(I'm in Lyon now, finally got some time and Internet, so writing quick updates now)
Had a hearty breakfast today: yogurt, cereal, croissants, jams, Nutella, cheese, cold cuts, tea, juice. The area around hotel is mostly quiet, but the next street contains a market, full of fruit, veggies, seafood, various trinkets, people, cigarette butts, urinating dogs and so on. It's nice to be able to buy some cheap fruit though.
So we woke up, had the aforementioned breakfast and took off to see Champs Elisees and Arc de Triumph. Had a pleasant stroll along the most famous street in the world, checked out the crowds of tourists, overpriced stores and even more overpriced restaurants. The place is as charming and lively as always! :) The magnificent Arc towers over the whole length of the Champs Elisees, you can see it from any point of the street, so we looked back often on our way to Place de Concorde, where we met Julia's cousin and her husband again.
They lead us to Louvre via some small streets, filled with fancy boutiques. We admired the magestic ex-palace-now-museum and it's new pyramid-entrances for a while (which seemed too short, as always) and walked across Seine to the Latin Quarter, where we spent some time sipping drinks (6€ glass of water - ouch!), people-watching and chatting.
A bit later we went to island Cite and had another eyeful of Notre Dame and check out Saint Chapel, which nearly rivals the famous cathedral in beauty.
Then we crossed another bridge and checked out Hotel de Ville (City Hall) for a while, took some quick peeks into some stores (a lot of clothes and shoes were on sale that day in Paris) and walked to the hillariously inverted Centre Pompedu (modern art museum). A nice lady in the ticket office told us that museum will be free next day (first sunday of the month), so we left with the intent to come back tomorrow.
To use up the free time we suddenly acquired, we went to the Paris's business centre - La Defance. It's not in the actual center of the city, like in most places, but a rather long subway ride away. However the trip was well worth it - the area is dominated by an enormous arch-like skyscraper, maybe 60-70 stories tall. It is also surrounded by a multitude of strangely shaped buildings, mostly offices of large companies. The likeness of the area to the futuristic space town is improved with a glass sphere movie theatre, alien-like statues and a crazy fountain, filled with odd spirally multycoloured semaphore thingies.
Paris Day 2
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Paris, Île-de-France, France
Other Entries
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1Packing time
Jul 013 days priorToronto, Canadaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
2Successful Arrival to Paris
Jul 031 day priorParis, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
3Paris Day 2
Jul 04Paris, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
4Paris Day 3
Jul 051 day laterParis, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
5Berne
Jul 062 days laterBern, Switzerlandphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
6Interlaken
Jul 073 days laterInterlaken, Switzerlandphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
7Geneva
Jul 084 days laterGeneva, Switzerlandphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
8Lyon Day 1
Jul 095 days laterLyon, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
9Lyon Day 2
Jul 106 days laterLyon, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
10Nice Day 1
Jul 117 days laterNice, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
11Nice Day 2
Jul 128 days laterNice, Francephoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
12Monaco
Jul 139 days laterMonaco, Monacophoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
13Barcelona Day 2
Jul 1612 days laterBarcelona, Spain and Canary Islandsphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
14Montserrat
Jul 1713 days laterMontserrat, Spain and Canary Islandsphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
15Back Home!
Jul 1915 days laterToronto, Canadaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0
Comments

2025-02-08
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juliettka
2009-07-08
From Jules :)
The first night I woke up at 7 - guess the time-zone difference - and was patiently listening to Dima's snoring while doing everything useful that I could think of until 8:30, at which time I kicked him out of bed as breakfast was closing soon :)
Champs-Elysees were uplifting... The walk to get to Louvre was nice, though it was going around the Tuileries Garden instead of going through it (my cousin didn't want to go in because of the dust-like sand that the parisian parks have for surface).
And Defence is grand!! After 2 days of running amongst crazy crowds of Paris (plus lack of sleep, plus 31 degree heat, plus jet lag), we were exhausted. Defence with its vast spaces and lack of crowds provided a welcome break :) If you ever have some free time in Paris, do go see Defence - it's a place from time travel area... ;)