Today was the last day of our Cosmos Tour of France and after breakfast, everybody started their own journey either going home or onward to another trip. For us, we would continue our stay in Paris and moved to another hotel so this would be actually our Day 4 in Paris on our own. We had a leisurely breakfast and checked out after that. No knowing the taxi situation here, I thought we could just hail a taxi outside the hotel anytime we want but it was a mistake. This is because Hotel Mecure Porte de St.Cloud is located off the main street and not many taxis come all the way in. Worse still, it was a Monday and it was also raining so there were more demand for taxi service in the city. I had to request the hotel to call a taxi for me; this would cost more since the taxi will start charging once they leave for the hotel from wherever they are. Even then, we waited for about 45 minutes before the taxi turned up. So if you need a taxi to catch a flight home, make the arrangement with the hotel earlier.
The taxi driver could not speak English so it was a quiet trip to our new hotel, the Hotel Porte Doree at the end of Avenue Daumesnil, Porte Doree. This is one of those small, old boutique hotels that has been refurbished with lifts, bathroom and other modern amenities. In fact, it is very cosy and atmospheric but it must have the smallest lift in Paris (if not the world) as it can only take 3 passengers officially! Anyway, I managed to squeeze myself in together with 2 x 20kg luggage to get to my room.
It is located in a very peaceful neighbourhood and very accessible as the bus to Gare du Nord stops right in front and the Metro stop Porte Doree is just 1 or 2 minutes away.
There are many eating places nearby, including MacDonald, Quick and Subway for fast food fans, Italian and Vietnamese restaurants, some Chinese takeaway (traiteurs), a mini market and pastry shop right in front and a French restaurant around the corner that served traditional fare where we had a fantastic dinner on our last night in Paris. More about that in my Day 7 Paris post later.
This is an ideal small hotel for a relaxing stay except that it is located a little away from the city centre (7 stops to Bastille where we stayed the first time) and I could hear the rumbling of the Metro train at times but not enough to disturb my sleep. The Park of Bois de Vincennes is just across the ring road (some construction going on nearby) that borders the end of the block. Highly recommended unless you prefer those modern chain hotels or a very lively, happening neighbourhood.
We arrived at about 11am and though it was before the announced check-in time of 12 noon, we were able to moved straight into our room. The room is small but clean and very tastefully decorated. The corridor and staircase have some period charm.
Free WiFi is avaialble in the room and worked during all my 4 days' stay albeit slow at times and there is a free computer for use (as long as nobody is hogging it) but it has a French keyboard that needed some getting use to. They even printed my boarding pass for my home trip for free at the reception.
Since today was designated as shopping day (the wife's idea of not wanting to shop at the last minute) we went straight to Galeries Lafayette for her to continue her shopping survey. While she was comparing designs and prices at GL, I went to look for the Paris Museum Pass. There is a Tourism Office near the Opera shown on the map so I made my way there. Don't bother, it turned out to be Office of the Tourism Ministry and I could not find a way in, they probably do not serve tourists directly. Then I stumbled upon the American Express office that was just next to the Roissy shuttle bus stop for CDG Airport, near to the Opera. Here they sell the Museum Pass among other services on offer. No queue here and English is gladly spoken so this is the best place to get the Museum Pass if you are near the Opera.
The Paris Museum Pass cost 35E for 2 days and 50E for 4 days and I regretted later that I should have taken the 4-day instead of the 2-day Pass as it would have given me more opportunity to visit additional museums and sights in Paris. If you intend to stay in Paris for more than 2 days and you wish to visit some of the popular sites, do get a Museum Pass. Not only will it save you some euros (if you do the maths right), it will save you a lot of time. Here's how. Some of the popular museums require you to buy a ticket and then go through a security check so there will usually be 2 queues, one for the ticket and for the security check. By having the Museum Pass, you bypass the ticket line and go straight to the security check (joining other ticket holders.) For some sights, there may even be a separate entrance for Pass holders. The other advantage is that you can enter a museum repeatedly (within the validity of the Pass) or visit museums that you may not have entered otherwise since the entrance fees are already paid for.
The PMP is just a neatly folded list of museums and sights where the Pass can be used sandwiched between two covers. You validate it the first time you use it by entering the date so they will check the validity of the Pass based on that date.
After my purchase, I met up with my wife in GL and since we did not want to eat at the self-service restaurant at the 6th floor again, we went to another restaurant nearby. I had the salad nicoise, the green salad with the salted anchovies, as starter and fish as the main course. My wife had a normal salad and omelette as the main dish.
The ladies here must be wondering, were is the shopping? OK, after lunch we continued on Boulavard Haussmann to look for Hard Rock Cafe as it was customary for my wife to buy T-shirts for our relatives and guitar-pin for our son as souvenirs from Hard Rock. Finally we reached Boulavard Montmartre and suddenly Hard Rock popped into view. BTW, this is actually nowhere near Montmartre where the Sacre-Coeur is located, don't know why they used the name.
A bonus for me was that there were two passages nearby, the Passage Jouffrey just next to Hard Rock,
and Passage Panoramas was just right opposite where I could shoot more videos.
Passages are shopping malls of bygone days and as they are covered, they would be good for visits during rainy days. Both have seen better days and Passage Jouffrey seems to have aged better, judging by the flooring.
After my wife's haul at Hard Rock, we went to the Holy Grail of designer handbags, the flagship store of Louis Vuitton in Champs Elysees. A visit here is the dream of the everyday housewife and a nightmare for the everyday husband.
Before reaching LV, we passed another flagship store, this time that of Laduree, the maker of the famous macaroons and also the celebrity cafe, Fouquet with the striking red awning.
In fact, branches of Laduree seem to be everywhere, in Galaries Lafayette and even in the Palace of Versailles. So while my wife was doing her battle in LV, I, like many faithful husbands, sat waiting patiently at the benches that were thoughtfully provided at the sidewalk in front of the store, taking in the Parisian air of Champs Elysees and the fumes of the endless traffic. Thankfully, the purchase at LV was at the request of a relative and not her own. Phew!
As it was raining on and off that day, the LV store provided a plastic cover over the normal paper bag so it was very thoughtful of them. After the purchase, I thought it would be wise to make for the safety of the hotel and not parade the spoils all over Paris.
After some rest in the hotel, we went out for our dinner. My wife seemed to have taken a liking for the Chinese mixed rice takeaway so we had that at a traiteur near the hotel.
Her reason is simple, you can see what you are ordering and maybe she was worried about the E.coli outbreak. After dinner, we watched the Paris weather forecast to plan for tomorrow's activities. Since the forecast was for cloudy and rain, we decided to do some museum visit for tomorrow and reserve the next, brighter day for Versailles.
Since today is Sunday and my wife is a devout Catholic, I have planned to visit a Catholic church to attend Sunday Mass in English. From my research, there is an English Catholic church, St. Joseph, that is very near the Triumphant Arch. So from Bastille, we made our way to the Metro stop, CDG Etoile, that is at the Triumphant Arch. Since it was still early, we walked around the Arch, admired the Champs Elysees and took some videos.
The St. Joseph church is located at Avenue Horche, one of the 12 avenues radiating from the Arch. As I have not yet found my bearing, I asked two policemen near the Arch for directions. They were young and friendly and after fooling around a bit, they pointed me to the right direction. Th church is a small, modern church and it was full during the 11am mass that we attended. For those interested, the other Sunday masses are at 9.30am, 12.30pm and 6.30pm. and all are conducted in English to make you feel at home.
We walked down Champs Elysees after mass and we felt hungry after all the excitement of being in Paris. We found the nearest restaurant that offered the set meal or formule and sat down at Bistro Romain. At first we thought that it would be a 3 course meal but when we did the ordering, we realised that it will be just 2, it will be the main course with either the starter or the desert. Here we have the first taste of eating in a French restaurant and we learn the leisurely pace of meals that we were told earlier. The food came slowly and so did the bill and thus we learn to factor in more time for sit down meals for the future. (Tip: to save money, order table water i.e tap water that is free instead of soft drinks that cost 3-4E.)
After admiring the colourful Louis Vuitton store, we took the Metro (stop George V) back to our hotel in Bastille to check into our room.
The room was clean and not as small as I have though after reading about how small the Paris hotel room can be. We could just drop down and sleep after the long flight but to avoid jet-lag, the best thing to do is to adopt to the new time zone immediately. So after resting for a short while, we ventured out into the Parisian air once again to take advantage of the sunshine. There was a kind of fair with many stores at the corner of the hotel and we looked around before walking across Bd Henri V towards the two island on the Seine leaving the Bastille Column and the new Opera house behind.
BTW, we always saw a lot of police presence around the Opera house and on Sundays there are plenty of people sitting on the steps leading the the Opera, protesting or demonstrating against something. But they were all very peaceful. Once we reached the River Seine, we saw many cruise boats and people relaxing on the quays by the banks of the river.
We then went on to the island of Ile St Louis where Berthillon, the most famous ice-cream of Paris is located. In fact there were many shops selling Berthillon ice-cream with many people queuing and the longest queue was in the main shop.
Since my wife is not fond of queues, we just bought some ice-cream from one of the many shops nearby. It did not taste that creamy and I thought maybe this was an imitation but later I found out that it was actually sherbet and not ice-cream so you must make sure if it is ice-cream that you want. Since I was not satisfied, I bought some from another famous brand down the road, Amorino Gelati, the Italian stuff. In fact, I preferred this since it was ice-cream and not sherbet.
There were also some street performers on the bridge (Pont St. Louis) leading to the second island of Ile de la Cite. Below is one of the more popular performers.
We arrived at the back of the Notre Dame and there were many artists selling their wares in the garden. Here's a shoot of the front that is very imposing. We were to revisit Notre Dame again later since this was just an orientation walk.
Next we walked pass the flower and bird market but since it was evening, many of the stalls have closed.
As we were rather tired, it was very welcoming when we reached the boarding point of one of the many river cruises, the Vedettes du Pont Neuf. We rested our tired feet while waiting for the next cruise to depart at 7.00pm. The cruise itself was very enjoyable as we were able to see the many historical buildings on both sides of the river, the different bridges, the quays, etc as seen in the photos below. This was even more enjoyable because of the rest it provided after the long walk. There was a live commentary by a lady and her wrong English pronunciation maid it more fun.
After an hour on the river, we went back to Bastille to look for our dinner. We walked along Rue de la Roquette where there were plenty of eating places, bars and night spots but we were not too adventurous for French food and instead opted for Chinese fast food where we can see what has been cooked instead of deciphering the menu. This was something like our mixed rice back home, except that the dishes were sold by weight. We did not realised this and thought that the prices shown were for per helping so we ended paying for more than what we can finished. It was still cheap at about 25E for three dishes with rice for both of us. The spare pork ribs were very delicious and we were pleasantly surprised.
We went back to our hotel after a satisfying meal and slept like a log after our long first full day in Paris.
(Added later). Here's a clip of the Eiffel Tower seen from my Seine River cruise.
