Posts Tagged With: Paris

Lightning trip to Paris (Or: Day 2 of 2)

Continuing my previous past about our first day in Paris, here is what Marco and I saw on day 2 of our lightning trip to Paris:

Fountain of Innocents, Paris

The Fountain of Innocents

Near the beginning of our walk we unexpectedly came across the Fountain of Innocents (or, at least, it was unexpected for me – perhaps it was part of Marco’s master plan all along!).

Statue in Tuileries garden, in Paris, with ferris wheel in background

My favourite picture – taken from the Tuileries Garden

And then my favourite picture, as we walked through the Tuileries Garden.

Place de la Concorde from a distance, Egyptian obelisk

And here is a view of the Place de la Concorde. I had to get a photo of the duck! (the piece of wood is to help birds get back out of the water)

In the distance you can see the Luxor Obelisk.

Fontain de la Concorde, Paris

One of the fountains at Place de la Concorde

Place de la Concorde has two fountains dedicated to the maritime industry in France.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

We also walked past Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (not the Arc de Triomphe everyone thinks of, though).

And my last photo is from the shopping mall near the Louvre, as we were walking back to the train station:

The Inverted Pyramid in Paris

The Inverted Pyramid

The Inverted Pyramid. Made even more famous by the Da Vinci Code… 😉 Although it was already famous!

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Lightning trip to Paris (Or: Day 1 of 2)

Marco and I visited Paris last week for about 36 hours — 11:00 Wednesday until 19:30 Thursday. A lightning trip! The reason was to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law who were vacationing in the city. Since they live on the west coast of America, it seemed to be an opportunity one does not pass up. The trip was under three hours by high-speed train (Thalys)…

Marco and I splurged a bit for this trip and traveled first class. One unexpected benefit was the use of the first class lounge at Rotterdam Centraal:

NS International lounge at Rotterdam Centraal

Perks of the lounge: fairly quiet, a free drink, and climate controlled.

Our hotel wasn’t far from the train station in Paris (Gare du Nord) – only about a 15 minute walk. After meeting up with my brother and sister-in-law, we retreated to our hotel room to apply vigorous amounts of sunscreen. And why might we do that, you ask?

Because the temperature for both days while we were there was around 36C (97F). Ughhhh! And in those two days Marco and I managed to walk 38km, or about 23 and a half miles. Don’t worry, the next three days we were extremely lazy and rested our poor aching feet.

First we visited the Louvre museum:

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A magical place (Or: Disneyland Paris)

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Above: Tower of Terror ride as seen from Toyland (aka Toy Story – you can see the green army man overlooking a ride).

Marco and I have been here for a few days now. It’s been pretty cool, especially as I have crossed the two most worrisome rides off my list – Thunder Mountain and the Tower of Terror.

Thunder Mountain wasn’t horrible and there is a chance I would do it again. The ride has three fast sections (including some spots in pitch black) and a few slow down moments. I survived.

Tower of Terror wasn’t quite what I remembered – the story bit after you are in the ride was only about 45 seconds and then they started to drop you. Two or so floors at first, and then rushed back up again for four or five floors. The ‘finale’ was about 160 feet (12 or so floors) back to back – two drops. They open the doors at the top so you can look over the park briefly. Of course my eyes were closed and my face buried in Marco’s arm so I only saw a brief glimmer of sunlight against my eyelids. The one in Disney World has a bit more story to it, and the chance to be dropped a random amount of times (2-4?). I won’t be doing this one again. 😛

Yesterday we hit a lot of tv smaller rides in the park including ‘It’s a small world’. It’s more bearable during the Christmas season as it is half Christmas music and half ‘It’s a small world’ music.
We also rode the tram around the Disney Parks, though it wasn’t quite what Marco remembered – there was not much stuff to look at. Unfortunately we missed the ‘Behind the Magic’ tram your for Disney studios as it was only open Monday and Tuesday and we didn’t realize. They do publish the scheduled closings months ahead of time, so that is nice. There’s also a few things that are only open Thursday and Friday, like an ‘Armageddon’ (the movie) special effects show.

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Above: Dutch Sinterklaas in ‘It’s a small world’.

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Disneyland Paris (Or: Honeymoons)

Marco and I are currently visiting Disneyland Paris for our honeymoon. We are lucky to have good weather, although it is definitely a bit chilly!

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Pretty huh?

We took it mostly easy today, arriving around 1pm at the park. The first thing we ended up seeing was the Christmas parade (yes, Christmas season started Sunday at Disney). Of course there was some technical difficulty with one of the floats (we guess) but as they say the show must go on. The performers kept doing their act for over 10 minutes while waiting for the signal to start again.

Marco and I had a lot of fun but we are both sore from all of the walking. The oddest thing is that everyone starts leaving the park around 6pm even though it closes at 9pm. As we were walking back to the park from the hotel, it was a bit strange, like trying to get through one of the zombie hordes on Walking Dead unscathed.

Since most people leave, most of the bigger restaurants close around 6pm too so we had to improvise on where to get food (see next paragraph). It’s somewhat dangerous to walk around later at night in the late fall season because their lightning isn’t that great in some areas of the park.

But of course we had a lot of fun. One recommendation: try Earl of Sandwich if you have it at your Disney park. It was tasty! I had the Earl’s Club sandwich. We are going to go back later in the week to try out one of their wraps. It helps that it’s only a short walk from our hotel…

Until next post!

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Eurodisney (Or: It’s now Disneyland Paris, right?)

This coming week Marco and I are headed off on our honeymoon, which will be at Eurodisney. Of course, it is now called Disneyland Paris and I have heard that is not been called ‘Eurodisney’ for years.

We took advantage of the 20th anniversary deal to score 5 days and 4 nights at the park. Perhaps too much – it is a small park after all – but it will be more relaxing than if we only had a few days.

The only thing that Marco’s mother asked for was a Winnie the Pooh stuffed doll, somewhat similar to the stuffed Tigger she already has:

little stuffed Tigger

Yes, my foot is being used for a quick and dirty size comparison!

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