A grand return to the city that I absolutely dread returning. I’ll be honest. Paris really isn’t my favourite city to visit in France. I’d much rather go to the country side and visit some cheese farms and drink wine out of kegs. But alas, I’ve returned. There’s still plenty for me to see though. The last time I was there I didn’t really get to see everything.
My last day here in Paris. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up early and go to the train station to catch my train headed towards Cologne, Germany! Before I leave, I wanted to take a few photos of my neighbourhood. But, I didn’t want to walk around my neighbourhood with my dSLR, so I took my point & shoot Sony T90. Obviously they won’t look as good as my dSLR, but with a little magic I can make it look a tiny bit better! CHALLENGE accepted. So, besides my neighbourhood took a few others of central Paris as well when I was out getting my lunch.
Besides my point & shoot challenge, I had another challenge today. Where can you find a convenient store that’s open on a Sunday?! Seriously, when it comes to Sunday, the French are the laziest people alive. This happens in Quebec too! I did end up finding a store that was open though! And what do you know, it’s a Chinese person who’s open on a Sunday. It wasn’t all that serious but I thought I’d say it here. Saturday and Sunday are probably the worst days to go to museums, especially Louvre and Versailles. They’re way too packed to even enjoy them. 
Actually, even the local area here in Bagnolet gets pretty packed on weekends. On weekends a bunch of street vendors come out to sell really random stuff.
For now, I’ll leave you all with these pictures and I’ll make another post tomorrow while on the train. I’ll make posts of tips and things to look out for while in Paris. It’ll be my overview of my 10 days here and what I’ve learned from this little part of my 3 month voyage! Until tomorrow!
My little neighbourhood: Bagnolet!
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Other Photos with Point & Shoot:
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Day 9, was on EARLY Saturday morning. I actually woke up at 7:30, showered, and left by 8 in the morning! I had to meet up with a friend at Opéra metro station to make it in time for the Air Show. The Air Show is this big world presentation, where all the greatest engineering manufacturers and developers show off their tech, and of course an actual air show where they have planes fly in the sky and do fancy manoeuvres. Everything from Boeing air planes, to missles to shoot them down, to satillites, to engines, and much more. The actual Air Show started around 1pm and lasted until around 3pm. I was STARVING by the end of it. Me and my buddy were holding out cause we didn’t want to pay for the 8€ sandwiches. Not only starving, I also burned myself sitting in the sun too long; ouch.
After the show we headed back towards the city centre and ate some food. Then went our separate ways. I was so exhausted I ended up going home and crashing right away, that’s why this post is so late. I actually didn’t bring my camera, so sorry to anyone who wanted to see any photos. I’ll make up for it in Day 10 post.
This post is super short but I really didn’t do much this day.
This is a bit late but here’s day 8. Nine and ten are coming soon.
Friday, I set out to head out to Château de Versailles. But, before heading over there, there were a few things I wanted to get done first. I needed to get more RAM for my laptop because it was near impossible to edit video. So, I headed out to Montgallet Metro. Grabbed a bit to eat along the way. Ended up eating an awesome panini, filled with chicken and LOTS of cheese.
Montgallet is pretty much the electronic district here in Paris. It’s small, more or less one street. If you’re from Toronto, you probably guessed it. Every SINGLE computer store here is owned by Chinese People! And not only that, they open 7 days a week; unlike every other shop in Paris. I ended up buying my RAM from Surcouf. Surcouf is basically like NCIX in Vancouver & Toronto, but much larger. I checked all the Asian computer stores but they were actually more expensive. After, I need a screwdriver so I went to Mr. Bricolage, which is their version of a Canadian Tire, but much smaller.
By around noon I had finished my purchases and set out to le Château de Versailles. The best way to get there is actually by train, or more commonly known as the RER here. But, I decided to try to get there by metro and bus. I made it to the metro station Pont de Sèvres and then took the 171 bus line. I didn’t realize but my Navigo (metro pass), didn’t work to go to Versailles because it was outside of the zones my Navigo would let me go. Still, I walked on to the bus. Yeah, they don’t check at all. Or rather, they just don’t care. So, I got to the Versailles without really paying!
I spent about an hour walking around the castle. Most of the castle at the time I went was under renovation, so quite a few sections were closed off. But really, if you want to see this kind of art I would simple suggest someone to go to the Louvre. What was the most exciting thing to see at Versailles was honestly the garden. You get such a NICE view. But, what sucked was, I couldn’t get in. 
They ended up closing the garden early for some festival so I couldn’t actually walk around it; such a waste. I did manage to get a couple shots from inside the castle though. After walking around the castle I got a bite to eat. I ended up grabbing something from the castle’s cafeteria. Every museum in Paris has one nearby, but they’re always ridiculously expensive. I ended up paying like 9€ for a small brownie and a bottle of Sprite. After recharging, I decided to take the RER home since it would be much faster. Since Versailles is outside of Paris, you have to buy a ticket that allows you to re-enter into the city. Not the t+ but one that says Paris on it. The t+ tickets is only for within the 6 transit zones in Paris. I’ll do a transit tips page sometime soon.
Once I was back in Paris, I stopped by Louvre again. On Friday nights it’s Nocture night. Basically between 6 to 10pm its free to enter. You really should only go during this time if its either to get night shots of the museum or to see one of the concerts playing during the night. Because I went at this time, I missed out on getting to eat on the rooftop of the museum, on the Richelieu Pavilion side. Still, I walked around and got more shots of the museum! Just take a look at the photos below. I did a lot more editing this time to make them POP! By the time I finished at the Louvre it was about 9pm so I headed home after that.
After getting off at my stop, I decided to pop by the local pizza shop near my place. And man, these pizzas are GOOD! Costs about 8€ for a small pizza but it’s worth it, and in comparison to other places its much more value for the money. To be honest, its almost always cheaper in the more local areas to eat food. Doesn’t matter if it’s a restaurant or for take out. Even the bakeries are cheaper in the local areas. For example, in the tourist areas the average price for half a baguette is like 1 to 1,50€, but near my area its like 40 cents. There are more local bakeries around the tourist areas but be careful which in streets you wander into. There are some really sketchy people around the tourist areas in Paris! Like REALLY SKETCHY!
Posts for day 9 and 10 coming soon! Like always enjoy the photos! I put a lot of effort into these ones, hopefully you’ll enjoy them all the same.
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Today turned out to be a beautiful day after the rain stopped around noon! Blue skies everywhere! I was able to get a lot of photos that I actually liked. I personally don’t like all 71 I’m posting now, but they’re important for memories. Also, I’ve decided to upload the photos in slightly higher resolution.
I set out today around noon-ish. I first went walking around Notre-Dame again looking for the crypts. But guess what? It took me an hour to find them because the signs kept on pointing me in the wrong direction. Why make an arrow pointing south when the freaking entrance is west?! It wasn’t until someone showed me where it was I noticed it. But, I decided to move on to the next museum since I wasted too much time there. I’ll go back again when I hit up le Louvre again on Friday. Anyway, I ended up at le Musée National du Moyen Âge first. You can see all the photos at the bottom. The place isn’t bad. But, it was blazing hot inside and impossible to breathe. It seems to me that people in the middle ages of France really liked their religion. I probably saw more statues and paintings of Jesus Christ, than I did inside the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Probably the best part of the museum was the court room, or what looked like what would be a court of those times. It had a nice open ceiling that lit the area really nicely. They put a bunch of heads and headless statues in that room.
The next museum I headed off to was the Pantheon. This Pantheon seems nothing like the one in Rome. Though, I’ve yet to see the one in Rome, I’m almost certain its better. At least from what I’ve seen in the documentaries I’ve watched. It’s actually not all that big inside. Sure the ceiling is really high but space wise there isn’t much to see. However, going down the crypts is pretty cool. You get to visit a whole lot of famous dead people. My favourite being Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo. You might not recognize the names, but their books you will. Dumas did Three Musketeers and Hugo did the Hunchback of Notre-Dame!
Both those visits and my days worth of walking took me around 5 hours today. I’m pretty much crippled after that! Aside from visiting the museums, in the same area you can find things like Japan Town which sits right next to China Town in Paris. Found these Japanese import stores while I was looking for the Pantheon. After all that walking I needed to rest, so I sat in front of the Pantheon on the steps. From there I took a bunch of fun shots of the Pantheon, but my favourite is probably the shot of the Eiffel Tower! You can actually see it from there. I even had a pigeon model for me.
For dinner, I actually ended up eating around Bagnolet today. Grabbed a couple croissants and pizza slice. Don’t worry, the pizza is pretty much Frenchified too. Originally after walking around for 5 hours, I wanted to eat Greek, but I forgot where le quartier Grecque was. I passed by it the other day but I couldn’t remember where it was! I’ll look it up tonight so I can have it for lunch tomorrow.
I’ll be making tomorrow my day of rest. Won’t carry around my bag with me and I won’t be walking around museums for 4 hours straight. Just time to relax, eat, drink some wine and enjoy. Need to rest my feet for Friday. Friday, I’ll go all out again and hit up a bunch of museums again. Need to see le Louvre at night! I think tomorrow I’ll do another video. I’ll probably post some other videos I’ve been also meaning to post as well. For now enjoy the gallery again!
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