[ random acts of alex ]

Playing Tour Guide In Paris

So I went to Paris on Sunday to meet up with an EF tour that included one of my best friends from the states, Walter, and the three girls from Eagle Pass he had been accompanying around Europe the past two weeks. I managed to get a room in their hotel and then spent all of Monday showing them around Paris. In one exhausting day we hit many of the major attractions: Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Cimetière du Père Lachaise, The Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Élysées, and the Eiffel Tower. All that in the simmering sun of a European heat wave.




Highlights:

• Sacré Couer: The view from up there at dusk was all it's cracked up to be. The full moon was a bonus.
• The tombs at Cimetière du Père Lachaise: While we hunted for Jim Morrison's grave, we couldn't help but be amazed at all the other hundreds of monuments to death crowding the cemetary. The best one had the guy climbing out of his grave.
• View from The Arc de Triomphe: Even better than the view from Sacré Couer is the view from the top of Napoleon's granch arch. Has the best view of the Champs-Élysées. Don't I look happy I made the 284 step climb?
• The Eiffel Tower: Even though the lines can destroy what little energy you have left at the end of a long day, the view from the top of Paris at night can't be beat. Plus the tower itself looks even more amazing once the sun goes down.
• The lady feeding birds: While I waited for my train back to Germany at the Gare de l’Est, trying desperately to keep cool with a couple of glasses of 1664, a lady at the table in front of me kept giving bits of her sandwich to the birds that roost in the station.

Lowlights:

• Saw an attempted mugging in the Metro stop at Place de Clichy.
• The heat.
• The 100 drunk ravers who got on my first train at 8:00 am Sunday morning after they'd partied themselves into a state of frenzy the previous night. Luckily they didn't go all the way to Paris.
• The heat.
• The over-zealous pimps in the red light district in Pigalle. They'd actually grab and try to push Walter and I into the strip clubs. Very erotic.
• Being charged 24 euros at check-out for the breakfasts I thought were complimentary.

Overall, though, a fun trip. I think I make a hell of a tour guide. That and I'm cheap.

Related links:

• Photo gallery of the trip.
• All travel photo galleries.

posted by alex @ 6/22/2005 03:26:00 PM