Our leg in Paris was enjoyable, but not our favorite. We find the local people not too friendly, despite my French speaking. Our first interaction as at Gare du Nord train station after arriving from London (which we loved) on the eurostar. I guess I was naive thinking that English subtitles would be under the signs at the train station, but there was not English signs. We stood in line at an Info counter, approach the woman, I greeted her with "Bonjour, parlez vous Anglais?" We then got literally yelled at in French and arms flailing. We just wanted to confirm which train to take to Paris. She finally answered our question and we quickly got on our way. We did enjoy the city, as we rented an apartment, which was the best thing we could do for our week. Our highlight of our time in France was the DDay beaches tour and our overnight in Bayeux. Don't miss it!
Posted by
OP
Marysville, WA, USA
41 posts
WE also traveled to Versailles which is also a "must see". Our frustrations with Rick's books were few. The frustration was the audio tours of the museums on his apps on our phones. We followed his tip of getting our Louvre tickets downstairs in the mall. That was a piece of cake. No lines, got right in. Unfortunately, the museum was crowded. As we put our earbuds in and turned on our tour on our app, we are fore-warned that things can be closed or moved in the museums. That is what happened, so here we were, already lost as to where the first exhibit moved too. It caused a lot of frustration. We ran into the same problem with the D'Orsay. If I do it again, I will just rent the audio guide from the museum, which would have saved a lot of frustration. I relied on Rick's books for our hotel reservations and all the places we stayed in were wonderful. We rented an apartment in Paris and that was the best thing we did. We were a week in Paris and it was so nice to have a kitchen AND a washing machine. We packed light so I could wash a load everynight and it was dry in the morning. Also, we could see the Eifel Tower, if we leaned out the window. We did have a view of the Seine. Again, it was a wonderful experience with the apartment. Highly recommeded.