Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Paris Quickie ... !!

I wish I was there ... Oh I wish ... sigh ...

Paris was one city that I had performed the maximum R&D when I was in Malmo. I was so smitten by my trip to Paris that I hardly worked during the week that led to the weekend when I was supposed to go to Paris. But the stupid Icelandic volcano chose a wrong time to ejaculate ... I could have used a more sombre term ... but I have lost all respect for Iceland and everything related to it ... errr ... was it Miss Iceland in the last 5 at Miss World? :P

By the time that weekend arrived, I had the entire Paris metro system on my fingertips and I had a ready time table for the weekend to visit places ... Eiffel tower, Louvre, Champs Elysses, River Sienne, Disneyworld ... I had Paris going all over in my mind ... but alas ... it never happened ... and that remained the sore point of those magical 18 weeks ...

But they say lightning strikes twice ... whatever ...

Biwi had a 6 hour stopover en route to her flight to Helsinki on Sunday. The fact that she was going to land in Paris at around 7 am was even better ... her connecting flight to Helsinki was around 12:30 ... we had to plan it to precision ...

the target was to get to the Eiffel Tower and head back to the airport ... thats it ...

I am not a huge fan of flight departures and arrivals from and to India ... so accounting for an hour of delay was inevitable ... so we were talking about arriving in Paris at around 8 am ... check-in could be done even half an hour in advance since there was nothing to check in :P ... so the deadline was to reach Paris CDG latest by 12 ... we assumed 30-45 minutes to get out of the flight and get to the metro station at the airport and to purchase tickets ... so we were staring at a departure of around 9 am from Paris CDG ...

This also meant that Biwi needed to be seated very close to the exit of the aircraft ... that was done by web checking in ... the easier part was done ...

Paris metro is known by the name of RER ... there are several RER lines in Paris similar to Central, Harbour and Western in Mumbai ... Paris CDG fell on the RER-B (Blue) line ... Biwi had to board a train to St Michel Notre Dame which is around a 30-35 minute journey from the airport. Get down and then switch to RER-C (Yellow Line) and head to Champs de Mars ... which is around a 10 minute journey and its the closest metro station to the Eiffel Tower ... it is a 10 minute walk from Champs de Mar to the great structure ... so an hour was a good time to reach Eiffel Tower from the airport ... spend 15-25 minutes over there and another hour to get back to the airport ... which meant Biwi would be back at the airport by around 11:30 am ... wonderful ...

As expected, there was a 30 minute delay in departure from Mumbai ... the flight arrived at CDG at 7:45 am ... and it took her around 8:15 to get her passport stamped and stuff ... she spent some time identifying the metro station at the airport and purchasing tickets ... and she was on board a RER-B headed to Saint Remy (last stop on the Blue Line) at 8:55 ... switching trains was quite straight forward according to her ... and she was at the Tower before 10 ... well before 10 ... and she left at around 10:20 am to be back at the airport at 11:25 ... amazing amazing turn of events ...

Sitting at home in Pune ... I was predicting what she would be doing and where she might be at every minute ... praying that she does not back out of the plan ... afterall she was alone in a city completely new to her ... in some way I may have been a bit selfish that I wanted her to go to the Eiffel Tower at any cost ... but I knew that is capable of pulling it off ... and she did ... proud to be her husband ...

Some pics from Paris ...








So for anyone in a similar predicament ... here is how to get to the Eiffel Tower from Paris CDG airport (remember there are 2 airports in Paris ... the other being Paris Orly) ...

There are 2 RER stations at CDG ... at Terminal 1 and at Terminal 2 ...
You need to board a train with the last stop either as Massy Palaiseau or Saint-Remy. There are fast and slow trains in Paris too. A fast train skips lot of stations and halts at the important ones while the slow also skips some stations but halts at more stations than the fast one ... thats the only difference ... but if you are going to the Eiffel Tower ... it doesnt make a difference if you board a slow or fast one since the station in question is a Halt station for both the fast and slow train ...

It takes 30-35 minutes to reach a station called St Michel Notre Dame. Get down here. Switch to RER-C (Yello line). The train you board at St Michel should be headed to either of the following stations ...

Pontoise
Argenteuli
Versailles - Rive Gauche
Saint Quentin en Yvelines

It is a 10 minute journey from St Michel to Champs de Mars and then a 1 km walk from the station to Eiffel Tower. Biwi tells me that its visible from the station itself ...

I have also attached a map. There is a black box for St Michel and a Purple one for Champs de Mars ...




Happy PARISing ... !!