Planning

Finally I was in the city of LOVE with my better half :-), this was our first trip to Europe together and we were quite excited about it.

I do a lot of planning before visiting a new place and since this was my second visit to Paris so it was quite easier for me to plan, keeping in mind that I should try different things which I have not done before. So it all started in March when I started looking out for the flight tickets.

I knew that there is something called Euro Tunnel (below sea level) which connects UK to France because I had been in that tunnel once in a bus but never tried the train journey. So I looked out for ticket on Eurostar website(Train Service) and booked it.

Tip: If you book it in advance then it would be cheaper else very expensive. I got it for 116 GBP return for 2 person, in general the cost would be more than 300 GBP return for 2 person.

Dates: 17th June 2017 - 20th June 2017
From: London
To: Paris

Before I move ahead, I must recommend you all Eurostar journey from London to Paris. It is such an awesome experience.

Okay!! so we had 4 days including travel to roam around Paris and make most of it. Paris is a big city, so if do not plan properly then you might miss various things. I started searching hotels and prioritizing the must visit things on a piece of paper. And the plan was below:

• Stay: Hotel Beauvoir 
• 17th June: Eiffel Tower
• 18th June: Museums, Ferry Tour & Notre Dame
• 19th June: Disneyland
• 20th June: Shopping

Now it was time to book whatever things I could to avoid last minute hassle, so I booked the below things online:

1. Hotel Beauvoir: It was a mistake because the rooms were not great. I could have got much better option some where else. So definitely I am not recommending it.
2. Disneyland Entry: Booked same day ticket for both the Park and Studio. At end regretted because it not possible to visit both the parks in same day.
3. Combo Pass: This is a special Pass offered by "Just Ring" which contains Priority entry for Lourve, Ferry Tour ticket and 1 day unlimited travel using any transportation.  This was delivered directly to my hotel before my Check in, so no hassle at all to buy tickets by being in the queue.

Check out my experience for each day in other posts of this blog.

Day 1 : 17th June 2017

We started from woking(our home) during mid day and reached London St. Pancras International train station in an hour to board Eurostar.

This was our first experience in International train service, so we took arrived one and half hours before departure. It was a huge station and looked stunning just like an Airport. It took us sometime to locate the platform but we made it quickly.

The best part of Eurostar is that you can save lots of time in Travel and Immigration, because journey from London to Paris is just 2.5 hours. And Immigration will not be done in Paris instead It will be completed in London itself. So when you reach paris, you can directly walk outside and save lots of time.

Once Immigration was completed, we went to the platform waiting area and boarded the train around 15:15 PM. The first thing you will notice is the Eurostar trains, they are so cool :).

   Here we go!!! The journey started :-), with lots of excitement. It took 45 mins to reach Euro tunnel and once the train is inside the tunnel it is all black outside the window. So it was the best time to take a quick nap.

We reached "Gare Du Nord" (Paris train station) in exactly 2.5 hours, 18:50 PM local time. Since all the immigration procedure was completed in London so we just walked out side. With my prior Paris experience, I knew about 10 tickets booklet so I just bought it for Metro travel to my Hotel.

**10 tickets booklet gives an option to utilise your ticket according to your need. 1 ticket is valid for 1 travel without coming out of the station inside city zones. They are slightly cheaper also if you compare with individuals tickets.

We reached Port Royal metro station around 19:15 PM, it was just in front of our hotel. When we came out of the metro then we realised it's quite hot outside(35° C). It was one of the hottest week of the year in Paris :(. We checked in the hotel, the "Ring Go Paris Lite Pass" was waiting for us in the hotel. I should mention that Ring Go has a great service. I will mention the items included in the pass in next day blog, when I will use it.

We entered our room, the room was so small and very hot from inside. When we realised that there is no AC and fan then I went to the desk to request if they can change my room as it is very hot and humid. But the request was denied and we are kind of stuck there :( due to the prepaid accommodation.

** Hotel Beauvoir: It looks good on the website and has a good rating as well but from my experience it is not at all value for money and I would not recommend it.

It was time to visit one of the seven wonder of the world "Eiffel Tower", after staying 30 minutes in the room we took the metro to visit Eiffel. Personally I love to visit the Eiffel tower in the night and just keep looking at it from garden around it. There would be so many people sitting around this monument of love. I captured the first look of Eiffel in the evening.

We stood in the long queue to get the tickets for "Sommet" (top floor on Eiffel). The view from Sommet is just breath taking, you can pananormic view of PARIS.

Eiffel in the night:

After a journey from London to Paris and excitement of EIFFEL, Day 1 ended.

Day 2 : 18th June 2017

This morning I woke up and started prioritising then monument which I was about to visit. It was the time to utilise the Ring Go Paris Pass.

I planned below for the day:

1. Louvre Museum 
2. Notre-Dame Church
3. Cruise Sightseeing
4. Eiffel tower 

Our day started around 9 AM when we left our hotel to visit "Lourve" museum. Metro is the best option to go to Lourve, there is one metro station situated in the museum basement.

It took only 15 mins to reach there and the first thing I noticed there is the size, it is HUGE. Second thing you will notice is the queue, although there are multiple entrance but still the queue would be very long.

Thanks to Ring Go for the priority pass tickets(free with Paris Pass), we entered in the museum in just 5 mins. So we are finally inside the museum to see different types of Arts present in the world. This museum is mainly famous for "Mona Lisa", although almost everyone would have seen "Mona Lisa" picture somewhere in their life but experience of seeing something with our naked eyes is absolutely different. Although the painting was very very small in compare with other paintings available in the museum.

Louvre has a lot of stunning paintings available, I was really amazed by the size of painting and how it looked like.

It was such a huge Museum that we could not finish it completely, we left the place in just 3 hours because we were tired of continuous walking. 

Next destination was Notre-Dame cathedral, we reached out to island area and had pizza before going to the Cathedral. There are multiple bridges in that area and it looks really beautiful.

Notre Dame Cathedral is such a beautiful place where you will love to spend time. Church looks stunning with the arts of older centuries and items available inside. There was a long queue to enter in the Cathedral and we had to stand in the queue with SUN shining above our head :-). We entered and stayed for about an hour inside the church and offered our prayer to the god.

After our visit to Cathedral, we went to local shops to buy Fridge Magnets and few other souvenirs. Then we started heading towards cruise sightseeing boarding point. We already had the pass from Ring Go :-), so we could directly go inside the cruise. This is a must visit activity because it goes around the main monuments of Paris and you can enjoy the beauty of Paris seating at the dock of the boat.

People of PARIS enjoying their evening and dancing at the bank of river.

And finally we went to the park near by Eiffel and saw the mesmerising beauty of Eiffel Tower.

We also had "CREPES" just outside the Eiffel Tower from local vendor, Crepe is a local food and very famous in Paris.  We took the one which was all filled with Nutella and really it was very tasty :).

Day 3 : 19th June 2017

Third day of our trip has started :-), we had to start our early because today we are travelling to Disneyland, which is situated just outside of Paris city.

I already have the admission tickets to Disneyland, so we are going to save some time to avoid queue.  Disneyland is almost 1 hours away from Paris city centre, so you should leave Paris as early as possible.

We could not leave early but we managed to leave our hotel by 9:30 AM and reached Disneyland by 10:45 AM. Sun was in full form and helped the temperature to reach 36 °C, which was a pain for us :-(. We went to the metro station and took 2 tickets to Disneyland.

Finally we reached there, there were two parks: Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studio. We had the tickets for both the park, so we chose first to enter in Disneyland Park.

The moment you enter in the park, you will find it colourful and loaded with fun. The cartoon characters was roaming around on the streets and lots of kids were playing.

We took the map at entrance and realised within minutes that this is a huge park :). So we selected few parks and rides which we had to go in next 4 hours. There were hundreds of rides categorised for Kids and Adults, few family shows and horror park as well.

The first ride we took was a train ride(roller coaster), there was a small island and track was built on that island. 

 After one more ride, we went to eat something. There were number of restaurants available inside the park, we choose burger to eat from one of the restaurant available.

After lunch, we took toy train to roam around in the park, the toy train was very beautiful, small and cute :P. There were  several stations also inside the park, it was all looking like a movie scene with cartoon characters.

Ride after rides and we were tired. So it was time to have some rest, we took two ice creams and went inside a theatre to sit and relax. After 30 minutes we thought of moving to Walt Disney Studio and started walking on the road to go to Disney Studio.

Then we realised there is something going on the roads, I asked the same to one the park staff. And we were amazed to know that Disneyland completed their 25 years and there is a parade this evening to celebrate the same. So like other people we stood beside the road. The parade was scheduled to start at 4:30 PM.

And the parade started and one by one all Disney characters showed up.

It was a great day and enjoyed a lot, specially the parade and their characters. We moved to the other park but it was closed so we could not go inside :(.

We decided to move back to Paris and go to hotel, we took the metro and went back to the city. We were very tired so went straight to the hotel and relaxed for some time before going out for dinner. For dinner we chose a Chinese restaurant after searching on Google, it was an okay okay type restaurant.

After food we went to a local park and sat there for couple of hours, It was very relaxing. The day ended with lots of memories. And yes first we used a double decker train.

Day 4 : 20th June 2017

Last day of our trip!!!

Last 3 days we were roaming all day long from one place to another, capturing the beauty of the city in our eyes and camera.

There was no plan for last day, so we woke up late and went outside to have some food.  Since it was the last day so we had to check out from hotel. We did check out and left our luggage in the storage area before moving out.

Then we moved to one of the shopping centre, I can't remember the name but it was a huge shopping complex in the city centre. My wife bought few cosmetics from "Bonjour" outlet, and I was just accompanying her in window shopping ;-).

One more thing we did this day, we went out of the shopping mall to eat our lunch. There we found a local shop serving veg "falafel". We ordered and sat outside the shop to finish it. It was tasty and probably the best food we had in Paris :).

We went back to hotel and took our luggage before moving to "Gare Du Nord" train station. Train departure time was at 6:15 PM and reaching time in London was 7:30 PM.

We had to pass through Immigration and security in Paris(like we did before in London). After immigration we boarded our Eurostar train for London. One thing I remember in the return journey in Eurostar and that is it's speed :). First time I was travelling in such a high speed train.

Sayo Nara PARIS!!!

With lots of memories and experience, we were back in our home.