Day 2 - Bonjour Paris!

Written by Stephen Hall with Glenn Harris, Matt Irvine & Brad Robson

To put it lightly Paris Airports was an absolute shambles. There was a queue as soon as we walked off the plane which lead all the way to the customs desk. Far too many people were crammed into a small space and it was stuffy and humid. We were all ‘well over it’ by the time we made it passed customs. There was another long wait for our luggage but it all arrived in one piece and it was all worth it when we got to sit down and enjoy a fresh baguette. After half an hour of searching through the airport we found the bag drop and left our bike boxes their overnight. Glenn and I had already been to Paris but we were both excited to show Matt and Brad some of the amazing sights of the city. We caught the 30min train from the airport to Gard du Nord and walked up the street to the same hostel we stayed at last year; Vintage Hostel and Hotel. The hostel was fairly busy and we weren’t able to check in until 4pm so we left our bags behind and set off to explore Paris.

We intended to head straight to the Louvre to avoid the queues like last year but we got lost and ended up walking down the Champs Elysees instead! The busy street was lined with designer shops, fast cars and tourists. As we drew closer to the Arc d’Triomph there were several street acts. Most of them trying to scam tourists out of their money but others were genuinely talented. Like the man who was able to cut anyone’s silhouette out of a piece of paper in less than 2 minutes. We stopped to watch for a few minutes before we arrived at the Arc d’Triomph and put our lives on the line to stand in the middle of the road and snap photos. Glenn and I remembered the long walk to the Eiffel Tower from last year so we opted for a taxi to drop us right at the foot of the tower. The photos took themselves as we circulated the enormous structure. Tourists were everywhere and the lines both to climb the tower and catch the lift stretched across the park. It was quite humid in Paris and cyclists make lousy walkers so we stopped for awhile at a coffee shop to rest our feet and plan the rest of our day.

We still hadn’t made it to the Louvre and the day was getting late so we cut across and walked back down the Champs Elysees toward the museum. There are several entrances to the museum and entering from underneath via the train system cuts out waiting in any queues. A ticket inside costs 9 euro and you can stay for as long as we like. I read in a Paris travel guide that if you were to stop and look at every painting in the museum it would take 7 months so we only planned to stay a few hours or so in order to meet our dinner reservation set for 7.30. We were blown away by the ancient museum with some of the paintings more than 500 years old. Our last stop before leaving was to see the most famous of them all in the Mona Lisa. The painting is held behind a glass case and a barricade keeps tourists at least 10m away. Flash photography is banned throughout the museum but we managed to adjust our cameras and snap a few photos before we left. It would easily be possible to spend the entire day there listening to the audio tapes and following a tour but we’d have to leave that for another time.

A slight error in calculating the distance from the Louvre back to our hostel left us with aching feet and barely past halfway. We caught a train the remaining distance to Gard du Nord and hiked back to the hostel. Because of our late check in we could only manage two people in each room of 3 so we had to share with another tourist. Brad and I roomed with a young Turkish guy while Glenn and Matt shared with a middle age man from the UK. By the time we hiked our bags up the stairs to our room we were already running late and barely had more than 10 minutes to get changed and meet down in the lobby. We got lost for awhile but eventually made it to the restaurant albeit 30min late.

I’d made the reservation for Roger la Grenouille a few days ago while I was back in Perth after hearing it was one of the few restaurants in Paris which still served frog’s legs (cuisses de grenouille). The staff were friendly and helped us to our seats in the small narrow restaurant busy with both Parisian locals and tourists. We spent a few minutes sifting through the menu with our dodgy French before coming to a conclusion on our meals. A few of us were brave enough to try the frog’s legs, with Glenn and Matt choosing the frog’s legs in creamy white wine sauce, I had an entree of frogs legs in batter and both Brad and I had a beautiful tender piece of steak for the main. We’d like to say the frog’s legs were fantastic and recommend it to everyone reading but they were actually quite bland and tasteless. If you had to make a comparison you would say they were somewhat of a mix between chicken and fish. A Russian woman and her daughter found the frog’s legs quite funny and snapped a few pictures of us eating them. Brad and I both thoroughly enjoyed our steak while the bread basket they continuously refilled was also a favourite.

Everyone’s feet were swollen both from the flight and the hours of walking so we decided to catch a taxi instead of walking up to our next tourist sight; the Montmartre. We delayed our trip by 20 minutes when we stopped to watch a group of dancers entertain the streets with their very own ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’ The Montmartre was twice as busy as last year and just as beautiful as I remembered. Overlooking the entire city of Paris with the Basilique Sacre Couer right in the centre we spent hours sitting on the steps people watching and enjoying the view. Finally we made our way down to the bottom and endured the remaining 10min walk back to our accommodation. Everyone was out well and truly by the time their head’s hit the pillow.