Aug 15, 2013
We woke up really really early as we have to catch the train to Paris at 7AM. We prob checked out from the hotel by 5.30AM, walked to the nearest tram station which is only opposite the hotel, across the river. I can’t remember how much we paid for the tram, but it took us straight to Brussels Midi Station. I remembered that you have to pay for public toilets in Brussels, whereas it’s free in the UK. As we haven’t eaten anything for breakfast, we stopped by one of the few cafes that are opened at that hour in the train station, Sam’s Cafe. I opted for hot chocolate (cecemel) and YS had cappucino while we both have a croissant each. The hot chocolate at Sam’s cafe is the BEST hot chocolate I’ve drank in my life. I don’t know if all hot chocolate are this good in Belgium, but oh my god.. they are GOOD! They are not made from powder and you can taste instantly that it’s made with real chocolate. SO GOOD! If you ever go to Belgium, just drink everything chocolate and you shouldn’t go wrong. 🙂 
Pics: Waiting for tram in Brussels at the break of dawn; Sam’s Cafe in Bussels Midi Station; Best Hot Choc I had from Sam’s Cafe; Leaving for Paris Nord!
From Brussels, it’s only an hour’s ride to Paris Gare du Nord Station. Again, I slept throughout the journey. Our thalys tickets to Paris only cost us 22euro each and we reached Paris close to 8:30AM. I still remember the feeling. It felt kind of surreal. I know I’m really in Paris and I just wanted to soak in everything. I remember smurfs 2 were playing then in the cinema and I see advertisements of it everywhere in Paris, even on the train. YS’s parents and bro will be arriving Paris Nord from Amsterdam that day too but they will be arriving much later, close to 12PM or so. Not knowing where our booked apartment is (R booked it for us from airbnb) we decided to wait for them in the train station. We looked for luggage lockers for our luggages and there’s some available at the LG of the train station. After putting away the luggages, we went out of the station to explore. We walked across the street and saw McDonalds. Curious to know whether it’s cheaper in Paris compared to Aus, we went in to have a look. To our disappointment, McD in Paris is pretty pricey. We were obviously hoping for UK prices haha. I didn’t get to see if there’s any special menus exclusively for Mcdonalds in France tho. Anyway, most of the shops around are not open at that time yet. So we’d decided to walk elsewhere. YS found an attraction nearby using his GPS and we decided to go and have a look not knowing that it was actually Sacré-Cœur Basilica, Montmatre (score!) lol. It is just a short walk from the train station to Montmatre. 
Pics: Around Gare du Nord, Paris
From Gare du Nord we walk north along Bd de Magenta, turned left into Bd de Rochechouart, then right into Rue de Clignantcourt. There’s another McD at the junction into Rue d’Orsel. We walked some more along Rue d’orsel which ultimately becomes Pl. st-Piere. We can clearly see Sacre Coure on our right but before that, there’s a row of cafes on the left. I was beginning to feel hungry again and we decided to have our second breakfast at Le Ronsard facing directly Sacré-Cœur Basilica! The view from our table is just beautiful! We opted for two of their breakfast sets, Petit dejeuner ala francaise and petit dejeuner al’anglais which directly translates as french breakfast and english breakfast with a glass of orange juice and a choice of coffee or tea. They sell crepes too. Come to think of it, I should have eaten crepe instead. Not that the breakfast set I’ve chosen wasn’t good, it was. It’s just that I didn’t get the chance to eat french crepe in france over the next few days. So.. yeah kinda regretted not trying that. Oh well… there’s always another time 😀 I think I’ll definitely come back Paris. 4 days isn’t enough. Not only Paris, but the smaller towns in France too. 
Pics: Our breakfast view of Sacré-Cœur Basilica; menu; our french and english breakfast.
After our hearty breakfast, we went up to Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Sacré-Cœur Basilica, or, sacred heart is a roman catholic church and is opened from 6AM – 10:30PM everyday (Wikipedia). It is located at the top of Montmatre hill and the view from Sacré-Cœur Basilica overlooking Paris city is absolutely stunning! There’s a harpist playing on the staircase towards the church and he plays amazingly! I had goosebumps when I heard him play. I video-ed him playing on my camera but for some bizarre reasons I could’nt find the file anymore. I’m abit saddened by this. I would really love to hear it again. We had to que a little to enter the church and there was a mass going on. Most visitors basically kind of just walked a small loop going in from one end and out the other. The church is huge, but then again, most european churches are. The view itself tho is already a good reason to come up here. From the basilica, we walked down the stairs located on the left and got us to a very famous landmark in Paris. Alot of photos of paris were shot here, the stairs itself. There was a guy training himself by running up and down the stairs. Crazy. What kinda sports is he trying out I wondered for him to train like that. 
Pics: Sacré-Cœur Basilica
Pics: Steps on the left side of Sacré-Cœur Basilica
From there we made our way back to Gare du Nord. As there’s still a little time left, we went to get our luggages and rest at one of the stalls in the station. After a while, the parents and R arrived. R then guided us to the local metro stations and from Gare du Nord, we rode to Réaumur – Sébastopol station, changed line and got ourselves to Quatre-Septembre station. From there, it is just a short walk to our rented apartment located at 11, Rue Saint-Augustin. R had rented the apartment through airbnb. Airbnb is a great website to look for apartments or rooms to rent either the whole apartment, or shared with the owner. Often, they provide WIFI and are usually located at very prime locations and for a much cheaper rate compared to hotels. As we’re travelling in a group of 5 ppl, renting a whole apartment seems to be the most economical way of travelling. Not only that, we have our own kitchen to utilise too and that served as a really good way of saving on our europe trip. We prepared our own breakfast on most mornings and sometimes dinner too. Often the owner/representative of the apartment will organise a time to meet up with you to hand over the keys. Sometimes they leave the keys in a code protected box located outside the apartment to which they will let you know the code upon confirmation and payment. “Check out” is simple, most of the time it’s just leaving the keys in the house itself as they will have another spare key to come in. If you haven’t heard of airbnb, I highly recommend to try it for your next travel plans. 
Pics: Taking the metro train from Gare du Nord St -> Réaumur – Sébastopol -> Quatre-Septembre station; YS and R chatting in the train.
Pics: Our rented apartment in Paris.
After “checking in” into our apartment, we freshen up ourselves and I changed into a more comfortable T-shirt as i was wearing a sweater before and it is HOT in paris! The average temperature throughout our stay in Paris is around 30-33C, sunny. Their sunlight is as bright as Australia’s, sometimes cloudless too like Aussie on a good sunny day. We all put on our sunscreens, just in case. We then went out to explore Paris! Our apartment is pretty close to the Louvre actually so it’s at the prime location. We walked east, then south along Rue de Viviene, passing Galerie Viviene, onto Rue la Fuillade before reaching a very cool roundabout call Pl. des Victoires. 
Pics: There are many japanese restaurant around our apartment neighbourhood; there are also alot of space invaders on Parisian walls; Galerie Vivienne; Pl. des Victoires
We turned left on the Esprit (the clothes store) junction into Rue Etienne Marcel. We walked along Rue Etienne Marcel for quite a while. Along the street were rows of electric cars charging at the roadside. I’ve also learnt that Parisians are terrible at parking their cars. They park like magic, leaving only 1-5mm of space in between cars. How on earth did they park and how do they get out? It still remains a mystery to me til this day. I once saw a car basically kissing another car’s ass. Anyway, we finally got to Rue Tiquettone and decided to have lunch at Le Cafe (62 rue Tiquetonne, 75002 Paris, France (Opéra)). Food was good but too much for me especially since I had two breakfast. Lol…
Pics: Electric cars charging by the roadside; How parisians park their cars!
Pics: Our lunch at Le Cafe.
After lunch, we walked to Centre Pompidou, served as a library, centre of music and acoustic research, as well as a modern arts museum. Arts and cultures aside, the building itself is pretty famous for its architectural design. I know so, because R is an architect and alot of our sight seeing planned by him includes alot of famous architectural buildings. My take on the building? It looks very industrial and doesn’t look like your typical grand looking museums. In fact, pipes are used as walkways and it’s all steels and metals. We didn’t go inside, but even from ourside it doesn’t seem like it has a shell. It’s interesting, though I don’t know if I will call it a beauty. 
Pics: Around Centre Pompidou
Next, we walk south passing by city hall, walked across Pont d’Arcole bridge where we saw lots of ppl sunbathing along siene river where the sides of the pedestrian walkway has been transformed into a virtual beach covered with sand and beach umbrellas. It was St. Mary’s that day too and there was a parade happening nearby as from here, we are very near Notre Dame Cathedral! Possibly due to St mary, the crowd is horrible! They have also built stand like seats in front of the cathedral so alot of ppl were concentrated at that area and it was so hard for us to take a good picture. I could hardly get a good look of it. The que was also superbly long. Sigh. I think I should plan the next Paris visit in the winter where there’s lesser tourists. The cathedral tho is exactly as what I’ve imagined. The western facade was where Quasimodo had sang and ran at in the Hunchback of Notre Dame! The gargoyles are exactly like i’ve imagined too, though a little bit scarier. It looked demonish almost. I don’t get the concept of using evil looking things to ward off evil spirits. But an interesting fact, did you know that gargoyles actually served as an output for water from the roof caused by rain in order to “prevent rainwater from running down the walls and eroding the mortar between”? Wikipedia sure is useful 🙂 I have also learnt the ugly sides of gypsies. While esmeralda just seemed like an ordinary girl from a poor background trying to make ends meet, the actual gypsies in paris are thieves which aren’t shameful at all at what they are doing. Often you will see a gang of them together either trying to scam you to do a survey while the others surrounds you and starts pick-pocketing or they just surrounds you and try to take something out from you bags. A woman caught a few gypsy kids trying to steal something from her husband and stopped them, instead of feeling horrified or ashamed, they just walked away like nothing happened. We are fortunate that we have not been pick pocketed throughout our whole europe journey. Just keep in mind that theft rates in the europe are very high, more so than southeast asia. The number of stories I’ve heard (especially in cheaper train couches) are alarming. 
Pics: City Hall, Pont d’Arcole bridge with fake “beach”, St Mary’s parade and Notre Dame Cathedral.
We chilled a little by Siene river, resting our legs a little from the walk and enjoying the breeze and scenery. Even though congested with tourists, the river was still pretty quiet and peaceful. Paris sure is beautiful! By now we are already walking back east and before long, we found ourselves on one of the love bridges of Paris, Pont des Arts! The amount of locks on the rails of that bridge is crazy! Some were so full that ppl actually climbed the pole and hanged it on top of the lamp post. I wondered who started the idea. There must be thousands of keys underneath the river. I wondered if the chemical composition of the river water is different compared to others. It has to be, surely? It’s a very touristy thing to do for lovers in Paris I think to put a lock on that bridge. There were many souvenir stalls along the siene selling locks. I wondered if locals actually does it? Anyway, we didn’t leave any locks but took our time reading others. It was sweet nonetheless. 
Pics: Relaxing by Siene River; Pont des Arts bridge
We crossed Pont Des Arts and found ourselves right infront of the Louvre! It was closed that day (St. Mary’s is a public holiday perhaps?) so the crowd wasn’t too bad. However, we didn’t get to go in. HOnestly, I wasn’t sure even if I want to go in if it’s opened. All that que to see a small little painting of Mona Lisa from afar really wasn’t that appealing. I know there are many more wonderful artworks and historical monuments on showcase but again, I must stress that I’m not an arts fanatic. I’m a very science and maths kind of person. The only form of art I truly appreciate is performing arts. Having said that, I must say the Louvre itself is magnificent. I.M Pei did a fantastic job creating that modern glass pyramid in contrast with the medieval grand fortress of the Louvre Palace. Many tourists must-take photos of the Louvre were trying to hold the pyramid on their palms. We made YS’s parents hold the tip of the pyramids. Lol. 
After Louvre, it was close to dinner time. We decided to walk back to our apartment which isn’t that far away and R and YS went to neighbouring supermarket to get some food for breakfast and dinner. They came back almost 2 hours later, with enough ingredients to cook Carbonara pasta. We also had a bottle of wine and some orange juice, and also some ice cream for desserts! It wasn’t french, but it’s good! *Self praising* hahaha.. After dinner, YS, R and I went out again to the Louvre for night shots. Though, I’m not too good with night shots yet and wasn’t able to get a really good picture of it. *Sad* 😦 
Pics: Cooking our carbonara dinner 🙂
Pics: Night shots
And that my friend, ends our first night in Paris.
—FIN—
YS has returned from his China business trip. Won’t be updating as much I’m afraid. I’ll try to do it whenever I can. 🙂
I’ve realised that August isn’t a really good time to visit Europe. Every shop seems to be closed. Everyone seems to be on holiday. And this is pretty consistent in Italy too. So, if you’re planning to visit Europe, avoid August. We found some bakeries and bought a few croissants for breakfast. I was actually quite disappointed with it. It wasn’t buttery, it wasn’t as flaky as I’ve hoped and it wasn’t as fragrant. I’m sure I just went to the wrong shop. I just thought things like croissants are staple French food and should be good anywhere. I was wrong. Anyway, the day was spent slightly away from the main area of Paris. We visited the Père Lachaise Cemetery, home of many famous poets and writers. Oscar Wilde was laid to rest here. As we are travelling with YS’s parents who are use to asian food, we looked for some chinese food for lunch. Chinese food in Melbourne is a lot better, that’s all I can say. After that, we went to the Pantheon. According to Wikipedia, it was “originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve but has now function as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens”. Didn’t know that before going. No wonder Victor Hugo and the Curies tombs are here! We then shopped a little at Lafayette too. For dinner, we went to a Japanese ramen shop that seem to do really decent ramen broth. There is a big pot of soup boiling in front of the shop filled with all sorts of ingredients, including apples, and it looked amazing. This shop is very near our rented apartment and seems to be packed every time we pass by. We decided to give it a go on our last night in Paris, and, it was a good find!
Blueish purple 