Friday 11th May: Trek to the land of spite creds
Only a couple of weeks after Disneyland Paris I found myself back at St Pancras International train station to meet Mark and Chris. Our train was direct to Gare Du Nord in Paris for a fun weekend of sightseeing and Asterix based awesomeness. The train journey went by fairly quickly, probably from where I've become used to doing the journey alone, so it was nice to have peeps to talk to on the journey despite all of us feeling tired after unexpected late nights.
Anyways we arrived and got straight onto the Metro train to our hotel. It was like 5 minutes on the train and then a few minutes walk before we arrived at our cheap Etap hotel. It was what you should expect from any Etap hotel room, a double bed, bunk bed, TV and the bathroom separated into individual cupboards. Still, it was ideal for what we wanted, something cheap and with a central location to everywhere we were going.
We then got back on the Metro line to Pyramides (or Louvre museum). This was where we started our epic trek across Paris. We stood and admired the Louvre museum building for a while before Mark got distracted by a pigeon eating some bread.
We then walked down the gardens towards the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. We stopped off at a very touristy cafe in the gardens for a spot of lunch. We all had a ham and cheese baguette, how French were we? So after filling up on food we continued up the very famous avenue. One thing we all loved about Paris was how wide all the paths are, everything just feels like it's on such a grand scale.
We then walked around the Arc de Triomphe which is massive. We decided not to go up and have a look from the top though and so we continued our journey. I wanted to grab the creds at Jardin d'Acclimatation as I hadn't been there before. It was quite a long walk and for some reason, instead of continuing to look at the map that Chris handily picked up at the hotel we decided to just go in a random direction which led us into this woodland area which was massive and occasionally broken up by roads. So after a while of just random trekking through these random woods we decided to consult a road-side map and check it against the one we had and we finally started to walk into the right direction. Before long we were at the park.
First impressions were, it's very quiet and this looks a bit weird. We walked up to the only ticket desk open and got our entrance tickets which was a couple of euros. The park was very nice and clean but it was a bit barren in terms of other people. When we got round to where the rides were (and more importantly, the creds) we only saw a couple of the kids rides running with a couple of kids and their parents standing around.
But there was a cred sitting there all lonely and looking like it wanted attention. So I walk over in the hope of adding a +1 to my coaster count when the man operating one of the kids rides basically told me it was closed. How dare they close the creds! Behind us was the pink spinny cred which also looked sad and closed, we walked over just as two girls were checking to see if the waveswinger was open, it was not, one of them looked very unhappy about this situation. I can totally relate to that girl's reaction at that moment in time because she then went to check out the spinny cred too, when she saw it was closed she looked close to tears, she wanted her creds too!
After all hope lost at not gaining any creds in the centre of Paris we decided to take a look round at what else this random park had to offer. The first thing we came across was a random selection of bird aviaries with the most bizarre selection of birds ever. For example in one cage would be hens, parrots and pigeons, wtf? Outside the cages were some random peacocks which were showing off their fancy feathers.
The next animal enclosure was for a brown bear which apparently came from the UK, it looked like quite a small enclosure and there was no sign of said brown bear. This made me a little sad, I've never seen a brown bear in real life before. Next were some random little cages with rabbits in, one of the rabbits was huge...
Next on the random animal parade was sheep, goats, a cow and bull and then donkeys, llamas and ducks with wigs.
Oh and not forgetting the random deer with more goats...
This really was a very odd place. It had this cool pigeon tower that was really old.
One of the spiteful creds looked really nice...
It was just a very random place with lots for kids to see and do, we even saw loads of girls learning how to ride a horse which was cool. Despite all it's randomness and spitefulness it was a pleasant place to visit and I won't mind having to go back in the future to gain a +3 on my coaster count.
It was time to leave the park and walk to the Eiffel Tower (using our map this time). On our way we played the spot the dented cars which was basically every single car we saw, it's actually ridiculous. I know the French have no sense of space in queuelines but apparently it extends to parking too. Nearly every single car had like 1mm between them, how any of them ever got out of their parking spaces I will never know. Oh and there seemed to be a trend of Smart cars 1)clearly having a silly amount of crashes and 2) parking on street corners...WTF?
Anyway we were finally near the Eiffel Tower.
Just everything in the area is so massive and nicely designed, I love this area of Paris so much. I was determined to finally go up to the top of the tower as I've never been with peeps that were bothered about doing it. There was only one lift in operation so the queue for that was burdenous so we decided to walk up. The thought of walking up was daunting and actually climbing all the stairs really took its toll. By the first floor my thighs had decided I had had enough exercise for one day lol. We were all quite thirsty and exhausted anyway so we popped into the cafe for a nice cool bottle of water. After our little chill out sesh we continued up to the second floor. On the stairs is a little stencil every 10 steps, there are a total of 700 steps to the second floor, it really takes it out of you. However the view was absolutely stunning.
But wait, there's more! We then got the lift to the very top viewing platform. It is just so high up and the views really are epic. It also made us realise how far we had walked, that was quite a shock.
You can actually see the park where the spiteful creds are. It's in the right hand top corner of that giant forest looking area.
Lots of epic buildings in this pic
We spotted a fairground at yet another huge looking park. No idea where that is though so we didn't go over there
Going back down the tower was so much easier and quite a nice feeling. We were very hungry by this point so wandered around until we found something semi-decent. We ate at an Italian themed tourist-trap restaurant which had some very nice food. Desert was immense.
We then got the train back to the hotel and got ready for a long day ahead. Night all, thanks for readingzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
More photos of this day can be found by here
Only a couple of weeks after Disneyland Paris I found myself back at St Pancras International train station to meet Mark and Chris. Our train was direct to Gare Du Nord in Paris for a fun weekend of sightseeing and Asterix based awesomeness. The train journey went by fairly quickly, probably from where I've become used to doing the journey alone, so it was nice to have peeps to talk to on the journey despite all of us feeling tired after unexpected late nights.
Anyways we arrived and got straight onto the Metro train to our hotel. It was like 5 minutes on the train and then a few minutes walk before we arrived at our cheap Etap hotel. It was what you should expect from any Etap hotel room, a double bed, bunk bed, TV and the bathroom separated into individual cupboards. Still, it was ideal for what we wanted, something cheap and with a central location to everywhere we were going.
We then got back on the Metro line to Pyramides (or Louvre museum). This was where we started our epic trek across Paris. We stood and admired the Louvre museum building for a while before Mark got distracted by a pigeon eating some bread.
We then walked down the gardens towards the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. We stopped off at a very touristy cafe in the gardens for a spot of lunch. We all had a ham and cheese baguette, how French were we? So after filling up on food we continued up the very famous avenue. One thing we all loved about Paris was how wide all the paths are, everything just feels like it's on such a grand scale.
We then walked around the Arc de Triomphe which is massive. We decided not to go up and have a look from the top though and so we continued our journey. I wanted to grab the creds at Jardin d'Acclimatation as I hadn't been there before. It was quite a long walk and for some reason, instead of continuing to look at the map that Chris handily picked up at the hotel we decided to just go in a random direction which led us into this woodland area which was massive and occasionally broken up by roads. So after a while of just random trekking through these random woods we decided to consult a road-side map and check it against the one we had and we finally started to walk into the right direction. Before long we were at the park.
First impressions were, it's very quiet and this looks a bit weird. We walked up to the only ticket desk open and got our entrance tickets which was a couple of euros. The park was very nice and clean but it was a bit barren in terms of other people. When we got round to where the rides were (and more importantly, the creds) we only saw a couple of the kids rides running with a couple of kids and their parents standing around.
But there was a cred sitting there all lonely and looking like it wanted attention. So I walk over in the hope of adding a +1 to my coaster count when the man operating one of the kids rides basically told me it was closed. How dare they close the creds! Behind us was the pink spinny cred which also looked sad and closed, we walked over just as two girls were checking to see if the waveswinger was open, it was not, one of them looked very unhappy about this situation. I can totally relate to that girl's reaction at that moment in time because she then went to check out the spinny cred too, when she saw it was closed she looked close to tears, she wanted her creds too!
After all hope lost at not gaining any creds in the centre of Paris we decided to take a look round at what else this random park had to offer. The first thing we came across was a random selection of bird aviaries with the most bizarre selection of birds ever. For example in one cage would be hens, parrots and pigeons, wtf? Outside the cages were some random peacocks which were showing off their fancy feathers.
The next animal enclosure was for a brown bear which apparently came from the UK, it looked like quite a small enclosure and there was no sign of said brown bear. This made me a little sad, I've never seen a brown bear in real life before. Next were some random little cages with rabbits in, one of the rabbits was huge...
Next on the random animal parade was sheep, goats, a cow and bull and then donkeys, llamas and ducks with wigs.
Oh and not forgetting the random deer with more goats...
This really was a very odd place. It had this cool pigeon tower that was really old.
One of the spiteful creds looked really nice...
It was just a very random place with lots for kids to see and do, we even saw loads of girls learning how to ride a horse which was cool. Despite all it's randomness and spitefulness it was a pleasant place to visit and I won't mind having to go back in the future to gain a +3 on my coaster count.
It was time to leave the park and walk to the Eiffel Tower (using our map this time). On our way we played the spot the dented cars which was basically every single car we saw, it's actually ridiculous. I know the French have no sense of space in queuelines but apparently it extends to parking too. Nearly every single car had like 1mm between them, how any of them ever got out of their parking spaces I will never know. Oh and there seemed to be a trend of Smart cars 1)clearly having a silly amount of crashes and 2) parking on street corners...WTF?
Anyway we were finally near the Eiffel Tower.
Just everything in the area is so massive and nicely designed, I love this area of Paris so much. I was determined to finally go up to the top of the tower as I've never been with peeps that were bothered about doing it. There was only one lift in operation so the queue for that was burdenous so we decided to walk up. The thought of walking up was daunting and actually climbing all the stairs really took its toll. By the first floor my thighs had decided I had had enough exercise for one day lol. We were all quite thirsty and exhausted anyway so we popped into the cafe for a nice cool bottle of water. After our little chill out sesh we continued up to the second floor. On the stairs is a little stencil every 10 steps, there are a total of 700 steps to the second floor, it really takes it out of you. However the view was absolutely stunning.
But wait, there's more! We then got the lift to the very top viewing platform. It is just so high up and the views really are epic. It also made us realise how far we had walked, that was quite a shock.
You can actually see the park where the spiteful creds are. It's in the right hand top corner of that giant forest looking area.
Lots of epic buildings in this pic
We spotted a fairground at yet another huge looking park. No idea where that is though so we didn't go over there
Going back down the tower was so much easier and quite a nice feeling. We were very hungry by this point so wandered around until we found something semi-decent. We ate at an Italian themed tourist-trap restaurant which had some very nice food. Desert was immense.
We then got the train back to the hotel and got ready for a long day ahead. Night all, thanks for readingzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
More photos of this day can be found by here
Still, Zeus times happened and once again we grabbed back row. LOTS OF AIR TIME FOR US.
