Got inspired with friends, I finally got into the blog world...
Hmmm... Where should I start the very first blog from!!.... How about starting it with my Paris Trip..
We had official visit in France (Grenoble) for Transistor Festival. After three days of technical session, we visited Paris – Full time away from work………
Day-1 (29th August)
Thursday morning we left Grenoble and reached in Paris at Gare de l’Est station. Shashank quickly located the hotel where we have advance booking for three rooms, we entered into hotel lobby. We were greeted by reception, an African beauty with big & bold eyes and perfect face-cut, her hair was nicely dressed and decorated; she look-alike a fresh poem of the Peris-Morning. We checked in and took rest in our rooms; after a while, we picked the Peris map and started our début visite de Paris……
It was Saint-Jacques tower; his (Jacques) giant statue is situated there at the center part of the fully symmetric tower; the place surrounded by small and beautiful garden where we got a first glimpse of the usual love-life-style of Peris, which we abhorred lightly and leaved the place…. Ironically, we can see such scene in almost all Hindi Movie and in small screen of the drawing room, which we generally watch with family and enjoy. So, Saint-Jacques was the first “person” we met in Paris; we walked out from the garden and saw a very big old building ahead of us. We liked the building and headed toward it; as we arrived at the place we came to know that the place was the Hotel de Ville; after taking few snaps, we crossed the bridge and headed toward ‘Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral’. The foundation of this place was done in 1160 by Bishop of Paris; the construction of the two towers was finished in 1250. During the French Revolution, Norte-Dame was damaged by Parisian rebel and restoration was done in 1841.
One amazing things we saw in the beautiful garden of Norte Dame is love between kids and birds. More than 100 birds were playing around with kids. Whenever any kid offers small piece of bread, the tweeting birds comes and sit gently on kids fingers and they eat the bread serenely. However, amazingly, the birds never take bread if a grown-up offers them. Nevertheless, I took few abortive attempts to offer the bread to the loving birds.
After Norte-Dame, we walked along the seine river (quai) line and saw several tourist-motor-boats passing by. In addition, we did the first phase of shopping from nearby footpath, the shopping was proven to be little costly. Four hours of time flew in second and it was already 6:00PM we got to rush to the hotel as we had schedule to meet the guide near the hotel at 7:00PM. We took metro-line and reached at hotel on time.
We met guide Tom. In addition, several other tourists from different part of the world (UK, Germany, India, USA, etc) were present. The guide explains us in German for 20 minutes; and for non-German-tourist, he translated into English within 5 minutes what a translation-efficiency he got!. The guide took us to tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse tower). We took ticket and get to the top of the 210 meter long building. The lift took less than a minute to get us on the top. The scene from the tower was amazing; we could see each part of the Paris from the top-roof (terrace) of the tower. Eiffel tower was very clearly visible. There was a restaurant at the top floor of the tower. After spending almost 2 hours on terrace, we felt hungry and came down to the top floor restaurant and started checking the menu for some vegetarian foods. Shashank has got lots of stuff for him; but nothing for vegetarianL. Luckily, One of my friend was carrying ready-made noodle, however, to prepare the noodle we need hot water. We had to struggle a lot to get two cups of hot water!.. Finally, we got the hot water, prepared the noodle, and stated enjoying the noodle and top view of Paris.
Just 15 minute before the sunset, we went to the terrace to watch the sunset and the illumination of Eiffel Tower. The sunset was amazing, we took Sun in our mouth…. we met Indian looking Uncle and Aunty and chitchatted with them. They were British (Indian origin). We become good friend; and aunty told us that she has son working as an engineer in Metro under-ground train; she has daughter in law of British origin. During sunset, uncle has narrated sunset related poem; at the age of 55+, they were enjoying their life immensely. After watching sunset, we took Metro and went to the hotel. Near the hotel, we walked around to check if we have some good Indian restaurant. We saw a restaurant named Bombay. We get inside the restaurant and had good Indian style foods. After having food, we walked around a while, get inside the hotel-room, and slept soundly.
Day-2 (30th August)
In the next morning (Friday), we had to reach to Gare de l’Est by 8:00AM (for site seeing with Guide). We got ready and went into the hotel-lobby for break-fast – big cup of coffee, egg, bread, Milk and juice and butter. After breakfast we headed toward the Gare de l’Est and got into the bus. The bus started for site seeing. It roamed around with all sort of places of Paris and each and every place was being explained by Tom the Guide. Being illiterate, we hardly understand any of the German words/sentences. Tom had made it clear that it is rule to explain in German if the tour is started from Germany (if majorities are German tourist). It was nightmare for us to tolerate three continuous hours with highly and speedy bombardment of the words that weren’t ringing the bell to us. Finally, we got relief, when Tom gives us 20 minutes time to spend near the Eiffel tower. We got down the bus, roam around the tower, took snap, and did quick footpath shopping. After 20 minutes, we again get into the bus and German tour started in France. Tom got us near the hotel and asked us to get ready for tomorrow (Versailles tour) at 1:30PM.
After taking lunch, we planned to visit Montmartre and then Eiffel tower.
We took Metro and reached to Montmartre. The hill of Montmartre is the highest point in the capital city; there situated a sacred heart chapel. After searching in Google, I found two very controversy views for this district Montmartre. Some historian believes that it was Mons Martyrium and is design to commemorate the martyrs Dennis. However, other claim that the name is a deformated form of Mons Mercurii (mountain of mercury god) and that a temple dedicated to Mercury, the roman god of trade & travelers, was located here.
In 1873, Pope Pius IX approved to build Basilica for worship of Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sacre-Coeur). It is built in Roman style. We went inside of Basilica Church, have remembered Jesus for 10 minutes, roamed around, and have taken glimpse of fine art works where different angels, Jesus, Marrium were depicted over and around the wall of the church. It was first time I visited any church. (Though in my hometown, I very often visit Temple and Mosque). I got fascinated seeing in church from inside at very first time. Being born in Muslim I used to do ‘dhayan of god’ and pray for prophets (Adam/Abraham/Moses /Jacob/Jesus/Marrium/Mohammad) in Mosque; however, it is first time I did the ‘dhyan of god’ and pray for prophets in Church; along with spiritual darshan, I got visual darshan of gods that were depicted all over the wall…... (Interestingly or ironically, in Russia, churches still adhere to old testimony and they never put any image of the god/Jesus/angel inside the church. Russian church has a natural art of non-living-things without any image of any person/god/angel).
Out-side of the Basilica church, music artistes were showing their art of music; also, the place has several artists of fine artist/caricature/etc. Great place to hang out.
After visiting the historical church, we took Metro-line from Montmartre and reached to Chrles de Gaulle; we roam around the Arc de Triamphe (The India gate like structure); it is dedicated to the French Army between 1789 to 1815. Near to this place there was a Mc’D; we went inside to grab some burger/French fries (Alas! French fries aren’t famous in France at all). We took Fries and chitchat for a while. It was nice talk with nice thoughtful comments on the students of engineering colleges; we had great time. From there, we walked past several shops, got into the nearest metro-line, and reached to Champ de Mars (near the Eiffel tower). We spent evening near and around the Eiffel tower and have watched the live French dance-show being played by some local musician/artist.
Day-3 (31st August)
There wasn’t much pressure on us on Saturday Morning, as we have to roam around ourselves till 1:30PM. In the morning, I took lazy breakfast and leisurely spent about two hours in hotel lobby by taking sip of coffee and reading tourist magazine and chit-chatting with friends. We leave the hotel at 9:30AM. Deciding to visit Louvre, we took metro-line and reached to Louvre Rivoli. We walked through the place and saw the big giant Mahal kind of structure; initially, we weren’t sure if entries is allowed in the building; ony of my friend went ahead to check if entries is allowed; she beckoned us to get in. This building was raised by Philip Augustus in 1190 to protect the right bank of Paris. It was designed as symbol of Royal Authority. The structure was demolished and then was raised again in 1528; the new structure is what we see now. In 1682, the king moved from Louvre to Versailles. We took few snaps and went to backyard of the building where we saw huge pyramid made of glasses; the place is contrasted with old and new creativities. After whiling quality time inside the Royal Place, we visited nearby shops and spent few hours in shopping.
Initially, we had a plan to go to Versailles (the biggest fort of the world), but we had to drop the plan and decided to visit ‘Galeries Lafayette Paris’. We spent 15 minutes and have done lots of window-shopping; actually, the shopping mall was not for poor guys like me. The Lafayette is shopping place of millionaire and billionaire, however, for us, it is a lovely and live place to get inspired and do hard work to become millionaire/billionaire.
In the evening, we went to Norte Dam; there we roam around and chitchatted for several hours; just after sunset, we took City Bus and came back to hotel. We had pizza at the nearest restaurant and made plan to catch ‘train’ for morning ‘flight’.
We decided to keep 5 hours margin to get into airport and planned to get ready by 5:45AM. We went back to our hotel room completed our packing and slept soundly. Shashank had given me wakeup call at 4:45AM; I woke up immediately; but somehow, I slept again and woke up at 5:50AM. Friends were waiting for me outside. I got ready in ultra-sonic speed and checked out the hotel by 6:10AM.
At the very beginning, we were 25 minutes behind our plan and got in heavy pressure; however, we reached airport well ahead of time and waited almost 45 minutes before air-France counter was opened for check-in. we had enough time at airport for shopping etc….. After a while, we boarded the plane and flew back to our city Bangalore.
