Europe Trip - A Travelogue - Part I

What fun it is to be around with friends... And just imagine the fun when we hang out on a tour with them for 10 days... OMG, then what about the destination like Europe to hang out with friends!! Yes, it is fun, fun and fun throughout... Here I am, after a looooooooong time in my blog, to happily share my experience on our trip to 4 countries in Europe – France, Switzerland, Italy and Vatican City – over a period of 10 days!

Pre-Tour Preparation

It all started with a small buzz of thinking on having a tour with friends and family way back in mid-February. Not a firm plan then, with people saying a yes sometime and a no later... But the plan started taking its shape in the month of March when Mr. Satish and Mr. Murali contacted many travel agents and acquired the details of sightseeing tours and the related costs involved. They researched and compared the details with each travel agent and finally found one Jumbo Travels in Kuwait and through them Thomas Cook, the famous travel agent around the globe.

Pic courtesy: Dreamstime.com

The talks went on, mails communicated, itinerary was built. The trip was planned for 10 days combining the Bakrid Holidays during August. Slowly the members confirmed their presence and a perfect group got created with 10 families. The hotels and flight tickets were booked after researching on the facilities, costs and comfort levels. 2 more families confirmed a little later and their bookings for flights and hotels were done appropriately. A proper tour organising committee was formed with various functions delegated to each one in the committee. Each family applied for Schengen visa and obtained the same, some as early as first week of June and some during the last week of July.

Now started the scariest episode for men and the entertaining episode for women – yes, you got it right. The Shopping Spree!!😃 Among others, considering also the climatic conditions of the places to be visited, shopping ranged from shoes to garments, medicines to cosmetics, cotton to woollen, scarf to jewellery – what not!!!

We packed up and got ready to explore Europe to start from Kuwait on 14^th August 2018. We started our travel towards Paris, our first destination, via Abu Dhabi, though 2 families had to take 2 connecting flights to reach Paris.

Day 1 – Paris – Louvre Museum

Fragonard

We arrived at Charles De Gualle Airport at Paris in the morning at around 7.40 am local time. We were received by the Tour Manager from Thomas Cook, Mr. Sandeep Patil and he accommodated us on a bus with 45 seats, quite comfortable for our count of 37. Since our check in time at Hotel was only at 3 pm, he took us to Fragonard, a perfume factory located at the main city of Paris. The lady representative of the Fragonard, Ms. Yula, explained us how perfumes are manufactured at their factory, the speciality of their product and also showed us the various machinery used for perfume manufacturing. We looked around their facility and enjoyed sniffing various types of fragrances and finished our tour there with some shopping of perfumes.

At Fragonard

After a short photo session outside the Fragonard, we headed towards Gaur De Nord where an entire street had many Indian restaurants. We barged in Hotel Saravana Bhavan and had a heartful of South Indian meals, as we were quite aware that we won’t be having the luxury of south Indian food anytime during the next 10 days.

Mona Lisa at Louvre Museum

After a sumptuous meal at HSB, we checked in our hotel – Holiday Inn Express Paris Velizy. Quite comfy rooms except that the air conditioners couldn’t satisfy our needs. We freshened up and started towards the world famous Louvre Museum in the evening. This is the world’s largest art Museum located near the river Seine at Paris. The museum is housed at Louvre Palace originally built as Fortress and later converted into a Palace. This Museum is also famous for housing many artistic works of Leonardo Da Vinci, including his masterpiece “Mona Lisa”. The large Museum was very much crowded and we took a tour inside watching the great pieces of art. The painting of Mona Lisa had the largest crowd in front of it, everyone trying to take a glimpse of the smiling beauty and taking pictures with her.

The tall ceilings, beautiful paintings and sculptures around transported us to a whole new world. The glass pyramids were enchanting to our eyes. Overwhelmed by the beauty surrounding us, we took leave of the museum half heartedly.

Glass Pyramid at Louvre Museum

From there, we headed towards an Indian restaurant ‘Bhojan’ to have our dinner. We were surprised to note that the sun did not set until 10 pm whereas shops and other commercial places brought their shutters down as early as 6 pm.

Day 2 – Paris – Eiffel Tower

Column erected by Napoleon Bonaparte

After enjoying the continental breakfast at the hotel, we started towards the main city to have a city orientation tour. The local guide Ms. Annie joined us in the bus and explained us about the various important attractions of the city. While proceeding, we saw the Statue of Liberty installed in the river Seine which was the inspiration for the one at New York and was also gifted by the French, the tunnel where Princess Diana died in a car crash and the statue of torch flame in her memory, the Parliament house, the Galaries Lafayette – the shopping mart, etc. 

Egyptian Obelisk

The Opera House also called as Opera Garnier named after Charles Garnier who was its architech, was the first place to view, followed by the circular column constructed by Napoleon Bonaparte at Vendome dedicated to his grand army with his figurine on the top. We took pictures here and then started towards the Concorde Square. Enroute we saw Les Invalides where the tomb of Napoleon is housed, Louvre Museum, and the Alexander Bridge etc. At Concorde Square, we saw a tower built in Egyptian style with a pyramid on the top called as the Egyptian Obelisk. It was a gift to the French by the Egyptian Government in the 19^th century. The Government of France added a gold leafed pyramid cap on the top as the original cap was believed to be stolen. The Concorde square had fountains and statutes of the erstwhile Kings and Queens. Once our photo session was over, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower considered as one of the wonders of the world, is an iron tower built by Gustave Eiffel in a span of 2 years 2 months and 2 days. With a height of 325 metres it made us admire it with glee for it is one of the greatest man made constructions. We had to wait in the queue for almost 2 hours to obtain the tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower. However, unfortunately, we were denied entry to the third level as some security related maintenance was going on then. We were able to obtain tickets only to enter the 2^nd level of the tower. We took the lift to the second level of the Eiffel tower and were astonished by the bird’s eye view of the entire city Paris. We were never tired of taking pictures and kept on and on enjoying the view. Our men took a short break in between to taste the world famous Champagne, a variety of wine the original form of which is available only in France.

Bird's eye view from the Eiffel Tower

After visiting the world wonder, we headed towards having lunch at ‘Welcome India’ an Indian restaurant. Post lunch, we visited the Arc de Triomphe, a monument built by Napoleon Bonaparte, for all the soldiers who gave up their lives for the victory of France. There is also a ‘Tomb of the Unknown soldier’ under the Arc and has an eternal flame lit on it in memory of the dead who were never identified. We took a walk around the Arc and also in the avenues nearby. 

Arc de Triomphe

We had a cruise tour scheduled at river Seine and headed for the same. A lovely sight of Seine River and the cruise that could accommodate almost 100 people made the cruise ride a memorable trip. Cruise ride was for almost 2 hours viewing the important places of Paris from the river. We also had fun taking pictures, singing songs and dancing to the tunes in the cruise. Fun and Fun forever!! After the cruise ride, it was time for dinner and rest. We tested our taste buds at ‘Massala Lounge’ yet another Indian restaurant at Paris.

Seine river during the cruise ride

More exciting days to follow... I shall come back with the second part of this travelogue soon...

Part II here
Part III here
Part IV (Final) here