Day 2 – Tours by Louis

Tiredness beat us in the morning, making us wake up later than we wanted to, but we still managed to leave the hotel before 11am. Before this, we visited the nearest patisserie and coffee shops to buy some croissants and coffee, quickly planing the proceedings of the day and getting ready for our proper adventure. As in our interrailing trip, Anna was treated to ‘Tours by Louis’ in which I allow her to see all the tourist sites

(and then some) of a huge major city, all in one day. Of course, Anna wanted to pay €39 for an open top hop-on-hop-off bus tour, and finally she admitted defeat and accepted to join the free walking tour.

The first stop was the notorious Notre Dame, passing the Bataclan theatre on the way. Subject to horrendous terrorist attacks a few years ago, I was surprised to see it still closed down. We continued along our way, taking the back streets and staying away from the main tourist roads as we did so. Window shopping and even going into some of the very high end stores ranging from Dior to Chanel. We also were greeted by some sort of horse parade, with 100 French officers on horseback, swords wielded and striding along the banks of the Seine. The picturesque view was momentarily disrupted by the 3 cleaning vehicles that followed the horses, quickly cleaning up their excrement off the lovely cobblestones. I suppose that was better than leaving it to get baked by the sun.

As always, the main attractions are packed and at first, I thought that Notre Dame wasn’t that busy. From the entrance, the queue didn’t look that long and after making the trek to the back of the queue, it was only then that I noticed it started into several bends that stretched out for miles – we had been in before anyway – so we continued on our way to the nearest metro instead.

I am slightly interested in trains and metros and so seeing double-decker metro trains that are 20 carriages long, pulling up against a metro platform that went as far as the eye could see, I got carried away taking pictures, much to Anna’s disgust, who reminded me that we were in Paris and that there were better things to take pictures of than of rail tracks – debatable. She also loved the metro as every line had different seats of different colour and different shape, which we made a point to sit on every time we got a new train. She was fascinated by the seats, at least my interests weren’t stationary. Keeping costs to a minimum, and because it was such a nice day, we wanted to make our own lunch and so we bought a large baguette, some chicken, ham, yogurt and a couple of cold drinks to have a picnic in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. With the tally coming to €9.87, the girl at the till spent ages searching all the other tills for the 13c change as she had none in her till. The queue stretched back to the other end of the shop now but we didn’t really know how to say ‘no it’s alright, keep the change sure’. Despite this, we left and travelled through the sandy foreground of the Champ de Mars, where Segway rides and little children had caused a small sandstorm to occur.

Dusting ourselves off, we found a nice patch of grass and took our mandatory pictures with the Eiffel Tower, before sitting down to make and eat our typical French lunch. (N.B. again remember to bring cutlery, or instead take a plastic spoon from an expensive dessert in the shop like Anna did, so you can cut your bread and eat your yogurt). The tranquil surroundings were momentarily interrupted by

a group of 7 Americans, all taking turns to get pictures of them all with the scenic backdrop. Despite telling Anna they didn’t want anyone to take their photo, Anna offered to take one of them all, to which they declined and Anna turned back to find my smug face, which would have been a great photo now in hindsight.

Following lunch and our photoshoot, we left towards the tower and towards the large mass of people queuing to enter the metal structure. With our hatred for queues (especially after the airport incident yesterday) and because we had been up several times before, we decided to explore the area surrounding it instead, strolling through the market stalls where we purchased a nice multi-coloured slush puppy and 2 matching bracelets in the French colours. We even made a cute joke about tying the knot whilst putting them on – in reference to everyone thinking that we were going to get engaged during this trip…Sorry.

Across the bridge and leaving the Eiffel Tower in our shadow, we passed Place de Trocadero, which usually contains huge water fountains and perfect aqua coloured water. Just our luck though that the area was dry and the water shut off, with the tears from Anna’s eyes doing the best to fill the basins back up again. Away from the sobbing and crying sounds, I heard some sort of demonstration protest in the distance and we decided to follow the sounds and see what was going on. We passed all the street sellers who were outnumbering tourists for once around the steps. We even witnessed someone give them €150 to do that trick with the 3 cups turned over. Amateur. What we heard was right and we found ourselves in the middle of some sort of peaceful demonstration, Politicians were being interviewed in relation to their upcoming elections on one end of the square and another end was inhabited by a large group of people in wheelchairs, chanting into megaphones about something in French. We passed the large number of armed policemen and journeyed down into the nearest metro station again. Next stop – Arc de Triomphe.

The stop took us right opposite the Arc, allowing us to get the perfect photos. We even had to take a few photos of a man who was travelling by himself, and was failing to get the perfect selfie with his iPad. We continued down the Champs-Élysées, looking into all the high-end stores and the busy restaurants and cafes, we also visited the Abercrombie store which was by the far the best shop on the street – with a perfect little entrance and an antique 3 story interior. Following the clothes shop, with the aftershave and perfume smells following us, Anna managed to get a couple of pictures sitting in a Renault F1 car before we continued walking towards Place de la Concorde. For a brief second, Anna thought she had her handbag stolen, only to realise that the bag strap had broken and it wasn’t the man walking behind – who incidentally had a fright when Anna showed quick reflexes and broke into a martial art pose, ready to chase after the assailant. It was a long and tiring walk towards the Luxor Obelisk, and Anna was starting to complain about her feet and legs and so on and so forth… We were nearly at the Louvre and nearly at the end of the tour. She was treated to some humour at Place de la Concorde when a man drove by and was waiting at the lights. Then suddenly, his car horn starts going off and he gets out of his 4×4 truck, walks around to the front of the car and bangs on the hood. The horn stops and the spectators who have gathered round were either quietly laughing, or still had no idea what was going on. These two expressions summed up Anna and I perfectly, with her’s being the latter.

Continuing through the park and past the water features dotted around the paths, we reached the Louvre. Looking at the glass pyramid entrance from across the road, we sat with the street sellers and their Paris merchandise eating their lunch, whilst Anna removed her socks and checked for blisters and I tried to cover my already sunburnt neck. We had been through the wars today but we had also managed to cover most of Paris in a day. Before catching the metro back to the hotel, we deserved a break and a nice cold drink so we stopped at a nearby café on the banks of the Seine. Although this is partly the reason why we stopped here, the main reason was that Anna needed to go to the toilet and couldn’t last until we got home… Enjoying a beer, a cider and a cheeky crème brûlée, I also made use of this stop to visit the restroom. The restroom however was a urinal, a cubicle and a sink, meaning that I was urinating whilst a young girl and her mother stood behind me, not entirely the best layout of a toilet I’ve ever seen.

It was our longest train journey yet, encompassing 20 stops back home, and although everything went as planned on the way back, the same couldn’t be said for our hotel room. Trying several times to get into our room, the key just wouldn’t unlock the door. I even had to go to reception, to which they replied that it was fine and to check again. I reluctantly said I would try again (not understanding how it would work now if it didn’t a minute ago) and was proven wrong when we were allowed into the room. Inconvenient and strange. On a happier note though, our room had a makeover from room service who had even tidied all of Anna’s clothes that she left everywhere this morning.

We were both knackered again, and the huge amount that we walked today only added to the tiredness. We ended up having another nap this evening before getting ready for dinner. This time I chose the district – Bastille – for the area in which we would search for an adequate dining establishment. And as usual we had explored just about the entire district before agreeing on one restaurant. The problem for this was that many of the places we passed tended to be bar restaurants and were all showing the Champions League football games. All the streets we passed just looked like the student zones of Paris.

Finally, we did decide on a classy restaurant overlooking Place de la Bastille, and just next to the Opera house. It was 9.10pm by the time we were seated and took us even longer to agree on the food (mainly because we couldn’t work out what was what on the menu). The waiter eventually helped us out a bit and we decided on beef and veal with a cold bottle of white wine, leaving the fish behind us for now. Our waiter was very friendly and had a dry humour, telling us that nobody likes liver so don’t order that – c’est dégoûtan – that the ice bucket would screech and destroy your brain if you slid it along the floor, and in response to Anna asking for him to delay when our mains would come, that she was the boss and that he would wait until she told him. Anna of course forgot and we were ravenous by the time he got his attention again.

Dessert was even harder to decipher on the non-English menu, with our waiter suggesting we refrain from selecting the first dessert – a small coffee and tiny dessert for the same price as everything else – “I don’t get it, but everybody does it here”. Unfortunately, by the time we had finished eating, our waiter must have been preoccupied by something else, or indeed had finished his shift. Still recovering from our long day, we headed home, taking my favourite metro line and sitting in Anna’s favourite metro seats. We even passed a drug dealing exchange in the tunnels, which I couldn’t quite tell what it was as they were white cubes instead of powder or little tablets.

Before falling asleep, I made sure to get as much planning done as I could before tomorrow morning, just in case we slept in again…