Exploring Paris

Today's itinerary:

• Louvre Museum
• Champ Elysees
• Arc de Triomphe

Saying goodbye to Venice is not an easy thing. It’s really beautiful and romantic here. But another romantic adventure has waited us in Paris, named as the most romantic city in the world. Today, we are using another low budget airline, Easyjet from Venice Marco Polo Airport to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG).

From hotel, we walk to the bus terminal, around 5 min on foot. You could search for the schedule in ATVO website but you need to go to the locket to purchase for the ticket. Bus traveling from terminal to airport will take about 20-40 min depending on the traffic.

There are 2 airports in Venice: Venice Marco Polo and Venice Treviso so you would need to pay attention it when you book the airline. Marco Polo is closer to the city then Treviso. Venice Marco Polo could be categorized as small airport in Europe. However, it is a modern airport and a lot of airline is using this airline including EasyJet.

The flight from Venice – Paris takes about 1 hr 45 min. CDG is a super busy airport and guys.. Welcome to a world without English. Looking around, we are paying attention to the Metro sign in each of direction. Looking around for a long time, we finally find the machine to purchase metro ticket, it is yellow looks like an ATM or you could go to SNCF locket. For you who bought the SNCF ticket by internet, you might want to exchange your print out ticket with the paper ticket in the machine.

Getting your ticket already, it is time to find the patform. For you who has just been in Paris for the first time. Congratulations! Please see the Paris metro map below to see how complicated the lines are (even if you have been here for couple times).

From Airport, it takes 30 min time to go to Gare Du Nord or Chatelet as an interchange station to other line. We are in trouble now, since we don’t have a metro map, the station is so big, and……… none of English direction here. Finally, we find an officer who speaks a little bit of English guide us to the destination station.

Generally, there are 2 main train systems in Paris. First one, is Metro (M with circle) servicing the whole city with 14 lines (no 1 to 14). Second one is RER (RER with circle) servicing the suburb area with 4 lines (no A to D). Please refer to RATP website for further information.

Different from other city, to get into Metro, RER or bus, you would need carnet (speeling: karnei). A pack of carnet will cost € 11, consists of 10 tickets and available in station, minimarket, or coffee shop.

One carnet could be use for intercity zone and for interchange. But a new carnet is required in some interchange. Please pay attention to the direction board inside the station.

Today’s tips:
To reach your destination in the shortest way and time, you may want to combine both Metro and RER. Metro would have to serve a lot of station and line so a longer time is needed (more stops and more exchanging line) while RER only serve longer route from suburb to central with fewer stops. So, you may want to combine RER with Metro for a long journey, for example if you are traveling from east to west.

We stay in Belgrand Hotel, located next to Porte De Bagnolet station, from Gare Du Nord take line 5 interchange at Republique, then continue with line 3. It is a nice hotel, not too expensive but a little bit far from the central.

Clearing up the accommodation procedure, it is time to explore the city. Our first destination is Louvre Museum, a museum with thousands of valuable art collection including Monalisa, the masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci.

You could take metro line 1, alight at Palais-Royal-Musée du Louvre station. The Museum is located upstair. Ticket will cost you about €9 and night ticket cost you €6 or for free if you come on first Sunday of each month.

Again, the museum is too spacious to be fully explored in our short time. Therefore, we hold the Museup map in hand and see only the master piece item referred in the map.

Next, we headed to the Champ Elysees(Metro stop: Champ Elysees Clemenceau)., the famous shopping district, keep walking ahead will also lead you to Arc de Triomphe (Metro stop: Charles de Gaulle Etoile). It is a long long walk but you might get entertain by luxurious shop in both side all the way.

Sore feet, tired, and cold due to rain force us to return to hotel to take a rest. We need to spend the whole day in Disneyland tomorrow. How do we settle our meals problem? Well, the food price is not too budget-friendly here again fast food is the solution. This time we find Turkish kebab near hotel. Cheap and full.