Day 272 : Paris – City of Love

They don’t call Paris the City of Love for nothing – Looking out of the window as I woke up this morning, I saw this love note on the floor, and it brought a smile to my face.  Ahh…. how sweet and romantic!

Off to explore more sights! 

Day 271 : More Paris Sights & Familiar Faces

Taking a VERY long walk from the apartment, I made my way towards Hotel National Des Invalides, as this path allows me to get towards Place de la Concorde and the Louvre.

On the map, it didn’t seem that far away, but it took me about an hour to walk over!  I found it a great way to experience the city and seeing the sights. 

Day 270 : Paris City Sights

I took a long slow walk from the apartment towards Avenue des Champ-Elysees to catch the main sights such as Arc du Triomphe, Grand Palais, Petit Palais and Louvre. 

Along Avenue des Champ-Elysees, there were also a number of car showrooms with some car designs which I had never seen before and wanting to take a closer look, I stepped into a couple of them. 

While visiting the sights, I got a call from Fabien and we arranged to have lunch together since he was near the area. 

After lunch, he brought me to the auction houses of Drouot.  It was the first time I visited an auction house and was an eye-opener!  The building was filled with numerous rooms, almost all with live auction happening at the time of my visit, varying from paintings, artefacts, decoration, statues etc.  I was so afraid of making any sudden hand movements in case someone thought I was bidding on the items!

Day 269 : Arrival in Paris

My original plan was to fly out of London after visiting Betty, but seems the airport tax for flights out of Heathrow airport was a couple hundred dollars more as compared to my original flight out from Barcelona.  After speaking to Singapore Airlines, I decided that it was better to fly out from Paris since both cities are easily connected by rail and the difference in flight cost was able to cover for my train ticket to Paris!

I took the 4.01pm train to Paris and within 1hr and 16 mins, arrived in Paris.  After numerous email exchanges, I finally met Fabien for the 1st time after 3 years!

Fabien had offered to put me up at his place during my week in Paris however due to some complications at his home, he put me up at his sister’s city apartment, which she uses as a layover when she travels back to France to visit family.  The apartment was lovely and being so close to all the key attractions, it was perfect for visiting all the sights with total freedom.

 

After settling me down at the apartment, Fabien brought me to a cozy French bistro walking distance away from the apartment which served fantastic French cuisine.  People were really friendly at the bistro too!  Knowing that I was a foreigner, the table next to ours even made the effort to speak in English.  I was pleasantly surprised as I have heard often the contrary from travellers, that Parisians are extremely unfriendly and will never speak English even if they could.

Looking forward to the rest of the week’s stay in Paris!

Day 263–268 : London

Hello London, we meet again!  This is the first city on this big trip that I had visited previously.  The last time I was here was in 2004, when Betty just moved over for work, and had went over to visit her while on way back from a business trip in Germany and to also spend Xmas and New Year’s holiday in Scotland and London.

Having seem most of the key tourists sights the last time round, the main purpose of this trip was just to spend some time with Betty before heading back to Singapore.  It’s good to be able to chill rather than pack the day filled with sights and activities.  Still I managed to see some new attractions (and old), visited the nearby parks and even managed to watch a musical “Blood Brothers”!