Paris: Basking in the Easter Sunshine

Arc De Triumph

Easter had arrived marking the first long weekend of the long summer ahead of us. Spring was slowly giving way to summer and the nature around us was turning to deeper shades of green. The long weekend is a huge luxury and soon the travel planners were out.
Throughout the week you could see that the most visited sites on various browsers (of course, after work hours) were sites of Wizzair, Easyjet, SmartWings, Student Agency or wiki pages of various cities like Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Paris and Rome. We settled for Paris, a marquee destination which I was yet to set foot upon. Aditya and Amita also planned to join us and no sooner did we unpack from our Tulip trip there were four Easyjet tickets booked for the four A’s.
Day 0
We were booked for a late evening flight on Friday so we thought it would be really smooth and we can be at the airport without hurrying up too much or so we thought. Asmi was busy buying a special red shoe for the trip and by the time she settled the bill at Palladium mall and headed back, we realized that it was just an hour before the boarding gates shut.
Our co-travelers were more sensible and they left earlier. We thought they would be waiting for us coolly at the airport while we are made to undergo some tense moments on the way. Public transport was not an option for us so without blinking an eye-lid we hopped on to the first cab. We reached on time only to realize that the flight is delayed and more surprisingly Adi and Amita still not reached. I just wondered how that could be. We got the answer from a panting Adi a few minutes later. That they got off a station earlier than where you are supposed to for the airport and hence got delayed in waiting for the next train. Luckily no damage was done just that Amita, who had already been suffering from a bad back throughout the week, injured her ankle as well. It wasn’t serious and the thought of a Paris trip might have reduced all the pain to nothing.
We arrived at CDG airport close to mid-night and hence were too tired to use the public transport and hunt for our hotel. We took a cab and reached out destination Hotel Ibis Glen Villiers after around forty minutes and 51 EUR. It was a drive from the east to the west of the city.
Day 1
We had planned Days 1 and 3 in Paris while on Day 2 i.e. on Sunday we would visit Disneyland. So in effect we would get one-and-a-half days in Paris considering that on Monday we would have to leave for the airport at around 5 PM. Having read about Paris and heard from others including Adi and Asmi who had visited Paris earlier, even 5 days will not be enough to cover most of Paris. So we knew we had to rush through and be selective in what we wanted to see. As guided by our hotel staff, we took the metro and got off at the directly at the Charles De Gaulle Etoille station at the Arc De Triumph on Champs Elysees. The metro ride took us forty minutes and we had to change once. The majestic Arc De Triumph looked magnificent under the bright sunshine. Temperatures rose up to the mid-twenties and after a long time it felt hot. We took the hop-on-hop-off bus from right in-front of the Arc De Triumph.

Eiffel Tower

We were at a loss there since only 2-day tickets were available at 26 EUR so in-effect we would not be able to utilize it the next day. Without a second thought though we took our seats on the open-top upper deck and got ready for a majestic drive around Paris. As mentioned earlier, Paris is huge. While the centre of the city in Prague will mean the Old Town Square and the Charles Bridge and in Vienna it would be probably Stephenplatz and Karlplatz, here the supposed ‘centre’ would never end and it stretched up to a radius of 10 km. Every square was full of people mostly tourists. We went through the Champs Elysees, the Concorde, the river, the iconic Eiffel tower (we did not hop-off though as we planned a full visit later in the evening), the legendary Notre Dame church and then to the museum of Louvre. That’s where we hopped off, had a quick brunch of English ‘breakfast’ and then headed to the Louvre. As always the case with any museum, we did not go inside as it would take a lot of time in the queue and then the actual visit. Considering the valuable moments under the sun that would be lost we decided bid good-bye to Mona Lisa and proceed towards the ‘Tour de Eiffel’ (needless to say after clicking a ‘few’ snaps). Eiffel tower as expected looked grand. We already had the first glimpse of it three hours earlier and now standing at its foot, it certainly looked taller. Any Paris “places to see” list will have the Eiffel tower at number one so, needless to say, this had the mother of all crowds.

Museum of Louvre

The numbers were huge with some trying to click the tower from various angles and the others standing at the queue to go to the top.
We were eagerly looking forward to doing the latter but were totally stumped by the serpentine queue which refused to move forward – a direct result of the long Easter weekend. We gave up after a while as it clearly looked that it would take minimum couple of hours to even enter the gate. We went for our customary photo shoot and then waited for the night to set in so that we see the majestic sight of the tower under lights. The lit-up tower looked gorgeous as expected and the icing on the cake was the blinking of lights at mid-night (it happens every hour but we picked up the one at mid-night).
Day 2: Paris Disneyland
As a child, Disneyland Florida was a dream. I would just imagine the place and be in awe. That was an era when the glitz and glamour of the west would have our eyes pop out in awe and Disneyland was the mother of all such glamour. I had heard so much about the rides, the ambience from my mother, aunt and other relatives who had visited the place. We have moved on and our country has progressed to a stage that today’s generation would not have their eyes pop-out looking at the west as much as ours did. That certainly did not apply to me when I entered Disneyland. My initial thoughts when we planned to visit Disneyland were that while this would be big, it’s not after all THE ‘real’ Disneyland. As in, this is not Disneyland Florida. So will it manage to leave you that much in awe? One look at it and I was certainly awestruck, right from the entrance while walking out of the train station.

Disney Parade (Photo: Aditya Gupta)

We were welcomed by the wonderful looking Disney Hotel which resembled a pink birthday cake and then as we entered it was all happening. Crowd had already built up as we had reached a bit late and from the distance I could view the pink castle of ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Soon there was a small parade and then when finally the aura of the place sunk in, we decided to study the map and plan out our rides and activities. Since it was already quite late we were quite hungry so we planned to take a quick bite so that our batteries are charged for the long day ahead of us. After a sumptuous fish-n-chips meal we were ready for the rides. Every ride had a queue which seemed longer than the one next to it. We had the option of taking a ‘fast ticket’ but were all too confused with the no. of options. After a lot of deliberation and map-study, we queued up for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. After a 45-minute movement through the queue, we were treated through a magnificent ride through the water with the ‘pirates’. The wait was well worth it and it took us to a completely different world. It’s all too hard to describe in words. The next up was the one which every amusement park boasts of – a scary roller coaster ride. To make it sound scarier it was named the ‘Indiana Jones in the temple of doom’. The queuing time was comparatively less and from the outside it did look pretty much like a normal roller-coaster i.e. one that climbs up slowly, turns and then rushes down.

Disney Parade (Photo: Aditya Gupta)

I was totally cool and when the iron rods were sealed and we started climbing up I hardly felt any jitters. And then the roller coaster reached its maximum height and started its decent. Then I felt a sudden twist as we turned left and then for three seconds I went completely blank, didn’t realize what was happening and just screamed for life with heart in mouth. This repeated thrice after which we realized it was over. Amita later told me that we just went upside down 360 degrees. It all happened so fast that I could hardly realize it. I suddenly felt a sense of pride on my first 360 degree summersault albeit on a roller-coaster. At 5 PM it was the time for the parade. The entire crowd moved towards that and the roads were flanked by people of all age groups pouring in. It almost resembled a cleaner version of a political rally, just that the participants of the rally were not politicians but legendary fictitious characters like Mickey and Mini Mouse, Donald Duck and many others who were even unknown to me. The parade was magnificent and it was over in about forty minutes after which the crowd once again dispersed. The next ride we took was to the ‘Star Wars’ where virtually you would sit in a space ship and fight the various enemies in space in ‘Star Wars’ style. It was now getting late and we realized that we were yet to visit the second park. The second park essentially had the various studios and some other notorious rides namely the ‘Tower of Horror’. Unfortunately, we were greeted with the bad news that the park closes at 7 PM. We had no option but to hurriedly look around the place and then move out. We did some souvenir shopping (where Asmi purchased a Mini-mouse hair-band) and then we thought we will call it a day as far as the parks are concerned. We were not done with Disneyland though as we moved to the Disney Village – the party zone. My eyes popped out on seeing the electrifying atmosphere over there.

Disney Village

You had pubs, restaurants, shops, McDonalds, boating, movie theatres to go along with the jam-packed crowd. Pubs and restaurants all had huge queues and we could grab a McDonald’s meal only after queuing for half-n-hour. It was obvious that one day was in no ways enough for a tour of Disneyland. The ideal plan would be stay in a hotel in Disneyland area itself and spend an entire weekend at the parks and the village. Most of the tourists in the village looked to be having the same plan. You could see shuttles from various hotels getting tourists to the village. There is no dearth of hotels in the area and at reasonable rates as well. By the time we finished our McD meal, we decided to bid farewell to Disney and check-out the Paris night. We hoped that 45-minute train journey back to Paris would re-charge our batteries. It surely did by the time we got down at the Concorde, which is right at the end of Champs Elysees. It provided a breathtaking view of the Champs Elysees with the Arc De Triumph at its very end. The glow of the red and yellow lights of the cars heading towards and from the Arc De Triumph sure provides a moment for the album.

Champs Elysees (Photo: Aditya Gupta)

I don’t know how we still had the energy but we walked all the way from Concorde to the Arc De Triumph. If one comes to Paris and does not do that it’s surely a shame. It was worth every bit the effort as the road was still full of life with pubs and restaurants still open and filled with huge crowds partying on an Easter Sunday night. It was almost 1 AM when we reached the Arc De Triumph and it was most definitely time to go back and hit the bed. We did exactly that.
Day 3
This was to be the day where we planned to make a second attempt to go to the top of Eiffel. Before that we made a blink-and- miss visit to the La Defense, the business area of Paris. The iconic Grand Arche stood out amidst the tall buildings reminiscent of Canary Wharf in London. We finished quick and reached Bir Hakeim station for another shot at the tower top. The result was same. The queue did not get any lesser as the Easter weekend was still on and with having a flight to catch, the last thing we wanted was to be stuck on top and waving at our Easyjet flight to Prague. We walked around Eiffel Tower clicking from some new angles before finally moving to our final destination – the Notre Dame from where we could take trains to CDG airport. Since that would be the last stop, I planned to meet with my friend-cum-cousin-cum-schoolmate Arjoon over there. Arjoon has been with L’Oreal and has been based out of Paris for quite a few years now. We met up at a place called Cafe Panis opposite the Notre Dame and at around 5 PM, we finally called it a day and took the train to CDG airport. The flight was right on time and we reached Prague at a comfortable 9 PM. Easter was well and truly over by now.