Day 4 - 31th July 2009

We had to get up very early today as the tour guide will be arriving around 6 A.M. Our train will depart from St. Pancras International station by 6.55 A.M and because of early departure time we decided to skip hotel breakfast which we're starting to develop a strong distaste for or in simpler words we're fed to the gills with the choice of foods. We're given tickets for both Eurostar train and Sien river cruise when we arrived at St.Pancras and we boarded the train shortly afterwards. Train ride took approximately 2 hours before arriving at Gare Du Nord station in central Paris.

Upon arriving at Gare Du Nord we decided to take the Metropolitan train to our first destination which happened to be in Anver and since this is a free and easy package, we had the liberty to choose our own destination and be in control of the time spent there to our own liking. We meander along the streets in Anver for souvenirs and there were plenty to be chosen from and it is reasonably cheap but considering the fact this is only our first stop and we wouldn’t want to spend rest of the day carrying along gifts we decided to buy stuff later on this journey. Major attraction in Anver is the Sacré-Coeur Basilica; this basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.

We left Anver for Charles de Gaulle — Étoile station after walking quite a distance from Anver to Villiers. Arriving at Charles de Gaulle, we went to see arguably the most visited landmark in Paris second only to Eiffel Tower which is Champs Elysees. My wife is kind of disappointed with the structure and the location of this landmark as her expectation is higher, to her it’s just a normal monument erected in stone much akin to any other structures in the city.

After spending not even 30 minutes here, we head back to Charles de Gaulle station for our next stop but not before stopping for breakfast at the underground station. I mean come on; you can't visit Paris without tasting their puff pastry that's so famous the world over. We bought Croissants and French loaf, I'm not sure whether it taste good because it was genuinely that good or it's simply delicious because I'm too hungry since i didn’t have breakfast. We stopped by at Champ de Mars Eiffel Tower where we're greeted by one of the most iconic structure of all time that could be seen from the distance - Eiffel Tower. Naturally a long and arduous photo session is due especially since we're surrounded by Eiffel Tower, Palais de Chaillot and École Militaire. We decided not to take the elevator ride up the Eiffel Tower as the queue is kind of long just to take pictures on top of Eiffel Tower and as the results of that we head to Sien river which is just alongside the site Eiffel Tower was built.

Bateaux Parisiens is an assortment or river cruise that ranges from private cruise, school cruise, lunch cruise and dinner cruise. The one that we took was sightseeing cruise, with the sightseeing cruise we cruised alongside Sien riverbank much like Thames cruise in London where we managed to get a glimpse of Asemblee Nationale, Mascott of Paris, Grand Palais, Le Louvre Museum, Musee' de Orsay' and the majestic Notre Dame. The river cruise itself took more than 1 hour under the scorching hot weather - must be due to summer I thought to myself, where we're brought back to Eiffel Tower.

My wife insisted to set off Le Louvre Museum, so off we went from Eiffel Tower station to Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre station. The Louvre — is the largest national museum of France, the most visited museum in the world, and a historic monument. It is a central landmark of Paris, located on the Right Bank of the Seine river. This is the location where Mona Lisa is stored. Another major attraction in the compound of this museum is the Louvre Pyramid which is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard.

Our last stop for today is Galleries Lafayette while this not ancient or historic monument, it is one of the most visited location in Paris for shopaholics. It is the flagship departmental store in Paris which stood 10 storeys tall, you could find the latest designer clothes, perfume and accessories but the price is not exactly falls within my expectation. I bought a Gergio Armani Acqua Di Gio perfume at Pavillion KL for 160 while the going price at Lafayette is 360 after conversion. Why on earth would I pay more for the same item?

As my fever is starting to acting up, we decided to return to Gare Du Nord for our journey back to London. We spent time there by having light meals and drink while waiting for our train to depart. It’s already dark when we reached London so we head back to hotel for some rest.

*I'll upload some pictures when bandwidth is more accommodating than today*

*Some of the information is taken from Wikipedia*

Until then,

Regards,

MARK