through the eyes of the a70

We continue our Eurotrip journey the next day departing London, UK, to our second country, France. In France, we’re only staying in one city just like the UK, and of course it is Paris! For the next four days Paris will be our home and we’ll be touring all around the city.

Paris was definitely on the top of my to-visit cities in the world. Too often you see it portrayed as one of the most romantic and luxurious cities in the world, on posters, billboards, TV, and movies (of course, Da Vinci Code). With a bit of conversational French under my belt and slightly better reading comprehension of the language, I hope that it would come in handy.

Something I’ve always wanted to do when and if I reach Paris – speak with the locals in (poor) French, and have a cup of coffee on the streets of Paris, haha.

One thing I should mention is that there is free admission to all the museums in France on the first Sunday of every month, so that’s basically what we planned this whole trip around. There are way too many museums and sights to visit here, but we kept it at a decent pace, not wanting to rush through anything (learning from our experiences in London – rushing burns us out way too fast!).

Continue reading and we’ll start off the day early at 5:30am departing the hostel for the morning train…

We’ll be travelling on the 6:22am Eurostar to Paris, which can travel at speeds of 300km/h!

As I brought along my small camera, I was able to take some movie clips along the trip, so I’ll try this out to see if video incorporates well with the photoblog.

To start off, that’s where we’re located geographically, at the edge of England, almost going across the English Channel.

Here’s a video of us speeding along the rails.

Finally reaching our Hotel for the next 3 nights. We found out that they messed up and thought we were coming in the next day. Oh boy. So they transferred us to another hostel for the night…

After a couple of metro stops and some walking with our heavy luggage, we finally reach our place for the night, Hotel Paris Magenta Strasbourg. Actually the photos make the rooms look nicer than it is…

Once our packs were dropped off, we set off towards Notre Dame Cathedral

Most of the cathedrals have a similar architecture shape – a cross shape if viewed from the top down.

We arrive at the famous Arc de Triomphe, which is a war memorial monument in the middle of Charles de Gaulle Plaza. It’s one of Paris’ most recognized landmarks with its unique design which cars circle it (with no traffic lines between the lanes!). It is also directly parallel to the Louvre via the famous Champs-Élysées (expensive shopping!).

To get to the monument is certainly interesting. You can only get to the centre of the circle by going in an underpass and coming out the other side. As traffic is almost non-stop above ground, it is usually not advisable to run across the street :-P

After dinner was finished and we walked a bit of Champs-Élysées, we decided to head over to the Louvre for some night shots. It was getting late at 10:30pm, but we didn’t want to miss the night scene. And it didn’t disappoint at all. If you’re ever in Paris, you definitely need to visit the Louvre at night.

As I walked through the arches that lead to the main plaza of the Louvre, and there stood the pyramids, right in front of me. I paused for a moment and looked in awe. This is one of those rare moments during the trip where I got the shivers. I thought to myself, “so this was what it looks like in the movies, on TV, but much much bigger.” The lit pyramids were so beautiful.

To be continued…

The next stage of my travel photos is in progress! A short post in between the travel posts for the time being.

Our 3rd and final day in London, May 1st, was just as packed as the previous two. It was literally famous locations after famous locations – just like what you see on TV. Lots of walking along the beautiful River Thames on another gorgeous day.

Arriving at the busy Waterloo tube station for none other than the famous London Eye attraction!

In Vancouver, I debated whether to take the ride up the Eye or not, after all, it costs £17 each person just for a 30 minute ride (equivalent to $30 CAD)! Normally, I don’t spend so much on something like a ferris wheel ride, but in the end I thought “what the heck, I’m already here!” and caved in…

Meeting street performers along the way as we make our trek north and westwards.

Lunch break! Today we stopped somewhere between Waterloo Bridge and the Millennium Bridge to grab a bite to eat. The place was called “EAT”, appropriately enough, and is much like Pret A Manger. They offer simple but fresh sandwiches and some hot food like soups!

After lunch, we headed on to Tate Modern, a free modern and contemporary art museum right beside the Millennium Bridge.

But first, a walk on the modern pedestrian-only bridge, Millennium Bridge!

After spending some time in the gallery, we headed onwards to Shakespeare’s Globe!

We finally arrive at London’s big landmark – the Tower Bridge. People often get confused and call this the “London Bridge” (we made that mistake!) when in fact there’s another bridge by that name, less fancy. Kids taught the song “London Bridge is falling down” was shown the wrong picture!

A short elevator ride (thank god no stairs!) up one of the towers and we are inside a room which displays the history of the Bridge – along with initial bid designs.

I was surprised to find that the bridge is actually a suspension bridge – very much active today and ships pass under it often.

Brian and Alex found wireless internet beside the City Hall as they were waiting for us to get down from the Tower Bridge. As internet at the hostel costs a ridiculous amount, we rested here while making our first calls home with VOIP :-P

Taking a detour to King’s Cross/St. Pancras to check for next day’s early Eurostar train out to Paris.

London’s a beautiful city with and endless amount of attractions to see but with mediocre food – maybe we weren’t looking in the right places. It’s also an expensive city at that. Oh, and people dressed up nicely everywhere, made us feel almost out of place. One of the safest and also modern cities to visit – oh, and they speak English ;-)

Next time I think I’ll need to spend more than a couple of days here, but as our day draws to an end in England, we’re anxious and excited to see what Paris has in store for us next…

To be continued…

We started off Day 3 feeling lively and excited to visit all the attractions. After a quick breakfast at Generator Hostel, we departed toward Westminster tube station at 9am, where the famous Big Ben clock is.

And now for a series of Big Ben photos and closeups…

Big Ben is actually a part of Palace of Westminster, or House of Parliament. Security is tight around here.

I must say, if you don’t have wide angle in Europe, you probably won’t be able to take half the architecture shots!

Next, we walked toward Buckingham Palace at around 11am, to catch the changing of the guards at around 11:30am, and pass through St. James’s Park which is adjacent to the Palace.

So this was across from St. James’s Park, and we thought that we were looking at the Changing of the Guards, since there was a crowd of people outside of the fence. What was funny was that it wasn’t even time yet, so we were quite confused,but we started photographing anyways, not wanting to miss anything…

After a few minutes of photographing… we figured out that we haven’t reached Buckingham Palace yet! Haha. We packed our gears and hurried on our way towards the real thing!

This time, the wait is longer – 20 min. Some of the crowd disperses. I don’t blame them, after all this waiting and not seeing much, we’d like to leave too!

Something appears to be happening just shortly afterwards… the place is being cleared by the police.
Apparently, the President of Lebanon is arriving at the Palace!

Pret a Manger is a famous sandwich chain store that sells all kinds of sandwiches-to-go, lunch boxes, drinks and also hot soups. Their sandwiches are fairly priced, majority around £1.5 – £4. Good as lunch or afternoon snack.

After a quick 30 min lunch, we headed to our next destination – the famous Westminster Abbey.

Next, enroute to the British Museum!

Parthenon sculptures.

After dinner it was getting dark – perfect for night shots of Tower Bridge! (sometimes mistaken as London Bridge)

To be continued…