The City of Light

Paris

June 2008

Inspite of being the most popular tourist destination in the world, we (Chaitanya and I) spent only one day in Paris. We reached Paris by flight, from Catania, Italy on 30th June. It was a 3 hour flight and were in Paris by about 4pm.

Paris is an ideal example of a bustling city. It has this amazing high speed underground metro system, coupled with probably equally good bus transport as well. We had to just get a day pass ( I made the mistake of purchasing the most expensive pass for about 28 euros, turned out that it covers 8 zones...what I really needed was a 1-2 zone pass that costs like 6 euros..so much for one of the more expensive cities in Europe!) that would allow us to travel freely using any mode of transport. Places are very easy to locate and often the name of the places of interest appear as the metro station names.

Two places were on my mind to visit - Undoubtedly the Eiffel tower, and I had heard a lot about the treasures in the Louvre palace. On reaching Paris, we made it to the Eiffel tower and watched it glitter during midnight. It was a breathtaking sight for me. I planned to visit the Louvre the next morning. As Murphy's Law would have it, the palace museum was closed on account of it being a tuesday.:(..well..I was disappointed no doubt and kicked myself for not finding out in advance, but I made other plans. I had also heard about the Notre Dame Cathedral a lot and headed there. Following are bits of information I collected (obviously after returning) about the two places that I found interesting..

Eiffel Tower - Named after its designer, Gustave Eiffel the tower stands 325m tall, equivalent to about 81 floors. It is made of iron. It was built to mark the centennial celebration of the French revolution around 1887. Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower seventy-two names of French scientists, engineers and other notable people.

Notre Dame Cathedral - It is believed to be one of the best symbols of Gothic architecture and is more than 700 years old. Gothic, I believe, relates to the medieval (12th to 15th century) era and the architecture is characterised by pointed archways, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. Just like the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the altar faced the west and I entered through the west entrance. Inside, the most striking thing are the stained glass windows preserved from 13th century. Other things, I would stick to descriptions from pictures and there is always lots to learn in terms of architecture, christianity and arts.