We left Arras and drove to Calais as we had to drop off the hire car. We travelled over 9,000km which is a pretty good effort in 10 weeks! We had heaps of luggage including chiller food bags which we had to haul on to the train then off again at Gare du Nord in Paris as this will be our last few days before heading home.
We had a couple of hours to wait so we went into the café at the train station and had a cup of tea and lunch. Dad and I played pool and I got pumped! The train trip from Calais to Paris took nearly two hours and I worked on my fractions with Mum which was hard.
The train started off quite empty but was packed at the end with people going to Paris. We arrived at Gare du Nord, a very large station and got in the taxi queue. The taxi driver who took us to our apartment in the north of Paris was crazy! He said to us that driving in Paris is like a game. No wonder Mum didn’t want to drive here.
The apartment was a bit out of central Paris but still had nice views of the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Couer (a famous church) as we were 7 floors up. We were also very near the French national stadium – Stade de France. Mum let me stay up late as her niece Kara was arriving at 10pm from Glasgow with her boyfriend Connor.
They came for our last weekend which was nice as I hadn’t seen her since last July.
Saturday 26 October
Today, we all took off to explore Paris on foot at about 10am. Little did we know that we would spend 12 hours out and walked 17km! It was a beautiful sunny day and not too warm, so great for walking. We first went to the Louvre museum which was a beautiful old building but with a modern pyramid in the square.
It has lots of artworks in it, but it is especially famous for a painting called the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. We didn’t go in as we just wanted to see all the main buildings and sights of Paris today. After that we walked down to the Jardin des Tuileries, the Place de la Concorde, the Petit Palais, the Grande Palais then we crossed the Pont du Alexandre bridge to see the military history museum and Napolean’s tomb. Napolean was a famous French general.
After that we then walked through Champ de Mars gardens with lots of unusual sculptures (including a huge brass finger!) and then onto the world famous Eiffel Tower. We didn’t go up as the queues were crazy and we had heard that it was better to see it from the Arc de Triomphe. So we headed off to see it - it is at the end of the most famous street in Paris called the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
The Arc is in the middle of a massive roundabout with room for about 10 cars driving around it! We took a lift to the top of the Arc and got great views of all the many surrounding avenues that connect with the Arc. No wonder the traffic was crazy with cars always cutting each other off.
Mum told me that rental cars cannot be insured if you choose to drive around here! I did a time lapse video of it which is quite funny! Late in the afternoon we stopped for chocolate crepes and ice-cream which is famous in Paris. I think we deserved this treat.
We then set off about 5.30pm again and this time we walked back down the Champs-Elysees toward the Louvre. There were lots of nice shops, hotels and restaurants. We decided to visit the gardens called Jardin du Palais Royale which were beautiful and surrounded by lovely buildings.
It was nearly time for dinner, so we looked around and found a nice restaurant near the gardens and had dinner. It was getting late, so all we needed to do was find the metro station called Chatelet des Halles and take the 15 minute train ride home. There were lots of sore feet but what a day!
Hi Max, i'm Blair from Lochiel School
ReplyDeleteHow was Europe was it fun that was soooooooo cool i wish i could come with you to Europe and have some fun with you.
Did you get to sit in that Supercar or did you just stand beside it? and i see that you visit the Eiffel tower was it so cool.
And also did you see the lighthouse because there is a lighthouse in Europe and if you did, did you see it flash round and round? and did you see lots of car and trucks.
bye for now Blair