Prancing through Paris - European Exploits

About an hour’s flight from Amsterdam brought my sister, Raina and me to the capital of France and the vanguard of fashion in the world, the Magnifique city of Paris! So staggering was the prospect of being in this celebrated city of love, lights, gourmet and fashion that we did not want to waste a single moment of our time here snoozing. This mega-city is home to the River Seine, stretching along its left and right banks. Although Paris is remarkably small in size (only 6 miles across!), an interesting fact to note is that it’s fundamentally divided into three layers:

• The first tier comprises houses, renowned monuments and streets that we see, know and love.

• The second tier consists of the world’s largest metro station - Paris Métro, an extensively complex underground railway system that connects 303 stations.

• The third and final tier is composed of the noted Catacombs of Paris. This underground labyrinth is a dark subterranean realm, abode to the remains of over 6 million of the city’s previous inhabitants with 1000 new burials added to this working cemetery each year. It was built in the 18th century to prevent further overflowing of the graveyards around Paris, by exhuming the bones of the dead and arranging them in the tunnels of the city’s ancient quarries.

You’ll be glad to know that all three tiers are accessible to the public!

There are four modes of transit to the main city once you reach Charles de Gaulle Airport – trains (RER), airport buses, taxis and shuttles. We opted for the RER which is a regional train network connected to all major railroad stations and metro hubs in Paris and is advisable if you aren’t travelling with heavy baggage. Taxis are perhaps the priciest alternative and airport shuttles offer door-to-door services. For more specifics on these click here!

After an interminable train ride and some power-walking through the city’s delightful streets, we reached our Airbnb apartment in the 10th arrondissement. It is essential to know that the city of Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements or administrative districts. Here is a selection of our personal favourite tourist hubs that you must make a point to visit and the arrondissements they are located in:-

The Louvre (only the best museum in the world. It’s the one with the glorious Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci) - 1st Arrondissement

Gothic Notre-Dame cathedral – 4th Arrondissement

Eiffel Tower – 7th Arrondissement

Champs-élysées (a mile long avenue studded with luxury shops, cafés and theatres) and Arc de Triomphe – 8th Arrondissement

Sacré-Cœur (The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris) – 18th Arrondissement

We were hosted by a couple of Polish-French Parisians at the Airbnb we had pre-booked. The house was quintessential of archaic French homes with creaky wooden floors, large French windows adorned with streaming white draperies and stark white walls. The room allotted to us was a converted parlour with ample space and walls decked with gothic art trappings, polaroids, an acoustic guitar hung tastefully and a table stacked with old vinyl records. The large French windows overlooked a typical Parisian street and had a cushy alcove to sit at while gazing at the happenings below.

After quickly freshening up we set out to explore the city. People in Paris (perhaps even Europe) prefer travelling by foot over any other means of transport. Walking is the best method to explore any place since you chance upon countless hidden alleys, obscure streets and covert pathways in doing so, which you would most definitely miss out on had you chosen any other means of transport. It is key in truly conceiving the essence of any place, more so a new one. A commonly perceived notion about Parisians (by other French people too) is that they are arrogant; and although we did get to experience some of that first-hand, most of the people there were super warm and friendly. It really just comes down to their culture and expectation of social etiquette. For instance, you must always greet a person with ‘Bonjour’ before talking to them otherwise they would consider it rude and probably not respond to you.

YG Travel Tip - It’s so important to imbibe and embrace the culture of a place to really understand the people it accommodates.

A common Parisian trait– almost everyone has dogs; cute, cuddly, plush doggos.

A common Parisian dog trait – THEY. JUST. DON'T. BARK. They’re legitimately the most sophisticated dog race I’ve ever come across, almost as if they were personifying Parisian behaviour itself.

After wandering around for a while we stumbled upon a neighbourhood bustling with delinquent teenagers and buzzing with psychedelic trance music. It was a party on the river banks and we were thrilled at having chanced upon one so soon! Our stroll forgotten; we headed on to the check-out the place and it was lit! After raging hard all evening till midnight, we decided to go club-hopping on the other side of town where we met a friend of Raina’s, who played our gracious host for the rest of the trip, giving us a tour of the best night-clubs and party streets there. We barely had a few forgiving hours of sightseeing, seeking out cafés and strolling through the streets of Paris in the daytime because every sundown saw us incessantly partying the night away till the sun came up the next day! We almost missed seeing the Eiffel Tower because of our relentless faire la fête! You would expect to see the iron lady jutting out of every street and rising above every building in Paris (no? just me then) but that is sadly not the case. You have to be close to the River Seine to be able to see it from a distance.

The nightclub we frequented the most was The VIP Room. It has branches in many party capitals and some of the richest cities around the world such as Dubai, Rotterdam, Sandton and Baltimore but the one in Paris exceeds them all as one of the best nightclubs in the world. Situated in the first arrondissement, a street away from the Louvre, it caters to the nouveau riche and is known for its superlative service to an exclusive clientele. It hosts celebrities like Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Mick Jagger and the likes more often than not. All three floors of the club have a 360-degree view of the elevated revolving dance floor in the center with exotic dancers sashaying atop it to sick beats. The other place we patronized was the party street in Bastille.

My profound interest in the life and times of Marie Antoinette made Versailles a focal point of this trip. I would love to devote an entire blog post to her but for now, I’ll stick to giving you a succinct backdrop since she was pivotal in precipitating the French Revolution. King Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette, Queen of France were the last monarchs to reside in the prestigious Chateau Versailles.

Marie Antoinette was an ardent lover of luxury and indulged exorbitantly at a time when France was going through a financial crisis, thus earning the name of Madame Déficit. She is credited with coining the famous phrase, “Let them eat cake” when told that the peasants had no bread to eat, although there is no proof of her actually uttering those words. The indecisiveness of Louis XVI and some false accusations against his queen led to the ultimate abolition of the monarchy and their deaths by guillotine. They’ve left behind this splendid castle with its meticulously pruned and manicured gardens and exquisite fountains. Chateau Versailles has continued to gain historical importance over the centuries, maintaining its vocation of showcasing famous artists and giving the world a glimpse into the glamorous lives of the French monarchy.

The weather in Paris was much like in Amsterdam, cloudy with sporadic showers and our magical umbrella (which we successfully smuggled from Amsterdam) followed us in our adventures here without getting lost as much. We even managed to secure it till we reached Barcelona!

YG Travel Tip – Explore the streets and local produce of any place you visit. We came across the plushiest, most velvety, succulent plums and the flakiest, melt-in-your-mouth breads in Paris. The food there is mouth-wateringly délicieux and some of the best we’ve ever tasted.

YG Travel Fact - Paris is the burial ground of many famous persons such as Jim Morrison, Napoleon Bonaparte and Oscar Wilde.

Mere hours before bidding adieu to Paris and boarding the plane to Barcelona, we realized that we still hadn’t visited the Eiffel Tower! I told Raina that we would have to fling ourselves off the plane if we left without seeing it. I shudder to think how close we came to that possibility. It was around 1 am when we saw the colossal edifice standing proudly at the fringe of River Seine with her face in the stars, adorned in golden lights. It was sensational! As we neared it, the customary night-time light display started off with the entire structure melting away before our eyes as the lights went off for what felt like an eternity, when all of a sudden little diamonds of white light frosted the entire length of the Iron Lady, twinkling away in a rhythmic waltz. The spectacle lasted an hour instead of the habitual 10-minute light display put on every night. At one point the tower was embellished in the colours of the French flag. It was stupendous!

Seeing the Eiffel Tower glimmering away in all its glory just before leaving was probably the best way to end our Parisian escapades. It was the city’s way of bidding us goodbye before we were ushered along to the summer lands of Barcelona...