Paris's Signature: Eiffel Tower

Every major city has a signature place like for New York it is ‘Statue of liberty’, for Sydney it is ‘Opera House’, for London it is ‘Big Ben clock’ and for Paris it’s obviously ‘Eiffel tower’. So before landing in Paris, I had decided that I will be visiting Eiffel tower first.

Nearest Metro Stations:

• Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel(RER-C)
• Bir Hakeim(Line-6).

To get there from CDG Airport:
CDG Terminal-2 to St-Michel Notre-Dame by RER-B; St-Michel Notre-Dame to Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel by RER-C

Worth thousand words !

The visit materialized in a bit dramatic way. After taking rest most of the times on Sunday, the next day I got up very early. Still my body was biologically in Indian time zone. I went to the lobby for breakfast bit late at 9.45 am, as it was crowded most of the times. After a few minutes the in-charge there came and said that the buffet is going to close in 5 minutes so please hurry up. After gulping my breakfast, I came back to my room. Then, Jiwon informed me that I can’t go to office as my laptop doesn’t have necessary security software for net connection to work. Therefore, I was advised to work from hotel itself. I started off with my work and this continued for next three days.

Staying indoors for 3 days

By the third day(i.e. Wednesday, Feb-6) because of lack of physical activity, I became very frustrated and decided to go out for two basic reasons, one to have some different food(had got bored of Maggi and MTR stuffs) and the other that I badly needed fresh air however cold it may be. One major problem was that my hotel was in the outskirts and there were no commercial establishment nearby. The nearest train station was in airport terminal. Before leaving, I read a few lines from wiki travel page of Paris and went thru official site of public transport ratp.fr. Then, I took hotel shuttle to the terminal-2 of CDG airport.

First I checked whether something is available to eat in the airport. At the Paul outlet, no vegetarian stuffs were available. So I decided to take Metro train to some station in heart of the city. The good thing in Paris that you can buy a tourist pass Paris Visite, which will be valid for specific number of days. After doing estimation that I would be doing sightseeing in weekends also, I decided to go for a 5-day pass (cost 47 euros) valid till Sunday midnight.

Comparison with Seoul Metro

I took the metro map, analyzed it for 5 minutes and decided to go 'St Michel' station expecting that there may be something vegetarian to eat inside or outside the station. I boarded the stationary train and it departed in a few minutes. The experience of traveling in Paris metro was bit different to that of Seoul Metro. The coaches are designed to have more seats and in case one has to stand there is nothing to hold on. The doors don’t open automatically, one has to press button when the train stops at a station but it closes automatically.

Lost in St. Mitchel

I got down at St Michel and moved up two levels up to find some food shop. I looked around and everywhere 'Sortie' 'Sortie' something was written. No proper shops were there. With frustration I immediately changed my plan and decided to see Paris’s signature place to make my time and ticket worth. I looked into metro map and decided to transfer to another line. A few meters walk led me into a station of other line. The coaches of the train in this line were bit narrower. I looked into the metro map and no route corresponding to current station was there. I tried to see the boards around to check which are next stations on both sides(which is a common thing in Seoul Metro), no such boards were there. I talked to a guy and told him I want to go here, showing a station near Eiffel tower. He replied that I am at the right station.

So happily I boarded the train and looked into list of stations mentioned inside, but none of stations mentioned there were in my metro map. The station names were Odeon, Mabillon etc. After a 5-6 stops I got down at ‘La Motte Picquet Grenelle’ station and came outside the station. My gut feeling was saying that the station is somewhere near Eiffel Tower. I asked a person that where is Eiffel tower ? simultaneously doing actions in hand. He smiled and showed me the way non verbally. After thanking him and started my walk towards the tower. After walking for a 5 min, top 10-20 metres of the tower with lighting display appeared behind a building. In first impression the tower looked very small compared my imagination, may be because of relativity i.e. in photographs it usually looks tall relative to objects around it.

I continued my walk and approached the tower through a jogging park where many health conscious people were burning calories. As I stepped near the base of the tower the lighting display stopped and I had wait for 40 minutes for the next lighting display. A guy approached me from behind with chum-chum sound and asked ‘Chahiye Kya ?’. I was stunned for a moment, he was a guy from Punjab and was selling Eiffel tower key chains. I bought a few key chains from him and continued my exploration. The queue for the elevator was very long, so I dumped idea of going to the top.

Managing without Tripod

In search of food, I crossed the road and Seine river other side of the tower. There I found a small shop and bought a chips packet for 3 Euros! Besides that there was a monument and many people on the terrace balcony of it were having glimpse of Eiffel tower. It seemed like a good view point for Eiffel tower. Eating chips I walked to the viewpoint which was brimming with people. I somehow found a place for myself along balcony compound. Since there was some more time for next lighting display I continued with my photography experimentation. As the handheld snaps were coming very blur, I cribbed myself for not carrying a tripod. Then, for workaround I placed my cam on the balcony wall which was sufficiently wide and took the snaps for Eiffel tower in longer exposure. It came out very well. While shooting the snaps I recalled a line from a recently read article about the tower 'Initially during construction, the structural engineer was criticized for the weird design, now the same design has turned into symbol of the city'.

Tower Lighting

At 7 pm, the lighting show started and it lasted for 10 minutes. It was breathtaking experience and hardly could have eyes off it, but somehow I managed shoot a 2 minute video and the same is embedded below. In case you know Russian, listen to running commentary of some tourists around me :)



After lighting, it was time to return, and I enquired for nearest Metro station. The station name was Passy and again it was not there in my metro map. I caught an Afro gentleman and asked him how to go to St Michel station. He directed my query to a person in the ticketing window. That person took a small metro map and instructed me encircling the stations. He said “You are at Passy, take Line 6, get down at Raspail, changeover to Line 4, and you will reach St Mitchel”. I followed his instructions and reached St Mitchel.

Arrow Mark confusion

'St Mitchel' station looked like a different place to me than evening. Now I had to take a train back to 'CDG Terminal-2'. I asked a shopkeeper. He took out a paper from his billing machine, drew two vertical lines with dots in between and wrote encircled B on the sheet. He tried his best, but only I understood that I have to proceed straight. I reached a station where some doubles decker trains were moving. I told to myself “Oops! where am I?, which is this line”. Being alone I got even more frustrated. One more confusing thing was arrow convention. Till that day, I had seen ‘up arrow’ to proceed forward but in Paris it is other way ‘down arrow’ means proceed forward !!.

I walked further ahead and found an opening, in which escalators were leading further down. I proceeded downwards and finally I reached the station which at I had got down in the evening. With confirmation I got into a train to airport and reached 'CDG Terminal-2' station without any confusion. From there I took ‘every 20 min shuttle’ back to the hotel.

It was end of eventful, memorable outing initiated by ‘desire for sandwich’ and later transformed into visit to Paris's signature place Eiffel tower. Even though there were minor hiccups (i.e. I got lost in a weirdly designed metro station of Paris), my long wait for Eiffel Tower darshan ended.

Bonjour Paris !

“Events do not happen; they already exist and are executed on a time machine”. This quote by Einstein is very much applicable to my Paris trip. The business trip to Paris was supposed to be my first travel outside India. But something else was written in the script. I want to share many flashbacks including a trip to Mumbai for France Visa interview. But let’s start with actual Paris trip i.e. the thoughts which are fresh in my mind.

After a lot of uncertainties, finally my travel got confirmed. I had to fly from Bangalore on 3rd Feb by Air France at 2.30 am. To be on safer side I left my home at 10.30 pm(2nd Feb). While leaving, my subconscious constantly troubling me that I have forgot something very important. On the way to the airport while descending Richmond Circle, a bell rang !! that I have not taken node lock license device, without which I won’t be able to work. I immediately requested taxi driver to go back to my home. He nodded and took a turn. Thank god it strike me before getting to the airport, seriously subconscious mind is really powerful.

After taking license key device, I reached airport at 11.30 pm, exactly 3 hours before the scheduled departure. The queue to check-in was not very long. Everything seemed to be fine, my luggage was 23.7 kg. But the Air France lady said my luggage is overweight for 1 month stay. She asked me to make it 22kg. I removed the security seal and took 4-5 ‘ready to eat’ pack handed it over to my mother in visitors gallery and some clothes I stuffed into my cabin bag. Before going to the check-in counter I made sure that my luggage was below 22kg. Finally check-in was done and I had boarding pass in my hand.

Enthusiasm of going to Paris was there, but somehow curiosity and excitement of first trip was not there. While filling the immigration form in first floor a girl sitting to next to me asked many clarifications. She was traveling abroad for first time on an onsite assignment to Philadelphia. After immigration and security check I made phone calls to my friends. After sometime a guy came and sat next to me, the curiosity on his face was very much revealing that he was traveling by air for the first time. I had brief chat with him. He was from Bosch and was going to someplace in Germany for 3 months. Then, the discussion came to the point that he will be landing in new airport after 3 months.

The wait for announcement for boarding continued. As I was seated in front of security clearance section, was just observing the body language of different people undergoing security check. One person’s face seemed to be very familiar to classmate Rohith. In fact it was Rohith Kumar, it was nice have a known person as co-passenger. I was even more delighted, when I got to know that he was also going to stay in Paris for business trip, and may be a potential mate for sightseeing in weekends.

The boarding call came. It was done in reverse order of row numbers. Since my seat was in front the call came in the last. The person sitting next to me was a Technical Architect from NXP and was going to Amsterdam. Major part of journey I had technical discussion with him and he asked me many curious questions about my project.

At 8.30 am(Paris time) the plane landed. Sitting in the aisle seat I missed the view of city while landing. After coming out of the plane in the sky bridge itself police checked our passport for the valid visa. Then for immigration stamping and baggage collection we took airport’s automatic train to the other terminal. After stamping I waited for 20 minutes next to baggage belt. Rohith got his bag early as he had checked in later than me(LIFO strategy).

The accommodation for me was booked at Hyatt Regency. From the airport there is Hyatt’s shuttle to the hotel every twenty minutes. From information counter I got the exact place to board the shuttle i.e. gate 4. As soon as I came out Gate-4, I started shivering like anything as the temperature was 2 degree. Thankfully the shuttle came in within one minute and was relived from further torture. Also, the good morning wish of the driver made me comfortable and the feeling of alien land was erased in a jiffy.

At 9.30 am, I reached the hotel. After completing the formalities, the house keeping person (Simon) showed the way to my room. After finishing ablutions I called up JiWon and he told me to take rest. I slept for 2-3 hrs, got up and had a Spinach sambar rice(ready to eat) for lunch.

Later Jiwon showed me ‘LG lounge’(opposite to my room) and other facilities of hotel. In evening he took me Regency into which only privileged customer of the hotel have access. There I had pastry and coffee. Later I came back to my room, prepared noodles at the lounge for dinner and slept early as I had to be ready early in morning for going to office.

100th post: B2B from Paris !!!

Hurray !!! This is 100th post of this blog. One more milestone achieved.

Many of friends were asking me why there were no updates for a week on this blog. Well, I wanted to post something special for this post. I was on a business trip to Paris and was looking forward to post about the same for the 100th post with a photograph. I didn't had proper resources in Paris to upload the photograph so decided to publish the post when I am back to Bangalore(B2B).

Here is one of the snaps of symbol of Paris i.e. Eiffel Tower.



From next post onwards, I will be posting experiences of the trip. Things about Paris documented very well in the internet, so will keep my posts as precise as possible.

Breakthru month: Jan 2008

January 2008 was a breakthrough month for my blog, as the number of visitors increased two fold. Not only this there were other milestone achieved such as the visitor count crossed the magic figure of 10000 and totally there were 12 posts.

Let’s have a look at the metrics in comparison to previous best month March 2007.

[Courtesy: Google Analytics]

There is 111.86% increase in Pageviews and average time on site has also increased. There is improvement in bounce rate with a decrement of 5 percent.

The major reason for the exponential rise can attributed to my six post series about Andaman trip and also my review about the most awaited Kannada movie Gaalipata.

The below table gives the breakup of top 4 keywords by which visitors were directed to my blog from google.

Keywords Containing	Visits	Content
Gaalipata	78	Gaalipata : One step forward, two steps back
Andaman	36	Andaman Trip
Kudremukh	22	Kudremukh Home Stay
Lalbagh	21	Lalbagh Flower Show

The report also indicates that people searching for Lalbagh flower show were directed to my blog and my experiences of Kudremukh Home stay(in Nov 2006) is still getting hits.

Thanks to all the visitors, regular readers and also to Google for Blogger, Search and Analytics.