Paris: An Overview

Our recent trip to Paris and Reims was our first major foray into continental Europe. A couple of months back, we were trying to figure out where we wanted to travel and when we wanted to go, when I suggested that we head down to Paris for our first anniversary. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and in fact, it was. The trip began with something of an inauspicious start. Our flight out of Edinburgh was delayed, so we did not arrive in Paris until about 10:30pm, after which we still had to take the commuter train into town, transfer to a subway, and find our hotel near the Saint Lazare area. The short version of this part of the story is that we got very, very lost. I generally have a good sense of direction, but apparently all my instincts are wrong in France, and so after wandering around the streets of Paris with our luggage for nearly an hour, we finally arrived at our little hotel room at close to 1:00am.

Day one in Paris was mostly occupied by the obligatory sightseeing. We walked from our hotel down to the far end of Champs Elysees at the Arc du Triomphe and decided to walk from there to the Louvre, stopping to see the sights along the way. For breakfast, I successfully ordered a muffin (in French) at a Starbucks. The funny thing, in most of my attempts at French interaction, was that I would always have planned in advance what I was going to say (e.g., Je voudrais une croissant), and would do my best to speak clearly and use proper French pronunciation, but almost invariably the shopkeeper or waiter would nevertheless respond to me in English. Oh well.

We had walked down most of Champs Elysees and made it to the Invalides area when we first caught sight of the most Parisian of all sights, the Eiffel Tower itself.

After all the obligatory Eiffel Tower photos, we proceeded on to the Tuileries, where we had a small picnic in the garden. After that, it was off to the Louvre for some culture and then back to the garden to enjoy some wine and relax.

Enjoying this particular wine was actually something of a challenge. In the UK, we have become accustomed to screw top wine bottles. Naturally, the wine in France was much more sophisticated, and thus we found ourselves with wine, but no cork screw. Although this problem was quickly remedied, upon opening the wine we discovered that our plastic cups, taken from our hotel room, had been somewhat crushed during our day of walking. Thus, we were able to enjoy a relaxing, if rather wet and messy, bottle of wine in the park.


The rest of our time in Paris was slightly less intense than our first day, which frankly left us exhausted from the miles of walking. We took one morning to go gourmet food shopping at Hediard and Fauchon, which was a truly delicious experience. In the afternoon, we walked up to the hill of Montmarte, which overlooks the city, and saw the Basilisque du Sacre Coeur,

and then walked just down the street to the Salvador Dali museum. Dali, it turns out, was a very, very odd fellow, and it was fascinating to learn more about him and his crazy mustache.