Hi all :)
We returned yesterday from a great 5 days Paris trip.
It was my third trip in Paris, so i knew some basics.
Nevertheless it was the first for years after %26quot;acquiring%26quot; a heart-related disability. To get things a bit more complicated, it a first time trip of my 72 yrs old mother, as a present to her for %26quot;standing%26quot; me for 40 years :)
Our trip was a sucess. We had a quite wide list of things to see and visit. We managed, more or less, to see and do everything we wanted, enjoying the city, the people and the food.
Our trip started with landing at CDG - Terminal 1 airport after a 3 hours nice flight on Aegean Airlines.
Having decided that we would not take a taxi to our hotel at the Place de la Bastille, we opted for a CDVGAL short trip to Terminal 2, followed by an RER trip to Gare Du Nord and then a metro ride to Bastille.
It may seem a bit weird too many people that we actually got public transportation instead of a shuttle or a taxi. Having in mind our ability we had packed extremely light, on rolling luggage, no backpacks. I travelled on a 5 kilos luggage ( lol ) for a 5 days trip + a mini waist band carrying passport and medication.
I would not say it was the most comfortable airport trip i have made in my life ( = stairs in some places ) still we enjoyed it tremendously ( oh, some people draw pleasure from public transportation, i think i am weird too ).
Actually it was a non traffic dependent way to reach our hotel, taking us less than 60%26#39; for the whole trip in the middle of rush hour. We took our time in any upgoing stairs and despite some tiredness, i would do it same way.
Nevertheless, if you have a restricting disability or have any problem carrying load, do consider the possibility of a taxi or a bus service to avoid any stairs climbing. It will probably take longer but it will get you where you want ( esp. taxi ) without any carrying.
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DAY 1
After checking in in %26quot;Le Pavillon Bastille%26quot; hotel ( nice, we liked it / small rooms but clean. We liked the colors, the price and the service. Location in Bastille worked perfectly for us ) we immediately got out and took #69 bus to Hotel De Ville.
Bus service is prompt, bus drivers are extremely kind, #69 and #76 get you at day time from Bastille to Notre Dame -%26gt; Louvre. 69 goes all the way till Eifeel Tower. We found bus service extremely helpful and convenient. Buses are a bit bumpy ( hold tight ) but not so crowded like the metro + you avoid any stairs. If you have a bus stop aside consider using it; thank you Francophool for the great tip re: 69 bus :)
We walked from Hotel De Ville -%26gt; Notre Dame -%26gt; aside the Sein, all the way to the Louvre to have a first view of the Pyramid. It is a long walk but on a great weather gives you a perfect first-time visitor of the river, the city and the feeling of the architecture ( great! great! great! ).
After what has been a long day with a flight, an airport trip, check in, walk aside the Sein, we crawled to a bistro, got our first ( soothing, be careful it is hot! ) onion soup, plus salad, plus plat, ate everything as happy visitors and then got a taxi to get us back to our hotel.
One huge advice: Please do use the %26quot;Bonjour Madame%26quot; or %26quot;Bonjour Monsieur%26quot; way to greet whan you start a conversation. I don%26#39;t speak French at all ( good in English ) but i found that a smile and a greeting in French goes not only a long but a huge way.
France is a huge cultural beacon in the globe and has a wonderful language. English or American speaker really don%26#39;t have to learn how to read French literature ( well, may be we actually all have to, but this is a whole different conversation, lol ). Nevertheless, common kindness, asking for an English menu but asking it in French (
%26quot;deux menus en anglais s%26#39;il vous plaît%26quot; ) is not only kind but hugely fun; at least for you ( i guess our accent was horrible, but anyway ) :))
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I promise i %26#39;ll keep posting re: following days, lol, although i am already planning the next trip, having a bit of %26quot;I-miss-Paris%26quot; syndrome and trying to sort photos out :) Oh and get some sleep and rest my aching feet :))
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Looking forward to the details of the rest of your trip.
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I love taking public transportation when I travel also so you aren%26#39;t alone!
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Thank you for sharing. I look forward to hearing more, particularly your mother%26#39;s insights. I so wish I could have gotten my own mother to Paris.
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Our sleep was great.
I woke up next morning, way before dawn actually, a bit dizzy, slightly tired to find my mother wearing her Jackie Onassis eye mask and me struggling not to start laughing in the middle of the night.
When she finally woke up around 90’ later, first thing I told her was: “hey! Wake up!! It’s Paris time now!”
Her really fascinating response was something like: “humpffghk. I ‘d like a coffee first. Louvre can wait”.
So, after some cups of coffee for her, a bit of milk for me, plus cereals, honey, fabulous bread ( I really wonder how French do these! ), we felt awake enough to go for the first thing we have planned, the Louvre Museum.
A fast uneventful #69 bus ride ( lightning speed in still half asleep Paris ) and a bit of walking, brought us to the Pyramid Entrance and the biggest queue I have ever seen in my life ( first Sunday of a month is a free day, so this is a huge crowd-attractor. Place got gradually super crowded from opening hours till noon, so if you really want some less zoo-like visit on this sincerely top museum, do opt for some Wednesday or Friday afternoon openings. Less crowds and more of “this is a museum for me” feeling ).
Directly on Pyramid entrance, on main square, a special queue is reserved for immediate disabled-people access to the museum. After some e-mail exchange with the Museum prior weeks, I have translated all my official documents in French, in order to overcome the fact of the “invisible disability” problem. It is really a hard, or better to say, impossible task for a security officer to distinguish a disabled visitor if he / she falls in categories that disability is not easily distinguished visually. So, I would advise to carry your disability card and, moreover, proper documents officially translated to French will help the security officer to guide you better and understand the situation.
Our access took less than 10 seconds and, thanks God, this is what I needed more. Queuing was just something mind-puzzling for me from the very first minute this trip was planned.
Well, to the more important info right now. First of all, Louvre Museum is huge. “Huge” means huge. Not “pretty big”, “quite large”, “expanded”. Plain huge.
It is roughly speaking three different museums, Gallery Devon, Sully, Richelieu, practically three legs of a large U shaped complex. What the Pyramid mainly gives you in the middle is sort of a terminal underground bright-lit space where you get your tickets, get coffee, shop and also can decide which way to go. These three Galleries are connected in some limited points in the overall scheme but mainly we are speaking about 3 distinct areas with different historical periods exhibited in.
So what I would advise is
- first thing - get to Information desk and get one of the map-leaflets that are available in many languages ( ahem. . ., not Greek, hey! )
- then put the one from your company you dislike more ( mu ha ha ) to queue for tickets ( or use the automatic ticket sellers if you all really like each other)
- then get to the coffee house at the floor you are or the mezzanine floor to get a coffee and have a small talk on what you ‘ll see / where it is located / how you ‘ll go there.
Try to limit yourselves to some basics. It is really not possible to see everything in a visit, even long. Oh, and avoid going from Sully to Denon, and then Richelieu, and then Sully again, getting in the crowd.
. . .which is exactly what we did. lol. We spent 4 - 5 hours in there, managed to see many things we wanted and in the same time lost a whole bunch of things we wanted to see. Venus of Milo is simply great. Greek-Roman sculpture halls are fabulous, Eastern antiquities too. Constantly trying to avoid any stairs going up we located all available elevators, still in this first visit we did not manage to reach Samothrace Nike in a small distance ( which we did in a repeat visit on the last day of our trip ).
During our visit we had a coffee break in the café and a lunch break in the restaurant.
Coffee break was a huge disappointment ( worst food I had in Paris, a hugely disappointing “club” sandwich that was as soggy as a medieval wall under the Seine, coffee arrived in a broken cup!, chair as comfy as a torture chair, chaotic and slow service ).
On the directly opposite direction our lunch break in the Museum restaurant was just great. Great service with a smile, calmer space, really good food, timed delivery of food, great tastes, everything as it should be and worth of every dime we spent in. Our “coffee break” cost us 25 euros for water + 2 cofees + 2 small desserts and seemd as a rip off. Our lunch break cost was only 45 euros and I would happily spend double for the quality we received in such a small price margin.
All in all everything in the Museum is simply greatly exhibited. Wealth of exhibits, width of coverage of historic areas, overall feeling are stunning. Despite the fact that this is a former Palace and not a museum, the whole works just fine despite some hick-ups. Just remember, it is huge, it is as i get it the biggest museum in the world ( or shares top rankings with the Hermitage in St Petersburg ) needs planning, needs working with your map-leaflet or guide book, needs time and needs some breaks. Avoid first Sunday of the month ( free-day ). It is really not worth of skipping a small ( really just symbolic for what you get ) price and have an experience of the museum with I ‘d dare to say tenths of thousands of other visitors. So, opt for late-opening days like Wednesday and Friday afternoons to ensure a better experience of this simply great museum.
So, after it has been around half a day we exited the museum and proceeded back to our hotel for a much needed midday rest. Bus took us back.
( . . .)
“Mom. . .hey ( poke ) mom! You really don’t think we ‘ll stay in the hotel!”
“Oh, come on! I walked enough miles to cover half a marathon this morning in the museum! Give me a break”
“Hey! We “have to do” Place Des Vosges and Eiffel Tower after.”
“Eiffel Tower has been standing there for more than a century without me visiting. I am pretty sure it will be there in my next visit . .zzzhlrppfff”
“No, no, no, it has been in our list from yesterday.”
“Ahem?”
“If I promise you we will skip Orsay Museum, will you wake up and get our bodies to Eiffel Tower? It is just a bus ride really!”
“I ‘ll give you an Eiffel Tower and you ‘ll give me 2 hours in Louvre Museum shop last day. They had some beautiful scarves in there which I really wanted to buy. Oh, and some great pillow-cases. Deal?”
“Deal”
%26quot;zzzhlrppft%26quot;
“Now wake up!”
After some munching of éclairs, mill-feulles, some vienoise coffee in a café on Place de la Bastille, a philosophical conversation followed regarding how any diet will magnificently collapse when you visit Paris. So, with engines filled we did the short walk from Bastille to Place Des Vosges ( simply great! ) and then took #69 bus to Eiffel tower.
It was a great bus ride once more. Bumpy but fast that gave us some sightseeing too, passing aside the Louvre, the Seine and then getting into some great little roads before Champ de Mars and Eiffel Tower.
Now, Eiffel tower is what is supposed to be. Well, bigger :) and brighter :) Get there in a time where you can see both its day view and its night view. So I guess getting there arriving somewhere between sunset is a really good timing. Ticket line is, as sensibly expected very long”.
We always think that seniors will go for the %26quot;romantic%26quot; things when they visit Paris and you know, this is a stupid stereotype sometimes. Senior people do love activity and live their lives in different styles one from each other. So, in an enlightening moment, right when i was having quick looks at the food-stall. my mother told me %26quot;I want to go up%26quot;.
We entered through disabled entrance, showing proper documentation. One of the most kind ladies I have ever met called immediately for help to my mother, thinking she is the disabled person of the company. So until I reached the elevator ( took my time to reach it, it has been a long time already standing ) she zapped in supersonic speed to tickets ( lol, she actually ran ), grabbed two and returned back to me with a triumphal face. “Got them!, we are in! we ‘ll see Paris from above”
It was indeed a very good choice and one of the things my mother really spontaneously asked we do at this trip. Another thing she would like to ask would be to do a bunjee jump from the Tower but thanks God! this was not an option.
Seeing Paris from above, on Eiffel Tower is one of the 3 – 4 places around the world I know you %26quot;have to%26quot; do. I mean come on! What’s a NYC city without getting to Empire State Building or even better TOTR? or Venice without going up the Venice Tower. It’s the same here. Views are panoramic, tower lights are also great from up there. An enclosed space is also available if weather is cool + a tiny snack bar stall and a souvie shop.
Two hours later, 50 euros lighter, loaded with Eiffel-Tower chocolates t-shirts and hats, as happy as a tourist can be, we took elevator to the ground. We paid our tribute to the crepe stall right there, did some aside the river walking and half asleep hailed a taxi to get us back to the hotel after a full day. We had “done” just three things, an extended Louvre Museum visit, a Place des Vosges passage and an Eiffel Tower ascend. Having done what other people would say is a tiny list I was happy, fulfilled, exhausted, impressed, waiting to meet again with my beloved bed and get some energy for the next day :)
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Brilliant writing! You make me even more excited about going, 5 weeks today!
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Lovely report - thank you!!
