Behind the scene

This video was taken at Walt Disney Studios Paris! We loved the experience!

Louvre

This is a museum.... I can't really explain the beauty and intricacies...of all that is displayed there... Its a huge collection and some of the size of paintings are larger than the floor area of my home...and it has over 35000 pieces of art...and you really cant do justice in 2 or 3 hours....

but as I said earlier...I am glad we went and saw the rich heritage of France....

Here is the link to few photos we managed to take.

We had lunch after wards...and was disappointed that we could not do any shopping as most shopping centres are close don Sunday...then we headed off to hotel to catch our train back...Needless to say we were really tired and was glad to be back on our own beds!

Notre Dame Cathedral

We took the Batobus service and went to Notre Dame...

What a Church and what architecture....

It allows you free entry and a mass was going on at that time....

A link to its history!

We had dinner overlooking the Cathedral before we headed to the hotel after a walk in illuminated Paris!

Eiffel Tower

We headed off to Eiffel Tower....The crowds were unbeleivable...so if you are visitng Paris on a weekend in Summer give yourself an hour to queue apart from the travel time!

They were also all kinds of people begging , touts selling souveniers...

It reminded me of any tourist destination in India....

I was several times approached by ladies who ask you for money ...the first question they ask is "Do you speak English?"Then they show you a written "Sob story" and start pestering you for money....I learnt my lesson soon and started saying NO..I don't speak English and it worked..atleast they didnt pester!

Even the toilets had a queue and you needed half hour to access one...

Was quite disillusioned by all this....but the view from top of the Eiffel tower was out of the world...we had clear skies...and the enginering marvel cannot be but admired....
A slice of the view from the Top Tower

Eiffel Tower at night!

We have so far done:
Day 1
Disney Parks -both
Day 2
Versailles
Eiffel Tower

Versailles

Day 2 Morning

We set off to Versailles and reached before 10 AM as planned

The queue was long and we ended up queuing in for tickets then for entry and security...

The palace itself was well worth a visit...

The only foolish thing I ended up doing was buying a ticket for the palace and the gardens....but we really didnt have time for both...so if you have less than 4 hours buy a ticket only for the palace....

In case you are as ignorant as I am -It is one of the world's heritage sites and represent the finest and most accomplished achievement of 17th century French Art!
King Louis XIV installed his court and government there.

We never had time beyond the palace...

There was indeed a lot of crowd not sure if this was a regular weekend phenomenon!
The palace is well worth a visit...and the size and magnitude will surprise any one of modern times!

I am grateful to my cousin who had insisted that we do this if we visit Paris...atleast you have an idea of whats there!

Here is the link to photos

Versailles and Eiffel Tower

Paris - Disney Land Park

Paris - Day 1

We had consciously chosen to do the DisneyLand Park - the first day so that the kids find the trip fun.

One of the tips I can offer is buy the tickets before hand online its cheaper and you save the pain of standing in one queue.
At the gate do not forget to ask for a Fast Pass....it really helps if you know what u want to cover...I did not do much home work on this as it was not my first Disney Park....so kind of knew what to expect.

It was crowded( perhaps because of summer holidays) although most activities could be done within an hour or so..

Anyways it was divided into

Adventure Land
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Only activity we managed to do is the Pirates of the Caribbean (Activity 1)

FrontierLand
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We actually never ended up doing any ride there...although we managed to take Fast Pass tickets for Big Thunder Mountain - (the wait time was 180 minutes)

Main Street
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We roamed around in a lot of shops...and had Pop Corn at 7 Euros that is around Rs.500/-...although Candy Floss was half the price of a pop corn!!
It did rain....I had brought raincoats for the girls...so it didn't disturb our plans...and so make sure u check the weather for the day...

Fantasy Island
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We did all the rides - Peter Pan's Flight,Mad Hatters Tea Cups and Its a small World!
(activities 2,3,4)
Adventure Land
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This is where we spent most of our time and the girls enjoyed these the most!
Buzz Light Year LAser Blast ( 2 times) (Activity 5 and 6)...
Videopolis- We had bothe lunch and dinner watching disney movies here!
Star Tours - Riona loved this and was her favourite ( Did that twice! ) ( Activity 7 and 8)-a spaceflight simulator
We did Autopia (Activity 9)

Then we still needed to cover the second Park
Walt Disney Studios Park

We did Armageddon Special effect (Activity 10)
Cine Magique - (Activity 11)
Stitch Live (Activity 12)
Studio Tram Tour (Activity 13)- This was just fantastic....

We also went on disny train...(Activuty 14)

All in all it was a hectic and fun day for kids...
We did not wait for the fireworks as it was at 5 past 11pm...was jsut not sure if the girls can take more than 12 hours of non stop activity,,so we finally left at 10 pm to head back to the hotel for a well dessrved sleep!



Here are the photos taken - Disney Photos!

Paris by Eurostar

It was the first time any of us have been on the Eurostar.

There was a sense of excitement and apprehension on what would be the procedures.

Once you reach St Pancras International you first clear security check in and swipe through with your ticket.

Then you have immigration by French authorities and then the boarding.The whole process does take about half hour so it makes sense to be there an hour prior to departure.

If you are a group travelling like we were it makes a lot of sense to have a tables style seating where you face each other...else its like a flight - row of seats.
It has two coaches selling some basic food sandwiches and snacks.

The Eurostar experience was nothing "out of the world".Although when you read the history you can help but appreciate the wonders of "engineering" behind it

It was just another train journey.

We felt it was faster after crossing the Channel in France.




We arrived in Paris and decided to take a ticket on the Metro to the hotel!

We also bought a 3 day Metro Pass that will allow us to use all trains in the six zones in and around Paris.It saves a lot of time other than buying tickets each time you board the train.

The Metro journey was not as pleasant as I perceived it to be.
It was crowded even at that time of night.Trains were not vry clean and all the glasses had writings of several types on it.

We were happy to be in the hotel by about 11 PM all set to start a early morning the next day!