Cinq Jours À Paris (Five Days In Paris)   Where We Went and What We Did

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Or check out the pictures of our fellow travellers, the Kan and Cheung families (10 pages.)
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Our Paris trip at the end of 2005 was one of the best vacations we have ever had, visiting places we had only seen on TV and in movies, places we never really expected to ever see. It was winter and it was fairly cold, mostly in the 30s and 40s, but as long as we dressed for it, it wasn't that bad. It snowed every day while we were there, although only on one day did the snow actually stick. Most of the snow showers lasted only a short time and didn't really cause a problem. On some of the warmer days, it rained.

Below is a day by day record of where we went and what we did. I planned on keeping a journal, but, like with so many other trips I have taken, I didn't. Most of what's written below is from memory, and I believe, pretty accurate.

So if you're interested in seeing what we did during our cinq jours à Paris or planning a trip there and just want some ideas, read on and enjoy!

(You can click on any of the pictures on this page to see them full size.)

A little after 9:00 AM, Mei-O and I drove to our friend Matt's house (he was driving us to and picking us up from the airport), parked our car in his garage, and headed up Highway 52 for the Minneapolis airport. We got there in plenty of time to check in for our 12:25 PM flight to Washington, D.C., and went through the security checkpoint with no hassle. We got to the gate and, after a short wait, the rest of our friends who we would be travelling with showed up. So far, so good!

We left from the Minneapolis airport around 12:40 PM and, after a short layover at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., we arrived in Paris about 7:30 AM Tuesday morning. Both of the flights went smoothly, with the D.C. to Paris leg taking about eight hours.

When we got off the plane at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris, we were expecting someone to meet us (arranged by France Vacations), but no one showed up. We walked around looking for a shuttle bus to our hotel, the Jardins de Paris Opera Morny, when finally two drivers showed up, coming from inside the terminal, carrying signs that read Louis Garnier, who was one of the France Vacations travel agents in the U.S. who helped make all our arrangements! They were apparently waiting at the exit outside of Customs (which, by the way, we walked right by, not even having to stop.) Once we realized who they were (and they realized who we were), we hopped into their two vans and headed off through early morning Paris traffic to our hotel.

We got to the hotel before 8:00 AM, and, as we expected, our rooms weren't quite ready. They expected them to be ready around 11:00, so we left our bags there in the lobby, and headed out to find some breakfast and warmth (the temperature was in the low 30s.) We found a little pastry shop, just barely big enough for us all to fit into, and bought some pastries and drinks, and just sat for a while, trying to stay warm. But since we had a lot of time to pass until the rooms would be ready, we headed out down the street, our first journey out onto the streets of Paris.

We walked south on the Rue de Clichy, going nowhere in particular, when we came across the Sainte-Trinite church which was being rennovated. We looked around there a while, but we couldn't go in, so we continued on down the street. I think it was right about this time when we all realized that we needed to put on an extra sweater as we walked the streets of Paris over the next five days!

We soon ran across the well-known Galeries Lafayette Department Store. The Galeries Lafayette is a major shopping attraction for tourists, with prices that are out of this world. I saw a jacket for a little toddler for 300 Euros (about $375!), and a man's belt for 400 Euros! Yet, despite the high prices, the place was packed, and people were buying stuff. The department store, like so many department stores in the U.S. around Christmas time, was beautifully decorated with a giant tree in the middle of the store extending up towards the incredibly high, beautiful domed ceiling. All of the exterior windows had animatronic Christmas season displays that attracted a lot of interest among shoppers and window shoppers alike.

When we got back top the hotel, most of the rooms were ready. Mei-O and I got a really nice room (notice the broken headboard on the bed. That was about the worst 'problem' we had), but Mai-ling and Kin who got the room next to us, got a nightmare! Their room was freezing - one of the windows wouldn't close all the way and the heat didn't seem to be working - so they went to the manager and asked for a different room. After some time and some squabbling (after turning on a radiator which leaked water all over the carpeting), they finally got a new, much more bearable room. During all this, Iris, whose room wasn't ready yet, was fast asleep on the big bed in our room.

Eventually, all the rooms got straightened out, and we all took a short rest to get our internal clocks set (yeah, right!). At about 1:30, a bus showed up to take us on a city tour, part of the arrangements made by the France Vacations people. The bus was a very large tour bus, probably able to seat 45-50 people, and the ten of us had it all to ourselves! The tour was excellent, hitting all the major tourist attractions, with a guide who spoke very good English and who was very personable. At the end of the three hour bus tour, we were taken to the docks on the River Seine right by the Eiffel Tower for a one hour river boat cruise. It was a little cold on the river (the boat wasn't enclosed), but the cruise was still quite enjoyable. At the end, we got a great view of the nearby Eiffel Tower at dusk, beautifully lit up. The bus then took us back top the hotel, where, once again, we all took a short rest.

For dinner that night, we once again headed towards the Galeries Lafayette area, since there were a lot of restaurant choices there. After looking around (they all have their menus posted outside so you can see what they have to offer), we decided to grab either a baguette or some pastries from a little shop that didn't even have any inside seating. The baguettes, which are basically subway sandwiches, went for about 4 Euros each. Mei-O and I ate ours while walking back to the hotel (the way we saw many Parisians doing it), while most of the others took theirs back to the hotel to eat there. And that was the end of our first day in Paris.

Our hotel provided us with a daily 'continental' breakfast that turned out to be really good, much better than (at least in our experience) what you find in most American hotels. It included cereals, ham, cheese, great rolls, croissants and pastries, juices, milk, coffee, and tea, yogurt, applesauce, and a few other goodies, too. We started our second day in Paris off with a good breakfast, although, due to the jet lag, we got started a little later than we had hoped. It was on this first morning in Paris in the hotel's dining room when our 'encounter' with a rude Frenchman occurred.

We obviously couldn't walk everywhere around this great city. Our chosen mode of transportation was to be the Paris subway. The subway system in Paris is really convenient. Tickets are 1.30 Euros if you buy one at a time, or 10.70 Euros for 10, which is how we bought them. Once in the subway, you can transfer from line to line as often as you want, until you reach your destination. Line maps on the train clearly mark all stops and transfer points. The complete system maps, posted on the walls of every station (we also carried pocket maps), are clear with the different lines all numbered and color-coded, so it was pretty easy to go anywhere. And the subway went everywhere, too. There were stops relatively near all the places we planned to visit, and there was a metro stop a block from our hotel which allowed us easy access to all of Paris. With Iris usually taking the lead and planning our route, we never had any problems getting around! It was a lot of fun riding the subway and mingling with the Parisians as they went on with their daily lives. The subways were almost always crowded. We often had to stand.

Our first major attraction would be Notre Dame Cathedral. The wet pavement was the result of a light snow (it rained or snowed everyday we were there, but not really enough to matter). Our first introduction to the subway made us quickly realize how easy it was going to be getting around. Notre Dame Cathedral is awesome. From the outside, it doesn't look that big, but the high ceiling and beautiful architecture on the inside is grand. There is a huge chapel running down the middle of the church, and a mass was going on while we were there. You could either sit down and observe the mass, or walk around the perimeter and observe display after display of religious articles with hundreds of years of history behind them. We spent several hours there, then headed over to Chez Clement for lunch, for a fancy three course meal arranged for us by France Vacations as part of our travel package.

Chez Clement wasn't expecting us until Friday, a slight mixup in scheduling somewhere, but they were very accommodating and set up a table for ten on their second floor. We had a great meal, probably about a 30 or 40 Euro per person dinner, which was included in the price of our travel package. We learned two important things at Chez Clement. When asking for water in a restaurant, ask for tap water (if that's what you want.) We just asked for water for everyone, and the waiter brought out two bottles of water that we later found out cost us 5 Euros each. After he brought the bottles out and opened them, someone then remembered we were supposed to ask for tap water. Well, 10 Euros wasn't too bad for the lesson. Secondly, a busboy (who was from French Guinea and spoke excellent English), told us that a 15% service fee is always added into restaurant tabs in Paris, so we need not leave a tip, unless we wanted to, of course.

Every visit to Paris requires a trip to the Louvre Museum, which was our next stop. The Louvre is humongous (it was originally built as a royal palace), and one would probably need several days to see it all. On Wednesdays, it's open late until 9:30, so we spent the rest of this second day there. We had a three day museum pass, so we got in quickly, without having to wait in line to buy tickets. There is so much to see - a lot of sculptures as well as thousands of paintings by many of the well-known European artists - but of course, the main attraction was da Vinci's Mona Lisa. We wandered around taking in as much as we could in the few hours we were there. Surprisingly, as we walked through one of the galleries, we ran into some friends of ours, Chris and Linna, also from Rochester, who we knew were going to be in Paris the same time as we were. In fact, we were planning to meet up with them for some later events, but, as large as the Louvre is, it was quite a surprise to bump into them there.

Leaving the museum at about 8:30, we split up to do some shopping in an upscale underground mall attached to the museum, but, unfortunately, due to the late hour, everything was closed. Mei-O and I had headed to the food court to have a late dinner (here's Mei-O having an apple crêpe for dessert), and where everyone else eventually joined us. Finally, exhausted after a really full day of sight-seeing, we hopped on the subway back to the hotel, ending our second day in Paris.

After another good breakfast, today we headed out to see the Château de Versailles, the palace of Louis XIV in 17th century France. Our hotel desk clerk told us how to get to the SNCF train station which was within walking distance of our hotel. When we got there and found the ticket window, I went up and asked for two round trip tickets to Versailles. The clerk asked me (all in French) if we were going to visit the palace. I told him we were, whereupon he gave me four tickets for 36 Euros. As the next family went to buy their tickets, I noticed that the clerk had given me two round trip train tickets to Versailles and two tickets to enter the palace. I went back to him and told him I didn't need the palace tickets (the three day museum pass covers dozens of museums, and Versailles is one of them), so he refunded my money for the unneeded tickets. The train fare to Veersailles was only 3.40 Euros!

The train ride to the Versailles Rive Droite station was short, about 25 minutes or so, and the large train windows afforded us a great view of the suburbs of Paris, which appeared to extend all the way to Versailles. (It was interesting to note that at no time did anyone check our tickets!) From the station to the palace was a brisk walk through Versailles, and following signs all the way made it easy to find. There were hundreds of people milling around the vast entrance, and, once again, because we had the three day museum pass, we didn't have to wait in the long line to get tickets.

Inside, a good-sized crowd followed a corridor along a tour route past numerous beautifully restored bedrooms, ballrooms, drawing rooms, and other various rooms. We followed the route, coming out at the other end near the gardens. After a quick bathroom break (bring along change. In many places, you have to pay to use the bathroom. 50 Euro cents here!), we started walking around the grounds (which, even in the winter were quite impressive), heading towards the Grand Trianon, one of the smaller palace buildings (despite its name), a good, cold half hour walk away.

Walking to the Grand Trianon might've been nice if it was warmer, but the cold and wind made it a pretty daunting journey. The palace is small, and nothing really special. There were few visitors there. Upon leaving, we waited for a tram to take us back to the main entrance. The ride cost us 3.50 Euros each, pretty expensive considering it only cost us 3.40 Euros round trip from Paris to Versailles and back! But, we were all a little tired and cold, so it was well worth it.

As we left the palace area and walked back through Versailles towards the train station, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant along the way to eat. All of the food was pre-prepared, buffet-style, and was sold by the kilo, placed in a small plastic container and reheated in a microwave before they brought it out to the table. We ate lunch (it was pretty good), walked back to the station, got on the train back to Paris, and made the final walk to our hotel for a short, well-deserved rest before heading out for supper in the Latin Quarter.

I'm not sure how much of the Latin Quarter we actually saw. We got there after dark, and there were hundreds of people walking up and down a narrow, well-lit street lined on both sides with tourist shops and restaurants of all types; some fancier sit-down restaurants, and some stands selling things like crêpes or Greek gyros. We walked back and forth, trying to decide where we wanted to eat, and finally settled on the Maison Blanche (the 'White House'). The kids didn't want a fancy supper, so they went their separate way and ended up eating gyros, which they really loved.

The food at the Maison Blanche was pretty good, and relatively cheap (10 Euros per person for a three course meal - an appetizer, a main course, and dessert.) After eating, we walked around the street some more, checked out some other shops on other streets, met up with the kids (who had also done some shopping), and hopped on the subway and headed back to the hotel. And thus ended our third day in Paris.

Friday morning after breakfast, we took the subway to the Musée d'Orsay, another of Paris' famous art museums. We all split up so we could each see whatever we wanted to. Mei-O and I concentrated on the more well-known artists, such as Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Cézanne, etc. and met everyone back at the main entrance about 12:00 noon, the prearranged time.

Our next stop was to be the Chapel of St. Chapelle. The kids, apparently tired of seeing churches and museums, decided once again to head to the Latin Quarter (they wanted more gyros for lunch!), while the rest of us headed for the church. When we got there, there was a long line waiting to get in, which didn't appear to be moving at all. While we waited in line, Teresa went up front thinking that maybe our museum passes could get us in without waiting in line. She returned and waved us to come on ahead, that we didn't need to wait in line. So we walked up front, only to find out that there was some misunderstanding, and the only way in was to wait.

In the meantime, a heavy, wet snow started to fall, and a wicked wind whipped up, so we decided not to wait. As we started to leave, driving sleet started pounding us, forcing us to look for shelter somewhere. St. Chapelle is pretty close to Notre Dame, so we headed there to wait out the storm. The sleet crashing on our faces actually hurt a bit, so we rushed over to Notre Dame and spent some more time there.

After a while, the storm subsided (none of the snow or rain showers we experienced in Paris lasted very long). We had to be at the Galeries Lafayette Department Store at 3:00 for a fashion show (part of the arrangements set up for us by France Vacations) where we would also join up with the kids, so we decided to walk over to the Latin Quarter to try the gyros the kids raved about so much. We found a gyro restaurant and ordered lunch, which we had to rush through in order to make sure we got to the fashion show on time. You could get a gyro with or without french fries wrapped inside it! Mei-O got hers with, I got mine without. After we were done, we went to catch the subway on our way to the fashion show.

The fashion show provided 45 minutes of well needed rest for everyone. It was kind of fun - not like the fancy, high-class shows you see on TV, but still pretty good. It appeared most of the audience were tourists. After the show ended, the plan was to shop until 5:30, then meet up to head back to the hotel. Mei-O and I went to the very crowded food court to wait the hour or so, and were later joined by Steve and Teresa. Teresa told us that Mai-ling, Kin, and Iris were going back to the hotel, and, once again, the rest of the kids were going back to the Latin Quarter. Steve, Teresa, Mei-O and I decided to head to the Champs-Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe, so, once again, we checked out our subway map, found the nearest station, and off we went.

Despite the fact that it was raining when we arrived at the Champs-Elysées, the street was crowded with people strolling along both sides of the wide boulevard. The street was beautifully lit (I don't know if this was a seasonal thing or if it is always lit up so festively.) I suppose on a warm, Spring evening, it would be even more crowded, but, considering the temperature and the rain, I was surprised by how many people were out. We viewed the Arc de Triomphe for a while, then walked along the Champs-Elysées, just enjoying being there. An interesting note passed on to us by our city tour guide: auto accident insurance is not in force while driving in the traffic circle that goes around the Arc de Triomphe! If you have an accident, you're on your own.

We stopped in a busy restaurant for some sandwiches and desserts for a quick dinner, then, seeing that the rain had more or less stopped, we walked around some more. Eventually, after having tired ourselves out, we found a subway station that would lead us back to the hotel and the end of our fourth day in Paris.

Our Saturday started out with a subway ride to the Basilique du Sacré Coeur, a church on a hill that appeared to be the highest point in Paris. Upon getting off the subway, we had to climb hundreds of stairs just to get out of the subway station (there was a large elevator, but it was out of service. People with babies in strollers had to carry them up the long staircase!) Once out of the subway and at street level, there were even more stairs to climb through the quiet, quaint Montmartre neighborhood, eventually leading to the Place du Tertre, a small square where maybe 20 or 30 artists were set up displaying (for sale) their paintings, doing charcoal portraits and caricatures for the tourists, and creating beautiful artworks right there on the spot.

Sacré Coeur, a relatively new church, is, like most of the churches in Paris, a beautiful church both inside and out. As we went inside, a mass was being held, and the enchanted voices of a choir of singing nuns echoed thoughout the sanctuary. After wandering around the inside, we went out and bought tickets (5 Euros each) to climb to the dome at the top of the church which we were told offered a spectacular view of Paris. The spiraling stairs up (234 steps) were narrow and dark, very dungeon-like, and the climb seemed to go on forever, but once we reached the top, the view was well worth it! We walked around the dome viewing the city below us from all different sides, finally ending up at the exit to another dark, narrow staircase leading down.

The down staircase led us to the Sacré Coeur crypt. I'm not sure who, if anyone, is actually buried in the crypt, but the statues and altars filled with religious items were impressive. We walked one time around the entire crypt, then headed back outside. Next stop - the Eiffel Tower!

The Eiffel Tower is, of course, one of the best known landmarks in the world. There were hundreds of people milling around in the park at the base of the tower, this being December 31st, and actually getting in to the tower to climb to any of the three levels where there are observation platforms was going to require a two to three hour wait, at least. While that was a major disappointment, just being there at this monstrous steel structure was good enough for me and Mei-O, certainly something we'll never forget. After a while there, everyone was getting hungry, so we left to walk down some of the side streets around the Eiffel Tower to find a place to eat. We settled on a small restaurant just a couple of blocks away, had lunch, then decided to revisit the Champs-Elysées and Arc de Triomphe, since not everyone got to see it the night before.

We got to the Arc de Triomphe just moments after it closed (you could climb to the top to get a real great view of Paris), so we just walked along the Champs-Elysées which was full of people strolling along the boulevard, shopping or just window shopping, many carrying shopping bags filled with goodies they bought from the major name-brand stores along the street. We let the kids stop in the Peugeot store to look at some of the neat cars they had on display there, then, in order to get rested and ready for our New Year's eve dinner cruise on the River Seine, we found a subway station and headed back to the hotel.

The dinner cruise on the River Seine began with us getting picked up at the hotel by drivers in Mercedes vans, as arranged by France Vacations. They drove us to the boat docks right near the Eiffel Tower, which was beautifully lit this last night of 2005. We were meeting our friends Chris and Linna there - they had France Vacations arrange for them to join us on the dinner cruise - so Steve, Mei-O, and I waited outside watching for them to make sure they got on the right boat (there was more than one dinner cruise going out that evening). We watched car after car, taxi after taxi, and bus after bus dropping off elegantly dressed people for their patries. Finally, after Chris and Linna arrived, we all boarded and were seated at a table for 12 amongst the rest of the, I would guess 200 or so, people.

The multi-course dinner was obviously the best meal we had during the trip. It included a shrimp appetizer, duck liver pate with toast with pear jam, scallops and morels in a French pastry, a delicious thick cut of beef as the main course, a selection of cheeses, and an ice cream desset. Champagne was, of course, included.

Just before midnight, as we were nearing the dock, the crew came around passing out New Year's eve 'kits': bags filled with masks, noise-makers, streamers, balloons, etc. We all got ready and soon someone started the countdown: dix, neuf, huit, sept, six, cinq, quatre, trois, deux, un! and the noise-makers went off all over the boat, the band started playing, and everyone began the typical New Year's eve party revelry! Cries of Bon Année! could be heard coming from all over the boat. Afterwards, people were celebrating and dancing to the band as the night went on. Because we had to get back to the hotel and get ready for our departure the following morning, we left around 12:45. But that was hardly the end of the evening!

On New Year's eve, the Paris subways were free. As we headed to the nearest station to catch a train home, the whole area was filled with revelers on the streets, drinking, shouting, and, in general, making a lot of noise and doing a lot of celebrating. Police in full riot gear were all over, and I saw many garbage cans overflowing with discarded wine bottles (as well as broken bottles all over the streets and sidewalks.) When we got to the entrance to go down to the subway, we realized that there was no way we were going to get in. Hundreds of people were jam-packed into a funnel-shaped crowd, all trying to get into the station. As we stood there for about fifteen minutes, standing back from the main crowd trying to decide just what we wanted to do, we noticed that no one ever seemed to actually ever enter the subway, that the line (if you could call it a line) never actually moved. Considering that, and the danger of getting ourselves into such a tightly packed crowd, we decided to start walking back to the hotel, a distance we calculated at two to four miles (no taxis were running on New Year's eve.) Off we went.

All along the walk, we passed groups of mostly young people celebrating on the streets of Paris everywhere. We passed another subway station that was just as crowded (Will was leading us and trying to plan our route past as many subway stations as he could without going too much out of the way), so we kept on walking. Then, almost miraculously, we came across an almost empty subway station which was open (many of the lines had already shut down for the night. Only a certain few were going to be running all night.) Down we went, and we were very quickly able to catch a train back to our hotel. As the station near the hotel closed at 8:00 PM every night, we got off at the one before and walked the rest of the way, passing a few drunks and groups of rowdy partiers along the short walk. Everyone was pretty exhausted when we arrived at the hotel after 2:00 AM, but it was certainly a night to remember!

And that's how the fifth and final day of our trip to Paris ended.

Happy New Year!

Despite having gone to bed so late this New Year's morning, Mei-O and I were up early, making sure everything was in order for our departure. We really travelled light, hardly taking much out of our two carry-on suitcases during our stay, so getting ready was pretty easy. We both took showers, then headed down for our final breakfast in the hotel. Eventually, everyone joined us in the lobby with their bags, some more tired than others, but everyone all ready to go.

Around 9:15 AM, two vans came to pick us up and take us to the airport for our 12:35 PM flight. When we got to the airport, we had to go through security, waiting in not too long of a line. Security was a little different than here. We were asked a bunch of questions that went something like this:

"Whose bags are these?"
"Ours."
"Where did they come from?"
"Our hotel."
"Who packed them?"
"We did."
"Did anyone else handle them since you packed them?"
"No."
"Do you have any weapons or anything that can be used as a weapon in them?"
"No."

and so on, until the guard decided we were no risk. We then proceeded through more security checkpoints as we headed for our departure gate, and eventually, at one of the checkpoints, had a nail file (that could maybe file butter, but probably not cut it!) and a small screwdriver (don't know how that got there) confiscated. I guess they're a little more nervous (more conscientious?) over there. But all-in-all, it wasn't the hassle I had expected it might be.

Our flight from Paris to Washington, D.C. was delayed an hour, but we still managed to get through immigration and customs and make our connecting flight. Finally arriving in Minneapolis where our friend Matt was waiting to pick us up, we headed home to Rochester.

And that was the end of our last day of a truly amazing vacation!