Paris has always been on my list of must-visit places. But somehow, we never planned a trip there despite two earlier trips to Europe. So when plans began for another Europe trip, I put my foot down and said, "I don't care where in Europe we go as long as the first stop is Paris". It worked, because everyone agreed. Possibly because they knew I was going to do the planning anyway. At first, the plan was to go to Paris and then to Germany and Austria. But along the way (after I had already started my research), Italy began to look more appealing. After going to the Swiss Alps, the allure of the Bavarian or the Austrian Alps wasn't so strong. So Italy it was, and Venice and Rome substituted Munich and Vienna.
Many months of planning and booking and anticipation, we finally set foot in Paris after a long flight from home. I didn't really know what to expect from Paris, except that I didn't know any French and was worried about how we'd communicate with the Parisians, who have a reputation of not wanting to speak English. Don't worry, said a colleague who had been there before. "Just start every sentence with Parlez vous Anglaise and you'll be fine."
I didn't say that sentence even once! The words just wouldn't form in my mouth. Luckily, it turned out that most Parisians do speak English, and pretty well too. We all learned to say "Un carnet, sil vous plais" (which is 10 tickets please) to the ticket officer at Metro stations. But that's about the extent of the French I learnt.
But the city, oh, the marvellous city! It was beyond anything I had imagined. Just walking along the Seine on that first crisp, cool evening, gazing up at the magnificent Notre Dame was wonderful. It's a lovely city in which to walk along aimlessly. Beautiful buildings are everywhere, the people are chic and good looking, the cafes with their roadside tables so inviting and the wine was wonderful. I craved for my daily glass or two of wine. We didn't even bother with water!! Hunting for a new cafe to have our breakfast was fun. We decided which one to choose based on how friendly the welcome was, apart from how much it was going to cost. For all its charm and beauty, its an expensive city. Euros flowed much like the Seine: one horribly expensive meal on the Champs Elysees was a wake-up call.
We couldn't decide which was our favourite sight: the iconic Eiffel Tower (We went right up to the very top and had a glass of champagne. Even without the bubbly, I was high anyway :) or the magnificent Pantheon or the opulent Palace of Versailles or the amazing Louvre Museum or the splendid Sacre Coeur. All of them were fabulous in different ways.
We also fell in love with maps: Poring over the map trying to find our way became fun; and we felt so triumphant when we figured out things correctly. The Paris metro was also easy to navigate, despite having 14 lines. The trains themselves felt cramped after the spacious Singapore metro, but to emerge from the station out on to another lovely Paris street in search of another fantastic monument was great.
Another dream come true was to go to Roland Garros to watch Grand Slam tennis live. It was exciting to see the stadium that we had watched on TV for so many years; to see the players up close. We watched Nadal practise and didn't tire of taking pictures. We waited outside the court hoping that he would stop to sign autographs; sadly, he was whisked away by his bodyguards. We did the Mexican wave in an almost full stadium which was cheering on home hope Marion Bartoli as we watched her defeat former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova. We rued the fact that we couldn't watch Novak Djokovic, whose quarter-final opponent Fabrio Fongini gave him a walkover: the match was supposed to be held on the show court where we were. But mostly, we just basked in the warm glow of satisfaction that we had actually been to a much loved tennis event, and set our sights on watching the final next time at another venue: Australian Open or the US Open, because I found out that getting tickets to Wimbledon is next to impossible unless we queue outside the gates overnight (who knows, I may even do that next year).
Even being scolded by an angry counter staff member at a cafe didn't blot the fun. She was the only rude Parisienne we met. And she let loose a volley of angry French all because my husband mistakenly took two tea bags instead of one. We offered to pay her for the extra tea bag but she wouldn't listen and just went on scolding us. Lucky we couldn't actually understand what she was saying. She was the only one who didn't utter a word of English, living up to the stereotype of the French people. Thankfully, she was the only one. I felt upset that she had ruined our last breakfast in Paris, but then decided not to dwell on one unpleasant incident and let it mar our lovely stay.
The five days we had passed by so soon; we were enjoying ourselves so much we didn't want to leave. Though we were heading to another lovely city, Venice, we didn't want to part with Paris yet. But we had to. We promised ourselves that we would return soon. And we will.
Many months of planning and booking and anticipation, we finally set foot in Paris after a long flight from home. I didn't really know what to expect from Paris, except that I didn't know any French and was worried about how we'd communicate with the Parisians, who have a reputation of not wanting to speak English. Don't worry, said a colleague who had been there before. "Just start every sentence with Parlez vous Anglaise and you'll be fine."
I didn't say that sentence even once! The words just wouldn't form in my mouth. Luckily, it turned out that most Parisians do speak English, and pretty well too. We all learned to say "Un carnet, sil vous plais" (which is 10 tickets please) to the ticket officer at Metro stations. But that's about the extent of the French I learnt.
But the city, oh, the marvellous city! It was beyond anything I had imagined. Just walking along the Seine on that first crisp, cool evening, gazing up at the magnificent Notre Dame was wonderful. It's a lovely city in which to walk along aimlessly. Beautiful buildings are everywhere, the people are chic and good looking, the cafes with their roadside tables so inviting and the wine was wonderful. I craved for my daily glass or two of wine. We didn't even bother with water!! Hunting for a new cafe to have our breakfast was fun. We decided which one to choose based on how friendly the welcome was, apart from how much it was going to cost. For all its charm and beauty, its an expensive city. Euros flowed much like the Seine: one horribly expensive meal on the Champs Elysees was a wake-up call.
We couldn't decide which was our favourite sight: the iconic Eiffel Tower (We went right up to the very top and had a glass of champagne. Even without the bubbly, I was high anyway :) or the magnificent Pantheon or the opulent Palace of Versailles or the amazing Louvre Museum or the splendid Sacre Coeur. All of them were fabulous in different ways.
We also fell in love with maps: Poring over the map trying to find our way became fun; and we felt so triumphant when we figured out things correctly. The Paris metro was also easy to navigate, despite having 14 lines. The trains themselves felt cramped after the spacious Singapore metro, but to emerge from the station out on to another lovely Paris street in search of another fantastic monument was great.
Another dream come true was to go to Roland Garros to watch Grand Slam tennis live. It was exciting to see the stadium that we had watched on TV for so many years; to see the players up close. We watched Nadal practise and didn't tire of taking pictures. We waited outside the court hoping that he would stop to sign autographs; sadly, he was whisked away by his bodyguards. We did the Mexican wave in an almost full stadium which was cheering on home hope Marion Bartoli as we watched her defeat former champion Svetlana Kuznetsova. We rued the fact that we couldn't watch Novak Djokovic, whose quarter-final opponent Fabrio Fongini gave him a walkover: the match was supposed to be held on the show court where we were. But mostly, we just basked in the warm glow of satisfaction that we had actually been to a much loved tennis event, and set our sights on watching the final next time at another venue: Australian Open or the US Open, because I found out that getting tickets to Wimbledon is next to impossible unless we queue outside the gates overnight (who knows, I may even do that next year).
Even being scolded by an angry counter staff member at a cafe didn't blot the fun. She was the only rude Parisienne we met. And she let loose a volley of angry French all because my husband mistakenly took two tea bags instead of one. We offered to pay her for the extra tea bag but she wouldn't listen and just went on scolding us. Lucky we couldn't actually understand what she was saying. She was the only one who didn't utter a word of English, living up to the stereotype of the French people. Thankfully, she was the only one. I felt upset that she had ruined our last breakfast in Paris, but then decided not to dwell on one unpleasant incident and let it mar our lovely stay.
The five days we had passed by so soon; we were enjoying ourselves so much we didn't want to leave. Though we were heading to another lovely city, Venice, we didn't want to part with Paris yet. But we had to. We promised ourselves that we would return soon. And we will.
2 comments:
Takes me back to my time in France not so long ago!.... Woh bhi kya din thay!
Especially when Rama, Krish and Aditya came visiting...
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