Hmm.. I thought i would create a small blog on planning your trip to Paris from Brussels. Also this would give you an idea of what might be the cost you would incur per person if you plan to visit Paris and places in Paris.
I definitely concur with you that there are innumerable websites and tour packages which could be cheaper than this. But if you wanna check out, you are most welcome to view this blog.
Stay: Hotels... Well depends on personal choice. In any city city you have a 5* to 1*hotel. I do not want to blog on this.
Travel: There are as usual 3 popular means of reaching Paris from Brussels - air, train & bus.
According to me, only two of them are budgetary means - train and bus.
Train travel requires advance booking of atleast 15-45 days to get one way price of 25-29Euros (as on 24th Feb 2009) one way per person from Brussels. This can be booked in such a way that you have separate tickets for each way onward and return. This kinda tickets are called smoove tickets beneficial for one way journeys. For more info pls check www.b-rail.be
Bus can be booked atleast a week or two so indvance (in case of peak tourist season). Otherwise even 3-4days should be enough. Per person bus fare for return journey Bru-Paris could be between 44-50 Euros(as on 24th Feb 2009). If you get lesser than this, you are lucky :)
For more info please check in www.eurolines.be
Paris city travel: Now comes in and around Paris. How to go about in Paris.
Like any other European city, Paris too has bus and metro for smoother commutation.
Unlike Brussels, the tickets on bus or in counters cost 1.6euro per person per ride. I guess the ticket is valid for two hours(depending on zones that you cross in your first travel). Same tickets are applicable to metro also. Believe me there are so many metro zones in Paris making it highly difficult to understand and make best use of the bought tickets.
I would prefer going around in Paris by bus though it is time consuming as I can get a ride along the city streets and I get to see the city's shopping malls(As usual we ladies are fond of shopping untill our hubby's purses are empty ;) )
For more info on paris bus and metro routes and time tables pls check
http://map.metro-passes.com/map_bus.htm
http://map.metro-passes.com/map_paris.htm
Entrance fee: Next important info is on the entrance fee.
PS: Entrance fee in euro per person
Eiffel tower children under 3yrs ascend & descend free.
Elevator
Above 11 yrs
3-11yrs
Upto 1st floor
4.8
2.5
Upto 2nd floor
7.8
4.3
Upto 3rd floor
10.7 or 12 (I forgot)
6.5
Under 25
25 and Above
Stairs
3.10
4.0
Museé du Louvre: 9
Notre Dame special entry fee: 8 (There is free entry as well)
Next time I visit any other place in Paris, i will surely edit my blog for their fares.
Happy journey and enjoy Paris!!
Disclaimer: No intentions of promoting any business or defaming any said sources above. This is purely an experience that I would like to share with our friends who are curious to know about our travel just in case they wanna book.
If not, atleast hearing it would remind us of the romantic place on earth which everyone would atleast love to visit once in their life even if that isn't one of their favourites.
Well, it really did not have such a meaning to me untill I really experienced it. I used to wonder why the people here asked me "Have u never been to Paris till now??". Unforgettable experience is when the teacher in the dutch class asked me "Heb je gaan niet naar Parijs wandelen? nooit? amay!!"
The I waited for the right opportunity n offer to visit Paris. As I have been visiting places in Europe like back in India and the travel is really really expensive here, I have to consider these facts before we could set our foot there.
Mindblowing, fantastic, super, exciting -- none of these words suffice for Paris description. My vocabulary is really poor to describe Paris. The moment u enter there, u feel "ahhh!! This the place i wanted to be on earth." Paris memories will cherish for life not only cos of the reason tat it was our first valentines day after wedding but also cos it reminded me of my hometown bangalore after long long time. Having been in Brussel for 7-8months, my heart was longing to see the usual crowded and noisy happening place where I could hear a lot of known language. Huh!! my wish came true. Paris being an international tourist place does recognize English as a very important means of communication. Had it been my mothertongue, i would have been overwhelmed. I know its far from dreams also. Ok let me jump back to this land from my dreamland.
Our plan was to cover as many places as possible in Paris. Paris is a really big city compared to Brussels. My first observation was that Paris is no exception when it comes to filth, dirt n unclean localities. Second observation was that here I could see the usual traffic jams and rule-breakers. . Anyway, most tourist and historical places are located really close by if u have the zest and zeal to walk around and cover places.
In our tour this time, we covered Eiffel tower (of course, how will one forget this?), Louvre museum, hotel de ville and Notre Dame cathedral. Other places that are close by at a walkable distance are arc de triomphe, champ elysees, palace du luwembourg. May be many more. We hope to cover the rest next time. Of course no wish to visit Disney land so far. Lets see..
We started at 6am from Brussels on Sat morning and reached Paris by 10:30am. We had gone by bus(could nt get a better Train fare). We checked our baggage in the hotel n set out to visit eiffel tower. On our way we had to change the bus at Bastille which is famous as it is the first metro station in Paris. So we roamed around there and then started towards Louvre. By then it was noon and then we got the tickets really quick in spite of the long queues. There we enter Louvre - a museum full of painting and sculpture from various empires (Italian, French, Mayan, Egyptian and Roman is what I could recognize) You actually start from floor -1 for tickets, then enter museum at floor 0 and go over to floor 1 for italien paintings. Floor 0 has sculptures. I dont think we have access to the second floor. The mueum is so huge and has linking entrances in such a way that u would definitely get lost. There are innumerable paintings that you cant remember unless u r researching them :) I wonder whats really so special about Monalisa painting when there are really big and more classic paintings. Hope someone will explain her significance. Most of the museum crowd was there .. just there.. nowhere else.. Honestly, if you really wanna see each and every painting with interest and see every sculpture then i think even 4days will not suffice for Louvre alone. One more important thing that I forgot to mention was that I could observe Louvre full of Marble stone (This reminded me of Taj Mahal another famous monument which stood for Love)
Ok.. From Louvre, we went to Eiffel tower. On our way the bus passed through the Arc of Triomphe and Champ de Elysees. We were really excited to go over and explore the tower after being disappointed by the museum. The first view of the tower was ****************** "Amazing" exclaimed my hubby in joy!! He was lost in his photography since his first view and as we got closer. From a far distance we could see a lot of tourists just below the tower. I did tell him tat they are all waiting for entrance to the tower. No!! He doesn't pay heed to my words. He said "They are waiting for restaurant I guess". My words came true as we got closer. There were 2Queues and each was atleast a km and a half long. It was 4pm then. We stood in one of those queues n suprisingly it moved faster. We thought we were fortunate seeing the display on the other counter that the last ascent was at 6pm. The Queue in which we stood had last ascent till 11pm. We could get into the lift by 5:15pm. So we were in the queue till 1.25hours still not bored. Can u imagine? How lively the tower kept us?!! Unfortunately just few minutes before our turn arrived, the tower's third floor tickets sale stopped and we could get it only in the second floor of the tower. Each person ascending untill last floor has a transit at the second floor. So we satisfied ourselves with second floor ticket. By the time we went up, last floor was closed for tourists :( :( :( So we enjoyed ourselves with different views from eiffel and sunset at Paris. We also could have a soft tasty yummy pizza in the tower. "Good enuf!" we thought n started back n reached our hotel at 9pm. I was so tired that I could not stand or sit anymore. I hit the sack though my hubby had his privelege to watch his favourite (TV after long long time. Till then internet was only his companion :) ) Next morning, we were ready to explore the other unknown(to us) parts. We went over to Hotel De Ville -supposedly another historic tourist place which did not seem very special to us. Then we went over to the Cathedral. Here also there was a long line of (free) entry seekers. But the queue moved fast. The first impression bout the cathedral was that it was a very very huge structure. There were services going on in the church. Of course in french giving us no clue of what is being said. One thing that I could observe similar to Hindu religion was that the priest in white robe moved a vase sort of thing back and forth like swinging. This had a strong fragrance emanating item like "dhoopa" or incense sticks used in our religion. And the priest moved around in the church spreading the fragrance everywhere. I could imagine that it was being done for purifying the whole premises. This reminded me of dhoopa at 8pm in ISKCON Bangalore. There the moment they open the doors of the lord, it seems like its a heavenly abode. In the church, we could also see the wooden model that was used during construction. There was another model which depicted the constuction times. I wonder how strong the people were to lift huge stones n construct a massive monument like this. We could also buy the Notre Dame Medal here (of course we bought). Then we finally got out of the church to find some food for our stomach.
It had been two days since my hubby had some solid food not to mention that he is fond of food. On our way, we found some good souvenier stores where we did our shopping. And we found an Indian restaurant called Akash close to rue rivoli(mid way between Notre Dame n Louvre. The dist is 1.1)km which i would suggest to nyone. The food was great. We enjoyed it a lot. The we started our way back as we had our return journey by 5pm to Brussels. All in all, tis trip was truly memorable reminding me of our good old things and places. Of course, why do you think someone would not want to visit this place on earth? Now I realize why people asked me how I could miss visiting Paris... I would make it a point to visit it atleast twice before I return to my country.
