hi all,
I have made some changes, hopefully this is little better.... please give advice...much appreicatied to you all. thanks to all
Arrive in Paris Charles De Gaule Friday 4th 1.30pm
Settle into Hotel
Kyraid italie Gobelins
5 Rue Veronese
75013
Day 1
September 4th Friday
Louvre is open late...
Walk to Jardine Luxembourg gardens
Walk around hotel to see things %26amp; buy some snacks
Day 2
September 5th Saturday
Walk to Blvd. or Ave. Les Gobelins then walk all the way to Notre Dame.
Saint Chapelle combined Coniergerie you can buy combined ticket, Shakespeare %26amp; Company, Parthenon
Ile St Louis and combine Marais area – Bertillon for gelato and enjoy the sights and Hotel de Ville to admire from the outside and surroundings.
Pont Neuf – the oldest bridge of Paris, Pont Neuf dates from 1578 and still looks the same. From the bridge, the view down or up the river is perhaps the most memorable
Walk to the Louvre- enter on Rue de Rivoli under the red and white vertical banner, which says Carrousel. Take the escalators down and walk past the shops on both sides of you until you enter a large open area. There are ticket machines there. Purchase your ticket to the Louvre, decide which wing you want to enter Egyptian Section, walk through a short security line and enter the Louvre. (Open Wednesday and Friday late)
Walk through the Tullieries Gardens near the end of the exit to the north side of the Tulleries where you will find Angelina’s. Stop for hot chocolate.
Then exit Angelina’s and you will see Place de La Concorde. Head west from Place La Concorde down the Champs-Elysees (the first couple of blocks are park-like before you get to the shops. At the end of the Champs-Elysees is the Arc de Triomphe. You will see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base. Then go to the top for a fantastic view of Paris and of the Eiffel Tower itself.
Day 3
September 6th Sunday
(Father’s day)
Segway Tour 9.30 is for 4hrs.
Eiffel Tower
L’Orangerie (wonderful small museum with a room specially built to hold Monet’s Water Lily Paintings)
Rodin Museum and gardens
Catacombs only husband and son going I will just browse and sit in the park...
Find a park, browse around taking in the sights.
Day 4
September 7th Monday
Disneyland with transfers to/from Hotel.
Montparnasse wonderful cafes and restaurants and great shopping street.
Go to Montparnasse tower to overlook the view of Paris.
Day 5
September 8th Tuesday
Versailles golf buggies for hire to the gardens. There is a café down by the lake. View the grand apartments, the hall of mirrors and the Petits Apartments where Louis XV died in 1774 of smallpox. The opera that Gabriel designed for Louis XV in 1748 %26amp; the Royal Chapel that hardouin-Mansart didn’t live to complete. Wander through the Gardens of Versailles to the Grand Trianon where Nixon once slept in the room where Madame de Pompadour died %26amp; the Petit Trianon that Louis XV used for trysts with his mistress Madame du Barry. Take a shortcut from the market square to Versailles gardens and visit the Domaine de Maire Antoinette
dinner at Dans Le Noir. It is a restaurant run by the Blind Society and all customers eat is a totally dark room (you are escorted in and out by a blind waitress). It is really a trip. You can order the %26quot;surprise%26quot; meal or from a menu. The %26quot;surprise%26quot; meal is good and is something a 15 year old would like--so will you. You must have reservations and can do it online in advance.
Day 6
September 9th Wednesday
Disneyland with transfers
An option to go to the Lourve in the evening... Lourve open late
Day 7
September 10th Thursday
St Eustache church
Pompidou Centre to see the external architecture of that building. Totally unique. Outside the plaza large crowds gather to watch street performers. Then walk next door to see the Stravinsky Fountains. They are so wonderful with all their moving parts--really interesting.
Moulin Rouge: to the right of Moulin Rouge is Rue Lepic leads you to the heart of Montmartre.
Place du Tertre around the back of Sacre Coeur, go behind for windy streets, the vineyard, littlehouses and 2 windmills/moulins.
Montmartre and climb the stairs to Sacre Coeur and watch the afternoon fade %26amp; the lights go on over Paris.
Eglise de la Madeline
Opera Garnier phantom of the Opera
Galleries La Layfette dome is spectacular not to shop just to browse
Evening cruise on the Seine for 1 ½ overlooking of Paris time 8.30pm
Musee d’Osary (also opened late Thursday night)maybe?
Day 8
September 11th Friday
Leave Paris and fly to Malta.
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Now Day 7 is too full. If you stay in Montmartre till nightfall I would think Madeline,Opera and Layfette will be closed.
DOrsay from 6 until 9 then boat ride might work
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can you advise how it will work better...thanks...
would I e able to add something on after
Verailles... I am getting confused... and worried... not everything is a must and it is not fixed in those, the days can be altered... depending on the day... I just mainly want to be able to main attractions... when going in the lourve and d%26#39;orsay there are only few things I want to see and knowing there open during the everning i can go back
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It looks great although day 6 does look very packed.
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Only one teensy comment: that%26#39;s a lot of walking. It is all glorious walking, but Les Gobelins to the Notre Dame is a ways. It%26#39;s really hard for me to believe you%26#39;ll get to Notre Dame and see it (it%26#39;s really something - I can%26#39;t imagine spending less than an hour inside, at least half an hour - and if you don%26#39;t stop much, it must be a 45 minute walk from Les Gobelins - we stayed two short blocks from the Seine and it was still 12 minutes just to the ND plaza, and 15 minutes, really to get inside - you can%26#39;t rush either, because it is a quiet, slow moving, sacred place once you are inside - no running!)
We had similar notions and walked from ND to the Louvre on our first night - it took about half an hour to get to Louvre from ND and then we gaped for about half an hour, then at least half an hour back to side of the Seine - and not even to the hotel, just to a restaurant.
Security line at the Louvre was 30 minutes (at least) when we went (Monday morning). It was only 10 minutes on Wednesday afternoon though - so good choice of time. Still, just walking across the courtyard and down into the underground entrance (once you are inside the Louvre%26#39;s grounds proper) is at least 10-15 minutes. The entry corridors are long.
You must be very young and energetic. Walking a mile to Notre Dame doesn%26#39;t sound like a big deal - but there are lots and lots of traffic lights. And people all around you. Google says 25 minutes for that mile. Don%26#39;t forget - you will want to at least look at a fruit stand or a flower or something on the way! IOW, 25 minutes means 25 minutes of determined walking.
Just finding the galleries in the Louvre (if you%26#39;re going to do more than see Winged Victory and Mona Lisa) is time consuming.
There%26#39;s a line for St Chapelle and Conciergerie - brief, but the distance between the two (as small as it looks) is about 10 minutes, with walking in and out of courtyards and having tickets checked. There%26#39;s no way to see St. Chapelle in less than 30 minutes (that%26#39;s rushing it) and Conciergerie - well, we only spent an hour, so that means we skipped most of it. Which was okay.
Walking from one end of the Louvre to the other (if you do NOT stop and look at anything) is 15 minutes.
Again, just walking Tuilerie quickly is 15 minutes.
I am just saying this because I had a similar itinerary to yours and well, everything was immediately pretty daunting.
I know it%26#39;s light late at night, but if you arrive Saint Chapelle at 9 am, and hurry a lot, you can be at Bertillon by 10:30 and Hotel de Ville by 11 am (Bertillon will have a line - brief, but a line, and it will be a 10-12 minute walk from Conciergerie). Hotel de Ville is at least another 10 minutes from the ice cream store and with many sights (like Tour St Jacques) in between. The Hotel itself took 10 minutes to walk around (I know this because I was starving - we didn%26#39;t do the ice cream thing that day and we were looking for a restaurant in Le Marais).
Back to Pont Neuf area is half an hour (and 10 minutes more to the Louvre entrances - if you are going to the one that goes underground you either take the Pyramid escalator down - there WILL be a line - security is long) or the one near Arch de Carousel (which is sort of invisible - you have to hunt for it - and it%26#39;s at the far end of the Louvre, you%26#39;ll be walking back to under the Pyramid to actually go through the other security line).
So it will be 12 noonish at the earliest when you arrive at the Louvre and 12:30 by the time you heave a sigh of relief (that%26#39;s if the lines are short), having figured out which machines to buy tickets from, waited in line for them and gone through the instructions.
Lunch? It will be one hour to walk up to Mona Lisa, see her (you can%26#39;t possibly ignore WInged Victory and really, the Boticellis and other Leonardo%26#39;s deserve a look).
Leaving the Louvre means retracing steps and going back into the mall and then walking through it and up to Arch de Carousel again if you%26#39;re doing Tuileries.
By then, you will have walked about 4 miles from Les Gobelines, including the walking through exhibits and halls. After Tuileries it will be 5 miles, I reckon.
All of this on only ice cream and hot chocolate? And finding the lovely statue of Madame de Pompadour (I believe it%26#39;s in Marly Court) at the Louvre is worth it - the Code of Hammurabi and the adjacent Persian Court is worth it, seeing Rubens is a must - and the Apollo Gallery is a must too (forgive my spelling and bad memory of names). I can%26#39;t imagine that you%26#39;d leave the Louvre before six pm (having had lunch there, I%26#39;d wager).
Walking from Place de la Concorde past the embassies to Champs Elysee is a good 15 minute walk. It looks short on a map - I wish I had my pictures up. The Place de la Concorde is the size of an airplane runway (maybe I%26#39;m exaggerating - but we sat there for quite awhile, completely exhausted). But you could get there by half past six.
From the west side of the Place to the Arc de Triomphe is another 1.3 miles - and there are some stoplights and cross traffic to deal with. Without peering into shops, that%26#39;s about half an hour (if you are very lucky with traffic). It will take at least 45 minutes to cross under the street, go up the Arc, snap a quick snapshot, and return to your route.
Solutions? Taxis are not that expensive in Paris (we paid about eight euros each time we went about two miles). Walking is marvelous, but boy do I worry about you being exhausted on Day 2. (We spent 18 hours total at the Louvre and saw a fraction of it - and my DH was very organized in his approach).
Segway tour, Eiffel Tower and Orangerie are doable in one day, I suppose, but it takes awhile just to pop out of the metro and walk to the Tower (like 12 minutes and another 10 just to figure out where the line is - and then the line). It was a huge mass of people when we were there.
L%26#39;Orangerie is small - it was one of the highlights of our trip, I was so amazed - but small by Parisian standards. I was pretty embarassed, actually, to learn how big it really was. It could be done in an hour, but not if you actually look at half the paintings for an instant. We were there for two and a half hours.
Rodin Museum took us half an hour to walk to from Eiffel Tower - there%26#39;s a cafe inside, but we didn%26#39;t know that and wasted time looking for one (nothing nearby). I sat down after half an hour - we were there for an hour and barely saw anything.
You need to get to the Catacombs before 5 pm, I believe, to get on the tour.
Montparnasse is bigger than you think, too. Crossing the streets took awhile - they are BIG boulevards right near the tower. The shopping center there was SO big I just didn%26#39;t bother - no way to orient oneself in short time.
Forgive me if I sound discouraging - I just think you should make priorities within priorities and have back-up plans. Everything is so much bigger and grander than I thought it would be - and traffic is quite something. We figure we walked about 4-6 miles a day, with lots and lots of stairs. I was counting stairways, actually, and it was at least as much as going halfway down Grand Canyon and back up, all told, in two days (metro, Louvre, ND, etc. - I thought Paris was harder than hiking Grand Canyon to be honest).
I had blisters, and I wore my best walking shoes. Cobblestone slows a person down and many sidewalks are uneven - you have to watch your step a little.
And did I mention you have to wait for traffic?
Kudos to you for organizing such a detailed itinerary btw, with a good map and a few taxi rides - you should be able to do most of it - but I hope you are in better shape than we were!!1!!!
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Here%26#39;s a helpful detail: Arc de Triomphe allows the last visitors in at 10:30 pm (and they close at 11 pm). If they are like other attractions in Paris, that means you will get 15-20 minutes up top - which is probably enough, right?
I am wishing you all the best and can%26#39;t wait to hear what you actually did! We stopped at lots and lots of monuments, statues, fountains, churches, gardens and so on as we walked - so what I%26#39;m trying to say is that...it takes time.
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wow...now I am really worried but, I thankyou for putting the and giving heaps of good advice... back to drawing board again... I do plan to take the metro/buses/REF... and walking... and sitting....
my main sigths I want to see is eiffel tower,
arc, notre dame,
st chapelle,ile st louis, conciergerie,
musee rodin,
l%26#39;orangarie,montmantre,
sacre couer,
eglise de la madeline,
opera granier...
lourve and versailles...
parks and shop, eat crepes, and watch people go by....
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We had 12 nights - and we did almost all of that. We are museum lovers though - we spent more time than most people.
Be sure to figure out when the tours at the Opera House are - they open at 10 am and give tours at certain times. We went and were disappointed to find that 1) no tours at the time we were there (around 4 pm - there was a performance) and 2) no information on when the tours were forthcoming from the staff - so consult Frommers.
St Chapelle is breathtaking and should not be missed. Conciergerie leaves you feeling part of history - but isn%26#39;t real time consuming. Notre Dame is bigger than you think, just to walk one circuit around the inside, much less go up in the towers, into the crypt or into the treasury.
Orangerie and D%26#39;Orsay are by far (to me) more interesting than Musée Rodin, but perhaps I%26#39;m biased by the sheer amount of Rodin viewable elsewhere and the plethora of other gardens. Also, it%26#39;s sort of out of the way unless you plain to see Les Invalides (and it sounds like you%26#39;re not).
Montmartre is very fun especially at night. We were more into Gothic churches and so the exterior of Sacre Couer was sufficient for me - but I was sad we missed Eglise Madeleine (we saw about 20 other churches though).
Seeing the Arc de Triomphe is a tremendous thrill - don%26#39;t force yourself to rush to go to the top of things, is what I%26#39;d say (the view from Montmartre is unforgettable enough). Maybe choose one tall thing to go up?
Please keep careful track of what you do each day, because I want YOUR tips when you get back.
Remember your water bottles, fill them up every chance you get (take a small plastic cup for filling bottles at the Louvre, the spouts are too low). It%26#39;s hard to find anything resembling a convenience store - Parisians sit down and drink their beverages at cafés. This takes time. It%26#39;s also lots of fun.
When walking to Saint Cnapelle, don%26#39;t forget to take Rue Mouffetard instead of Rue Monge - google tells you Rue Monge, which is just a regular street, Rue Mouffetard is an open air market. Lovely. It goes up to Rue Descartes and then through the Latin Quarter (behind the Pantheon and St Etienne du Monde - almost irresistible, really - but remember your itinerary and keep going if you want day 2 to work for you!)
(It%26#39;s very hard to stay on track in Paris, that%26#39;s for sure - but you are going to have an amazing time, I can just see it).
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Being a fellow Aussie I certainly don%26#39;t want to add to your confusion. We will be visiting Paris for the 6th. time this September and the way I approach things is to look at the map and divide the days into areas. Looking at your first post you seem to be trying to cover great areas e.g. the walk from Notre Dame to Arc de T is a long way with lots to see on the way, so for me that would be too much.
Don%26#39;t get me wrong. Paris is very much a walking city and although the Metro is convenient the more you walk the more you see with quite often some wonderful surprises.
OK my approach: The Louvre, St.Chapelle, Berthillon ice cream, Notre Dame, Marais district etc. would be one day and the day the Louvre is open at night.
D%26#39;Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees (don%26#39;t miss Laduree) are all another day. The new Quai Branly Museum with great Aboriginal and indigineous art from our part of the world is also in that area so you could include that.
The Left Bank with Shakspeare %26amp; Co. Luxembourg Gardens, Montparnase etc. and the Rodin Museum is another day.
Printemps (shopping)rooftop cafe with spectacular views could be on the day you are in the Sacre Coeur and Opera area.
Versailles is a must and that is also another day..... so you get my drift. I suppose Disneyland has to be included, but my brother has just returned from taking his kids there and he reckons the attractions on the Gold Coast are just as good!
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Convenience stores aren%26#39;t that hard to find in Paris if you know that most of them are privately owned and don%26#39;t have an obvious chain store %26quot;look%26quot;, like the 7-11 convenience stores that look the same on the outside in both North America and Japan. You will recognize these %26quot;epiceries%26quot; by a small display of fruits and vegetables outside. They are more likely to be found on residential side streets than on major boulevards.
You can also find small supermarkets (an oxymoron but in a densely built city like Paris there is no room for US style supermarkets) that are bigger than a corner grocery and often are part of a mini-chain.
Going to the suburbs and shopping in one of their huge hypermarkets (Carrefour for example) is an eye opener!
Department stores also have a food floor. They aren%26#39;t necessarily budget but will do in a pinch (Galeries Lafayette for example)
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