Bonjour Madame!

Years ago when I was a kid my world went as far as I could bike without tiring out...and when I finally was panting of exhaustion I ll look at the horizon and think about going a mile further ahead the next day…But my childhood travel exploits never went far enough…Places like London, Paris, America sounded as good as say moon for Neil Armstrong when he was a kid…But over the last year I felt like him after seeing places which I wouldn’t dare imagine a decade back..Last week I got the chance to see the city of love… Paris.

As for any average person the name evokes of Eiffel tower the chef-d'oeuvre which was almost torn down coz Parisians of yesteryears thought it was an ugly junk of steel blemishing the Paris skyline. But I thought I ll wait till night to see it in full glory and hitched for the Louvre.



After a visit to Louvre and Vatican museum you can very well assure yourself of having seen the crème of all the master artpieces in the world. The museum is so huge and exhaustive that you would just give a passé over a Rembrandt coz another Da Vinci piece is just around the corner. As expected the biggest crowd was near the Mona Lisa who seemed to smile-and-not-yet-smile at the crowd of wannabe photographers trying to get a shot. I was baffled when I overhead a kid tell her mom that the lady on the wall looks like Maggie aunty. Sigh!! Hope the kiddo didn’t pester her mom to take that painting home to gift her “Maggie aunty”…

Few painting which I loved a lot...


























The museum can take days to be appreciated in full glory, but due to limited time we came out in the evening and went straight for the tower.

The tower without any doubt is mesmerizing. You will surely be stumped at first sight and the brilliant golden shine effusing will convince you why the heck people are so crazy about Eiffel tower.


Just across the other side is this beautiful building.



After a tiring first day it was important to get some good sleep for the fun in Disneyland on day 2.


Mickey Mouse ...Donald Duck...Tom n Jerry…Superheroes for almost a decade of my life and probably still. It was like preparing myself to meet them in real.

I sort of loved and hated this place. I loved the rides…the shows…the animation studios…but also hated the commercialization of my favourite cartoon characters...Mickey mouse was all over there right from G-strings to bread toasters. It was disheartening to see such excessive marketing in a place where you are expected to be transported to a fantasyland. But it was more of a reality check if I could make out there were more shops...and restaurants than the actual rides or shows. Nevertheless I had my own share of fun.


Can you believe that the next two shots are as well from Disneyland and not any bird park?



I managed to convince my friend who was accompanying me that there were casualties recently after a freak accident on the roller coaster ride…Well how would I convince him that I was afraid of it when out there were 6-7 something kids who were complaining that the three hundred and fifty six spins weren’t exciting enough..

Though I happened to try out some of the less scary ones. :-P
I couldn’t get into some of the other rides coz they had mentioned outside the gate that for those rides kids should always be accompanied with parents…and it was almost impossible to get in my parents there on time.

But the best place out there was the Walt Disney studios where I almost momentarily fell in love with Donald Duck!!

Later in the day visited Champ Elysee’s which is a magnificent road with the triumph de arc on one end.



I visited several other places as well like Notre Dame…Seine…Sacre Cours...in between. But I ll skip em to keep the post short.

On the third day took the train to Versailles where Napoleon uncle spend brainstorming with his generals for his next attacks. The boulevards were actually what I found stunning although it was the fag end of fall.

The city of Paris is charming but it moves fast unlike other European cities. I liked the city for the sheer variety of places it offers. The city has as many tourists on a single day as the residents itself. So it wouldn’t be surprising to see a sea of people holding a map seemingly lost and walking together. To sum up the travel I would say Paris is a nice place over the weekend...But I would rather love to live in Florence which is by far my favourite city!


P.S. If anyone is interested in the above snaps...you can get em at http://www.flickr.com/photos/68796762@N00/sets/72157603056575579/show/


P.P.S This month I have declared myself to go bankrupt on a traveling spree with a trip to Austria planned in the last week... ;-P