to"in tents" like my accommodation😉), so it took longer to arrive at our first campground that expected, but we arrived safe and sound! Our Contiki crew gave us a run down of our camp set-up - tents, cook tent, and facilities. Jayke from Australia is my tent-mate - great bloke! The facilities were pretty great, even the showers were nice!

Angus cooked a great meal on night one of chicken, potatoes, and veggies, then dessert after that! The group stayed around the campground that night - explored and chatted getting to know each other. Overnight, Jayke's air mattress lost a fair bit of air - he's a pretty broad guy and the mattress may have been taxed beyond its limit, but they're working on sorting that out.

Breakfast on Wednesday morning was eggs, break, fruit, and Canadian bacon! Definitely a good start to the day providing the necessary fuel for a big day ahead.

We spent the morning at Versailles - Louis XIV's chateau in the countryside that he built for himself and the house the government of the day (17 kms outside Paris). The entire estate covers about 260 acres and the is absolutely enormous! A few of us spent the €12 to go through the chateau itself - very interesting to see the many rooms and hear about the history as you progress through the audio tour. I'm glad I did it, but it took quite a long time to get through because there are so many people that you basically start and end with the same cluster. We explored some of the grounds, but you barely even scratch the surface.

First full day in France, so I definitely had a baguette sandwich for lunch in the town of Versailles!

We left Versailles in the early afternoon and all went on a Paris city tour, which gave us exposure to most of the sights and helped me get my bearings for what's to come. Olie piloted the coach like a champ around the streets of Paris (one of his favourite cities to drive in), even the craziness of the huge roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe (Cobe has a great time lapse).

We had a few hours of free time and got dropped off at the end of des Champs-Elysees in front of the Paris version of the London Eye at Place de la Concorde. I walked along the Seine - lots of green boxes mounted to the upper river walk stone fence (they all sell the same type of stuff, but 75% is supposed to be books - tons of souvenirs though), lower river walk is like the Forks, restaurants on boats, boat tour boats, etc. I managed to make it as far as Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris (on n island in the middle of the Seine River) and went through it - huge, amazing stained glass, marble everywhere, still holds regular mass. I was tight on time, so I ended up running to make it back to a statue across from the Louvre to meet the rest of the group.

The coach was parked in the Louvre parkade where we all changed for our night out. The coach took us from the base of Sacre Coure Cathedral, which is the highest point in Paris, and we climbed to the top of the hill. Along the way, there are countless people selling cold beer and water, as well as tourist trinkets galore.

The night was our first two optional add-ons - Parisian Restaurant Dinner and a Cabaret show. At dinner I tried escargot (glad I tried it, but basically just tasted like butter and garlic with an odd texture) and Duck L'Orange (quite good, especially as something outside my norm). After dinner we walked to our Cabaret show and stopped at the Moulin Rouge on the way for some photos. The show had tons of dancing girls; as well as: comedians, acrobats, and other performers. I was pulled up on stage to assist one of the acrobat-type performers, but he took my glasses off and gave them to my table for some reason - extra challenge for my assistant duties. At one point he was trying to balance on a plank on a cylinder on a 4' high table, slide to far one way and asked for help from his assistant... I gave him a push back the other way and he launched off the other side down onto the stage - part of the act I'm sure, but excellent reaction and the crowd loved it! Afterwards, I got my glasses back and a certificate that, I believe, translates to the "award for worst acrobatic assistant of the year". Great time!

It was after midnight and elected not to go to the Contiki club (O'Sullivans), since I wanted to be relatively fresh for the next day.

Breakfast on Thursday was sausages and beans... Not my fave, but it's what was there. It was a totally free day and we used public transit (bus to metro) to get into the heart of Paris.

I got off the metro at Charles de Gaulle Station, which put me right at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe. It took me a while to figure out how to get across the roundabout traffic to the actual site, I went right and had to cross about half of the 12 feeder streets until I found the underground access (if I'd gone left, I would have found the other underground access about 20 meters away - oh well). I paid to enter the Arc and climb the spiral staircase, which had almost 300 stairs. The Paris views from the top were fantastic - probably my favourite in Paris (even over the Eiffel Tower) because it's not so high that you can still identify the buildings you're seeing.

The Eiffel Tower was next on my list, but I took a detour up des Champs-Elysees to withdraw some Euros - HSBC it is (advice: withdraw from an actual bank, not just a random ATM, because if the machine eats your card, you can at least go into the bank to see if they're able to access it for you... All good for me!

On advice from the Contiki crew, I walked up Avenue Kleber to get to the Palais de Chaillot and the Jardins (gardens) du Trocadero because it's a great photo spot for views across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and a great place for a bite of lunch. They were right!

Over the bridge to the Eiffel Tower... There were signs saying that the top was closed, but that turned out to not be the case! I bought my ticket and rode the elevator to the second level (apparently I could have taken the stairs, but missed that signage). There were some great photo spots up there, but I met some Australian blokes (not on my tour) that showed me where I could line up for tickets to the top of the Tower. I ended up waiting in line for almost an hour, but then it was on to the elevator to the top of the tallest structure in France (still over 200 meters shorted than the VM Tower though). More great photos and met six people from my tour - the Louvre was the next stop for both, so we joined forces and made our way there.

When we arrived, most decided to bail out, so Cobe and I went in. The Louvre has three wings (Richelieu, Sully, and Denon), which house countless artifacts, including the Mona Lisa (est. value €710 million). We ran into another Australian bloke from the tour inside, so we also joined forces and spent a few hours in the museum (highlights: Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, sarcophaguses) - to see everything would take weeks! I also found the buildings themselves to be awe inspiring, they're pieces of art on their own (painted or carved ceilings, marble and granite everywhere). Fantastic experience and definitely glad to be there!

The group was meeting at 5pm, but we could always make our way back to the campground on our own (dinner at 7:30 though) and that's what we did because we wanted more time at the Louvre (didn't leave until 5:45 close). We walked through Paris to get to the metro station we needed to catch the train back - a bit of a labyrinth (tougher to navigate than the Tube), but lots is colour coded, which helps with language barriers. We caught the right train (stiflingly hot and jam packed), the right bus, and rolled into the campground at 7:25... Perfect timing!

Portions seemed a bit light at dinner, but that could be that I'd been walking all day and had worked up a pretty serious appetite. Since we needed to pack up camp in the morning and it would be the first time, no one was up past midnight. Speaking of that, I don't think jet lag has affected me too much (melatonin the first few days seems to have helped immensely).

Jayke and I were tent take-down wizards and done in no time. Long travel day on Friday, May 27th to Beaujolais in the south of France. At least there are a few stops along the way at "services" (fancy rest stops) to break up the day.Lue lisää