PTM // Contiki: Day 3 - Paris!

Ryan and I set our alarms this morning for 8AM so that we could run down and grab some breakfast that was provided by the hotel. We pretty much filled out trays with croissants, bread, crepes, applesauce, and fruit. There were no eggs, bacon any of that, but that is pretty much expected of a hotel breakfast anyways. Not a big deal. We filled ourselves with all of the junk above.

Once we finished breakfast we headed straight for the subway or what the Parisian’s call the “Metro”. At first we had quite a bit of trouble understanding how to purchase a single day pass but thanks for a generous french woman, we both had our tickets in hand within a few minutes time. And yes, we were holding up the whole line.

We purchased a single day ticket on the Metro for 5.60 Euro, but I was doubtful that we bought the correct pass because I expected a full day pass to be between 8 and 10 Euro. After jumping off and on a few trains I came to the realization that we had just got a great deal! Only 5.60 Euro to ride anywhere on the Paris metro system in one full day. Sweet!

Our first stop was down to the Notre Dame Cathedral where we didn’t have to wait in line at all. We saw a tour group ahead of us and we decided to try to blend in with the tour and we walked right in! I’m still not sure if there was a line outside, but all I know is it felt like we breezed through like we were V.I.P!

The Notre Dame Cathedral was amazing, the outside of the building was pretty impressive and the inside was even nicer. We walked around a bit inside and even sat down for few minutes to listen to the organs play in the background.

From Notre Dame, we headed off to the Catacombs which are burial grounds for some 6 million people. The story is that at one point there was no more room in the cemetaries so the city of Paris designed underground tunnels that ran underneath the sewer and water systems, and now what is the Metro system (20 Meters deep and over 500 Meters long). These underground tunnels and passage ways stored the bones of over 6 million people! As you walk through the dark passage ways, it seems like you’re in a maze of skeletons.

We left the spooky Catacombs to head over to the Montparnasse (tourmontparnasse56.com) sky scraper. As far as I know it’s the tallest sky scraper in Paris. We went up to the roof (59th Floor) to the observatory deck so that we could get a 360 degree view of the city of Paris. Also in perfect sight is the Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triumph, and more. The views were crazy from the top, check out some of the photos below.

Our second to last stop of the day was to the Eiffel Tower of course! We decided not to go to the top of it due to the lines that had formed over the course of the day. We took a few good shots of the tower and headed off to our last destination.

Last stop was the Arc de Triumph! We took a few photos of it from across the street, and then proceeded to head down through the tunnel to get across to the Arc de Triumph. Once there I shot a few videos to show you all how insane the round about really is. You’ll get to see the videos once I get the chance to upload them. It’s really hard to upload vids when you’re on the road.

Our day exploring Paris was just about over and we felt like we really accomplished a lot. We knocked off every single thing that we had planned to try to see. I have to say, Paris was a really cool city!