We arrived in Paris in spacious Mercedes B Class, a rented car from Germany. Except for the last leg of the journey, it was eventless through out our drive from Germany to France. The Paris streets are quite messy at night, with all the road works and narrow streets. Paris streets was completed long before there were cars, and its width is not in congruent with its status as a world class metropolitan. First impression was not pretty. For some reasons our hotel was in the 18-th, 10th district, a Parisian red light district. Coming from a quiet German town, this was not a welcoming sight. 
And then we found our hotel, right behind some narrow streets. No parking was available and our car is parked in a nearby garage, for 18 euro a day. That was when we realized why driving in Paris city was a very bad idea, parking was difficult to find, streets are narrow and Parisian does not care so much about the car. For them, cars are just a mean of transport, not a symbol of social status.
We began the paris city tour on the following morning. To traverse in the city, we used the city metro and as we were going to be in the city for 3 days, we invested in a 3-day ticket, for total of 20 euro each. The tickets allows unlimited usage of the public transport in the city for selected zones.
Paris is a beautiful city, with a lot of emphasis on art. The dustbin is designed with art in mind, and in contrary to major city like Berlin, grafiti is minimal. The city council must have done something to either clean them up efficiently or have heavy fine for those who were caught. The Parisian was not known to be civic conscious, so the city must have done a pretty good job.
As it is a really big city, we have decided to take the free tour to get to know the city better. Due to our superb experience with Sandermann free tour elsewhere in Amsterdam, we have decided to take another tour by them in Paris as well. It turns out to be a great choice. Our guide is an Austrialian girl, doing her exchange program in Paris. Her name is Sam.
Sam in front of the building Samaritane
River cruise boat and the Eiffel Tower
The tour starts in the Place St. Michel, right at the beginning of the Bouldevard Saint Mcihel. It takes 3.5 hours with lunch around 1 pm noon. During these tour, Sam managed to link various things we already know with Paris, from the movie Sex and the city, the infamous leonado da vinci to the gender of Ipod. And during the tour, we got to smell the french urine along the seine river and realised why the streets of Paris was cleaned by using water splashing vehicles, even though there are public toilets everywhere and most are free. We passed by the restaurant where the French Revolution was started, the famed Musee Du Louvre with its pyramids and of course, the world famous landmark, the Eiffel tower.
Night view of the Eiffel Tower
The tower is beautiful to look at from far away. It is built in the 19th century, and in the beginning, it was only something of estatic values until the Gustav Eiffel puts a radio tower to prove that it has some functionality after all. The Parisian wanted to abandon the tower in the beginning, and if it was succeeded, there would not be this tower today. Due to its fame, there are always queue to go up the tower, although IMHO, at close range, the tower looks like it was a incomplete project with the steel structure. And to go up, we had to pay a 13 euro entrance fee and there was actually nothing that much different from any tall structure that I had visited. It is still the tallest structure in Paris because no other tall building is allowed in the surrounding area and Parisian allowed themselves to stay in a tiny apartment, much to our distaste. There is no shortage of people who wanted to go up though. A friend of mine joked that it was possible to find queue of people wanting to go up the tower,anytime around year, even from Google map's satelitte images.
The queue from Eiffel stair case
10413 KM away from home
The hotel room I had is the smallest I have ever seen, and it was the first time in many years, I have to sleep on a bed that is shorter than my legs. However, it is more a choice of lifestyle by the Parisian because there are plenty of open space in Paris, judging by the availability of open space parks.
The french is proud of their language and their own history, and consider English a foreign invasion of their culture. And therefore, although they might be polite, any attempt to converse in English without a bonjour at the beginning of the sentence, will be greeted with ignorance. So, during our brief stays in Paris, we always greeted people in French. It is a beautiful language, making this a fun activity. And like German, there is gender for all nouns, and the french designates that Ipod should be a “he” and not a she because it is cool, and it is not beautiful. This was a joke told by Sam, and for all English speakers, the way she imitated her French friend's explanation was really funny. Anyone who had heard a French speaking English would have known what I meant when English was spoken with a French accent.
We did not tried much of the French cuisine, but eating in Paris is not a problem at all, although it can be a bit pricey compared to Germany. Our 4 day journey gave us a chance to try the Japanese food, Vietnamese mee soup, french open air lunch, American brunch and the Parisian styled chocolate. There is a China town in a new district of Paris and the chinese-vietnamese mee soup that I had reminded me very much of Malaysia kuetiow soup. We could not find anything similar in Germany and the chinese food we had in Germany is simply too salty for our taste.
Anyone who wanted to try a lavish meal in Paris however must be prepared to spend a lot of time in restaurant and do not go in a empty stomach. As a french colleague once told us, to eat in a French restaurant is not about filling your stomach, but it is about the ambience and, the conversation. Eating is one of the most pleasurable pass time in France. We did not try that because there are only guys in our group and going to fancy restaurant was not in anyone's mind.
There are plenty of museums in Paris, and one of the most famous is the Musee Du Luvre. It is one of the biggest Museum in the world with its vast collection and according to Sam, noone can finish walking the whole museum even if he has 3 months. It was huge. But almost everyone will want to take a photo with Leonardo Da Vinci's “The smile of Mona Lisa”, thanks to the movie of course. The museum had even collaborated with Comic artist to make sure it will stay relevant. Judging from the length of the queue outside the ticketing counter and the museum entrance, it did not have a problem to generate enough visitors to sustain itself. In the end, I bought a book about the museum from its bookstore and secretly wished that I will come back someday for a visit again.
Our last day was spent in the Palace of Versailles, which was the centre of political power in France from 1682. It has a nice french park but unfortunately for us, it was closed on Monday. Therefore, we only managed to explore the park, taking pictures and pretended to be a French king, going for an morning stroll.
Paris is a city of love, and it would be a great place to spend with your loved ones. It was one of the bridges across the river Seine that Big told Carrie, she is the one. It was artsy, with many side stalls and the street views are beautiful thanks to the many pine trees, that gave it a different tone. It was one of the cities that was not destroyed in the second world war, thanks to a Nazi General. And sufficient to say, if you have never been to Paris, you have never been to Europe . It is a must visit.
