6.5.08

6.5.08
Today, breakfast was cereal,scrambled egg and bacon with baguette.
We are heading to Versailles, the royal chateau for half day then the rest of the time (of nearly 2 hours in Paris) and followed by going back to camp ground and then depart for our first excursions (Dining in a french restaurant).

Below is excerpt from my diary:
"Versaille was quite disappointing for me. I think it's to do with the overall crowds. It looked like a huge bus station with so many tour buses and thousands of tourists. Again, lots of street hawkers with the effiel tower key rings and scarves with 'paris' written all over it.

We decided not to enter the palace due to the long queue. I checked out the bookshop and only limited literatures are in English so I left."

We did a quick scan of the garden and snapped some pics. Weather was pretty hot, so we were lazy to walk further into the symetrically pruned gardens.

We then went to explore the town of Versaille and bought our lunch from this lovely patiserrie shop. I nearly want every single cake in the shop. But we bought ourselves custard tarts and something more practical for lunch.

Following Versailles, we drove into the city of Paris again. It was really only for 2 hours and to enable us to do what we have not covered in the previous days. We decided to buy some treats from the Paul shop. We bought some macaroons and pastries and etc..

So we walked from Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the D'orsay Quay. D'orsay Quay is where we will get picked up again. On our way to pick up point, I saw a model posing on the middle of Avenue des Champs -Élysées doing a photoshoot. The photographer had a huge SLR camera and kept pointing to her and instruct her. The stylists were standing next to the photographer and the model was at least 6 ft tall and she was in heels.

We nearly ran out of time going to the pick up point. I felt like I was on amazing race. I really don't want to miss the pick up time. FYI, the coach will wait for 10mins max and if you don't get in the coach on time, the tour manager will assume that you have your own plans and you will figure out your own transportation to get back to the camp site.

Back on the campsite, we prepared to go out on our first excursion.In a contiki tour, there are extra excursions that one get to choose to sign up. The first excursion was dining at french restaurant. Below were our dinner. Entre was escargot and fish terraine. For main, I had cod with cream sauce while Jake had orange duck. We were entertained by the man in accordion too. The toilet left much to be desired.

After dinner, it was the next excursion to see cabaret show. Me and Jake did not sign up for this and decided to check out Statue of Liberty by using the metro/subway.

We were dropped off at the Moulin Rouge area. See inset in the sampler below.

Photo sampler showing a french florist shop, their cinema with the billboard in french, typical french balcony on their building and the Moulin Rouge area.


Above were the metro that we use. We were a little apprehensive given that everything's in French and it was very quiet and uncrowded, compared to London tube. We didn't get to Statute of Liberty as one of us had tummy bug. We were half way there and turned back to Moulin Rouge area.

That ends our night.