Travel

PARIS, FRANCE : May 25th – June 4th, 2009

The timing of this vacation could not have been better. Devi and I both needed a break bigtime…and as much as we missed little Rohan, it was great to have 10 days all to ourselves in Paris. We had a great time, and saw a ton of sites, but we were never really hurried; it was very relaxing. I had never been to Paris, and Devi had not been there since she was really young – so it was a very new experience for both of us. Thanks to all of the hotel points I’ve racked up with my Deloitte business traveling, we stayed at a couple nice hotels while we were there, Courtyard Paris Neuilly and Le Méridien Montparnasse, which made the vacation more relaxing.

Some personal highlights of the trip include:

The Louvre – We spent almost an entire day here, and it was well worth it. They have a fairly new audio/video guided tour that is really cool. As you approach each piece of artwork, you just key in the associated reference number on your personal handheld device and you get a vivid art lesson. Some of my favorites were: Venus de Milo, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, The Turkish Bath, The Code of Hammurabi and Mona Lisa. Surprisingly, the Mona Lisa, arguably the largest draw, is probably about three times the size of my laptop screen!

Notre Dame Cathedral – A truly spectacular site. We also had an amazing tour guide that taught us all about the cathedral. He provided intricate details and stories behind each of statues on the outside facade. Apparently it required 100 years of hard labor to complete – and I can see why. Well worth the trip.

Eiffel Tower – Parisians absolutely hated this thing when it was unveiled at the 1889 World Exposition…many of them probably still do. But millions visit every year, so I guess it worked out for them in the end

Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysées - Commissioned by Napoleon and is either the beginning or end of a walk up and down Avenue des Champs-Elysées.

Sacre Coeur - Highest point of Paris with breathtaking views of the city in all directions. When walked up hundreds of steps to finally make our way to the very top of the basilica… it was worth the climb. At the top of each flight of stairs outside of the basilica, there are street performers of one kind or another. We watch some great breakdancing and listened to live music. We also got to see a fight between a drunk heckler and a couple of the singers… it was a nice bonus.

Boat Tour of the Seine River - We drifting down the Seine river for about 1 hour, courtesy of Bateaux Parisiens. Got to take in all the major sites of the city at night and listened to an interesting guided tour.The food in Paris is unbelievably expensive. A good rule of thumb is to take what you think something should cost, and then multiply it by 2 or 3! But at least the food is really, really good. I will miss the crapes, as well as the mussels at Leon de Bruxelles.

We will be back in Paris at some point, it’s a wonderful city with a lot left to see.