While we have been traveling a lot in the last years with Ingrid, we haven’t been really in holidays in the classical sense of the terms, where you go for a week or two to a nice place, in a hotel, and relax or do sightseeing. So this year’s trip to Paris was a first for us in that sense.

It was also the first time we left Henri for so long. He stayed the 6 days by my parents in Alsace and behaved very well. Seems he will be allowed to spend his holidays in Alsace again

It was the first time for Ingrid in Paris, and myself I had only really done some tourism in Paris over 15 years ago. So we decided to focus on sightseeing. We took the new TGV from Saverne (close to Strasbourg, where my parents live) to Paris. 2 hours for 500 km, very comfortable, cheap (we paid 100 Euros for 2 return-tickets, bought online), the TGV is really great.

We had a nice little hotel next to the rue Mouffertard called Hotel de l’Esperance. It’s a nice neighbourhood, lively and Parisian. Nice little room for only 80 Euros, cheap for a capital city. We recommend it.

We didn’t take the breakfast at the hotel, but rather bought some pain au chocolat or croissants in one of the bakery around the hotel, and went eating it in a cafe with a coffee. That’s just the right way of starting a day in France! Speaking about coffee, this is actually rather expensive (2 to 3 Euros). But Paris is actually not as expensive as one might think. Eating out is not much more expensive than Tallinn. And funnily coming from Estonia, beer costs as much or more than wine (or you could say that wine is cheap in France).

So what did we see? Lots of things, some of the highlights:

• On l’Ile de la Cite, the Notre-Dame cathedral of course, but also Sainte-Chappelle, a little church hidden between other buildings, which has an impressive amount of stained glasses. Entrance is 7 Euros, but probably worth it as it is very impressive.
• Maybe my favorite thing we visited is Le Louvre. It is absolutely huge (the biggest museum in the world) and extremely rich and interesting. We spend a long morning there but it would clearly deserve a full day. The 10 Euros entrance is worth it. There are many visitors but since the museum is so big it’s ok. However I would advise to arrive there early (before 9:30) and do immediately the most popular section, the Italian paintings and La Joconde, before the crowd of American and Japanese tourists arrives.
• The Eiffel Tower is of course a must. A great thing to do is being up in the tower by night. Paris becomes very nice and the tower itself is lighted. I think it’s enough to go to the Eiffer Tower, no need to climb up the Sacre Coeur or Notre Dame (they all cost a lot).
• And of course the Montmartre, Quartier Latin and Le Marais, which are all nice neighbourhoods of Paris.

I think we will probably go more often to Paris now, the TGV making it so close from Alsace.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 12:03 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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