Our trip to Paris started with taking a train from Colchester to London, we got there a bit early and we got on the train to London. Unfortunately for us, they were being rather strict then, and since we weren't on the right train(ours was at 6:30am and we got on a 6:03am train), they charged us for the tickets again! Even though the train was practically empty! That was not pleasant.
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| The London St. Pancras Train staion and our trip to Paris. |
From London, we took a train to Paris, it goes underground through the ocean! We were seated with a bunch of kids, it was a very loud trip and it didn't help that the train took 82 minutes longer to get there due to some accident. They ended up giving us a free one way ticket for our next trip. We still need to redeem that. But we finally got to Paris at the Gare du Nord station.
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| This was at the top of the Gare Du Nord Train Station in Paris |
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| Care Culture! |
Right away, we noticed how lively the environment was. People all around, walking, talking, eating, sitting, and so on. Our first mission was to find the hotel so we walked there through endless stores. We got to the hotel, left our bags and took off to explore the city.
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| Looking out, from our hotel. |
Armed with a map, we decided to check out the Sacred Heart Cathedral, which was close to our hotel.We must have been staying in the 'fabric' district because literally all stores were selling just fabrics.
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| Lively Neighborhoods! |
We made our way up the hill where the Cathedral resides and we were surprised to see it full of street performers, people everywhere and there was even a race going through there. We were even more surprised that they didn't charge to get in the church, they didn't let you take pictures and some people were rejected because of how they were dressed/looked....but we got in. It was impressive, too bad they cheapen it with coin machines inside.
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| Various things going on at The Basilique du Sacré-Cœur |
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| Panoramic from the steps of The Basilique du Sacré-Cœur |
We took a walk around trying to find coffee shops that had soymilk. But even though soymilk is at every grocery store, absolutely no coffee shop that we saw had it, it was rather disappointing. And then rain started pouring, we had forgotten our umbrella so we had to run back to the hotel. After getting our umbrella, we went to a grocery store to stock up on snacks. We got some fruits, a baguette, salt (for the avocado...you cannot have avocado without salt!), soymilk and soy chocolate pudding. We then realized that the restaurant that we wanted to go, Au Grain Folie, was already opened for the evening. We can't really grasp the concept of restaurants not open at all times, we are so used to the culture of get what you want....now! But we try. We had a nice meal made amazing by finishing with an incredible apple crumble. The restaurant had a homey feel, I mean, it was literally a one woman show. With one lady serving and cooking everything as it was ordered. Sophie had fallen asleep through the meal, so doing much after didn't make sense. We called it a day.
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| Our vegan meal at Au Grain de Folie. A vegetable pastry plate and a seitan, lentils, rice, and vegetable palte. Apple Crumble for dessert. |
For day 2, we took the subway to the Royal Palace. We looked around the gardens then took off to see the Louvre. Well that was an impressive sight. We walked around amazed at the architecture.
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| The Louvre! |
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| Sophie and Geli at the Louvre! :) |
It started to sprinkle but that didn't deter us, we have not forgotten our umbrella this time.. We took a small break to eat some snacks while admiring L'arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.
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| L'arc de Triomphe du Carrousel |
We then took to walking on the streets, admiring the architecture, statues and trying to take it all in.
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| Statues everywhere! |
This was when we first spotted the Eiffel tower and it really made us realize that indeed we were in Paris.
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| Sophie and I, looking around Paris |
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| The statues and ornaments on the Alexander III bridge |
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| Musée de l'Armée |
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| Gas Station?! |
We saw a gas "station" that was not like anything we had ever seen. It is just pumps on the side of the road. After walking for hours, we started to feel the hunger creeping up on us, so we decided to head towards Le Grenier de Notre Dame. We had a nice meal there and recuperated some energy to continue walking.
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| Our vegan meal at Le Grenier de Notre Dame. A vegetable cassoulet and a dish of Ratatouille, fried tofu, fried seitan, and a salad with candied figs. |
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| Cathédrale Notre Dame |
By the time we got out of the restaurant it was dark. But Paris is as lively as dark as when it's day. So we went around the Latin quarter to take in the night environment, then made our way to the Notre Dame cathedral. It was late, so we didn't go inside, but it was still a very impressive building. After that, we decided to head back to the hotel.
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| Carousel at night |
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| The river shortly after sunset |
Day 3 started with a trip to the Arc de la Défense. It was located in what seems like the business section of Paris. It was rather modern, I felt like I was in Chicago rather than Paris. The monument itself was humongous and impressive, and very modern.
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| L'Arc de Triomphe |
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| Detail on L'Arc de Triomphe |
We decided our next move was to eat at Loving Hut. This is a vegan restaurant that never seems to fail us, they have many locations all over the world. As expected, we had an awesome meal and then headed to the Eiffel Tower.
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| Our vegan meal at The Loving Hut! We had some fantastic mushroom crepes, a french veggie pastry and sophie had Spaghetti O's! Oh, and a french cappuccino! |
We were really surprise to find out that the Eiffel Tower is surrounded by a park, with a pond and all. It was rather contrasting with the immense industrial-looking tower there. We though that seeing the Eiffel Tower would not be that big of a deal. But the sheer size of it is impressive. You really do not get a feel of its size until you are right below it looking up.
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| Panoramic view from the Eiffel Tower, looking north |
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| La Tour Eiffel |
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| Panoramic from the Eiffel Tower, looking south(click to enlarge) |
We were in awe. There were huge lines to go up, but by the time we decided that we should go up we didn't have to wait long. And did you know the Eiffel Tower is painted brown? That was unexpected. Once on the tower, you get a 360 degree on the Paris, quite amazing.
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| Sophie in the carousel by the Eiffel Tower. |
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| École Militaire |
We then took Sophie to the carousel, and walked around the École Militaire. After spending a long time admiring the Eiffel Tower from all possible angles and distances, we headed for dinner at L'As Du Fallafel. This restaurant has the fame of having the best falafel in the world, so we had to try it out. If we had to measure it's greatness by how crowded it was, then it was super great. The falafel was great too. Delicious. We went to the store, gathered more snacks and headed to the hotel.
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| Our vegan meal at L'As Du Fallafel! Falafel plate, Falafel sandwich(that is tahini sauce on it), and pomme frite! |
We were ambitious for our day 4, which was our last. Since we were leaving at night from Paris, we had to carry all our belongings with us, but we still wanted to make the most of it. Therefore, we promptly headed to the Catacombes de Paris. This was 2km of arranged human bones. At first you get a creepy feeling, because human bones is not something you see everyday. But after walking in corridor after corridor after bones, the creepy feeling goes away and is replaced with a humbling feeling.
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| Catacombes de Paris |
Unfortunately for me, Sophie needed to go to the bathroom really bad in the middle of it, so walking really fast with an almost crying child through what seemed an endless corridor of bones, felt almost like a nightmare. I felt trapped in a horror movie. But finally, I reached the end, mumbled in broken French to the first person I saw about where to find a bathroom. I understood them somehow. Made my way to the bathroom, only to find that it was by pay. I became really anxious because Chuy had all the money and he was who knows where inside the Catacombes. But the person in the store waved me in the bathroom and finally Sophie made it. After that I became really anxious to find Chuy cause I didn't know if he had gone out while Sophie was in the bathroom. But a few minutes later we were all reunited, and headed to our next destination the train to Versailles.
We got to Versailles hungry, we knew that finding a restaurant that offered vegan food there was not gonna be easy. So we opted to find a bakery and market. With a baguette and some avocados, we made ourselves delicious avocado sandwiches in a park. That bread was amazing.
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| Improvised vegan lunch. French baguette, avocado, salt and hot sauce! |
We then walked to the Chateau de Versailles. It was immense, and quite extravagant. Our bags were getting heavy on our shoulders, so we decided to go in if anything to take a rest from our bags since they had a locker room. But they didn't let us leave our bags because we had a laptop.
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| At the entrance of the Chateau de Versailles |
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| Chateau de Versailles |
Our disappointment dissipated when we entered the castle and quickly became overwhelmed by the luxury and extravagance.
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| Fancy! Fancy! |
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| Some more things inside the Chateau de Versailles and the garden. |
It was endless halls of beyond fancy decorations and painted ceilings. It was a bit too much.
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| The garden and the pond in the rear of the Chateau de Versailles |
Then we went to the immense gardens, that could be said to be more like sculptured woods because they were endless. It started to rain, so we decided to check out a bit more of Versailles before heading back to Paris.
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| They were filming a movie at the Chateau de Versailles |
We walked around the streets looking at the shops and so forth, and when the rain started to get heavier, we decided to go in a restaurant to get some fries.
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| One of the streets in Versailles |
Apparently, people put mayonnaise on their fries here because they gave us fries with mayo on the side. After our fries, we headed to the train station and went back to Paris. Sophie was really exhausted, so we went straight to the train station that would take us back to London. When we got to London, we grabbed some snacks and headed to the train to go to Colchester.
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| Sophie crashed out at the train station. |
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| Train station vegan snacks. A bean burrito, a samosa, a spring roll, a falafel wrap and crisps. |
We got to Colchester and found out the buses were no longer running. We were tired, but walked home. It was only 2 miles but it seemed to be never ending. Our trip ended with sore muscles but a lot of great experiences.
Wow, impressive, great pics. Traveling, always pleasant :)
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