We arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal 2 about 9 AM CET (UTC+1), unfortunately without much sleep on the plane. We deplaned and proceeded to claim our luggage.
I’ve heard from many people that Paris is a beautiful city. However, I can only assume they were not talking about Charles de Gaulle airport? What a massive dump! There was a toilet odour in the air, and the building was poorly laid out, completely falling apart and totally lacking any architectural aesthetic qualities. Sidewalks and hallways in this airport are not wide enough for 2 people pulling luggage to pass each other. I have photos, but won’t bother posting any. They’re not pretty!
Anyway, we phoned our prearranged transport advising them we were at the airport, and were quickly picked up and taken to our hotel. Driving in Paris is something I don’t wish to try. Traffic rules are apparently not enforced, which is scary considering how small the roads are. It seems the roads and all of the cars and busses on them are scaled down a fair bit from what we have in Canada.
As we entered the downtown area of Paris, the quality of the architecture improved immensely from the crap we saw out by the airport.
After checking in to our hotel, we decided to go out and find a bank machine and some coffee while waiting for our room to be ready. Below is a photo of Nadine in front of our hotel, taken later that evening.
When our room was ready, we proceeded to the elevator, which was only large enough for one person and one suitcase at a time. The room wasn’t much larger, but we were told this was typical of Paris. However, the room and bathroom were both clean and comfortable, but the view was fantastic. We had a corner room on the 4th of 5 floors, and we had a direct view of the Eiffel tower. Below are some photos taken from our room, number 45 at the Duquesne Eiffel Hotel.
After getting settled, we headed out on a walking tour of the area, heading in the direction of the Eiffel tower which we could easily see from the hotel. We did the usual tourist things and went up the tower. Below are some photos from our walk.
Roadside gas pumps? Never seen anything like this before!
Here I am on the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower looks beautiful at night.
After exploring the area on our own, we met with Nadine’s cousin and her husband, who live in Paris. We hopped on the Metro to get across town for a walking tour and then they took us to dinner. I can now say I went all the way to Paris to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant!
It was getting late, and we wanted to see if we could catch a night boat tour of the Seine for the evening, but unfortunately it was getting close to 11 PM, and they were finished for the evening. As I didn’t really sleep on the plane, by this point we were tired and decided to return to the hotel since I hadn’t really slept in for a long time.