AUGUST  2000

After a long journey from Monaco, we arrived in Paris at 8.00 am and our lovely friend from London, Caroline took us from the train station and we went to her house. After a quick shower and breakfast, we were ready to hit the Paris streets.                                            

Paris:

The first place we visited was Notre Dam De Paris, the famous cathedral. Having read “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, I was hoping to climb the tower, swing on the bell rope and make a total fool of myself. As we arrived, we saw the long queue in front of the cathedral, and because we had only 2 days in Paris and there are a lot to see, we just walked around the cathedral, took some pictures and decided to spend that time in Louvre Museum.

We went into the Louvre to see our old friend Mona Lisa, the magnificent Pyramide de Louvre and some more art. As we entered, we were astonished by the beauty of the art and the number of museum guards walking around preventing us from seeing any art. Now, I don’t speak that foreign “gobblygook” they speak over there in France but all I wanted was to find out where they kept my friend Mona Lisa in the museum. Thanks to Caroline, we found the gallery of Mona Lisa and there she was!! Can you see her properly? Of course you can’t! She is in that brown case with the glass, and everybody is trying to get a picture of her, but all you can get is the picture of your own flash reflected off the glass. The portrait is quite small but would fit on my living room wall quite nicely, when Louvre gets sick of her! Anyway, we also took some pictures with her and the other arts in the museum, spent about two hours there and left the Louvre to have “Le Big Mac” in famous Champ Elysee.

Listening to those “merci garcon”, “oo la la!!”, “monsieur, madame” and “ tzis is nut how we du zings in Pahreee!! “ , in four hours I really achieved a great deal of cultural absorption. Therefore, instead of having a  Big Mac, we went to a small café in Champ Elysee to have a lunch.

Champ Elysee is one of the most famous avenues in the world, stretches from Palace du La Concorde to Arc de Triomphe. There are cafes, restaurants, theatres, French cabarets, all kinds of good shops, and lots, lots of us, tourists!

Arc de Triomphe is placed in the middle of 12 biggest avenues of Paris, the largest of which is the Champ Elysee. If you fly over it you will see it drawing a star. Here is a photo of me enjoying the great view of Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Our next stop was the famous Eiffel Tower. Visiting Eiffel Tower is a must. This is one of the world’s biggest landmarks and the country’s No.1 tourist attraction. When you go to Eiffel Tower, you pay for the entrance and climb hundreds and hundreds of stairs until your knees are weak and wobbly. Then, finally you reach a point where there are no more stairs and you have to stand in the queue for 30 minutes to ride an elevator, the rest of the way at an extra charge. Basically the higher you go, the more you pay!!

Our last stop was the Sacre Coeur. This is another beautiful church located on a hill towards the northern part of the city, in Montmartre area. Climbing to the dome is almost impossible via narrow spiral stairways which always get crowded with other stubborn tourists wanting to watch same Paris for hours and hours, but from the top of the church you can see the amazing view of Paris, so it is worth a visit.

 

Nice shot isn't it?		Eiffel and us...		Here is Mona Lisa...		A better shot...		Super Cup in Paris!!!

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