Contiki Chronicles, Day 3: Versailles and the tomb of the Emperor

Enter day three. The plan for today was to take a drive down to the palace at Versailles and the attached village, wonder around there for a while, before going back into Paris for the second free day. There were also some optional activities in the evening which were pretty fun.

Now, remember when I said that the Louvre was big? That was because it used to be the French Royal Palace, and the French Royalty liked big stuff. Which is why Louis XIV decided it wasn't big enough. He ordered a newer palace to be built outside Paris, on top of a Royal hunting lodge near the village of Versailles. And let me tell you, that place is MASSIVE. Here are some photos:

Like I said, massive. It has a floor area of something like 67,000 square metres. and over 2,000 rooms. And that is where the French Royal Family lived. Until, of course, the French Revolution came along and fucked them all over. Some time after that, it was reopened as a museum, and that is why it's such a huge tourist destination, and why the town fills up every day, and empties out every night. Take a look:

I don't know if you can see it, but that first photo shows the ticket office all the way in the distance.

That second photo shows the end of the line.

Naturally, I didn't go in, but instead just took photos from the outside. I've already been in one time before, and it's all hopelessly over the top and ridiculously expensive-looking.

So, we hade lunch at a conveniently located McDonalds, and before long were on our way back to Paris.

Now. Nobody who goes to Paris leaves without seeing this. It's the most visited paid monument in the world. At the time of it's building, it was the tallest structure in the world. It was also one of the most mathematically perfect structures ever built. What is it?

If you said the Eiffel Tower, you'd be wrong.

Okay, kidding. It was the Eiffel Tower. Standing at 324m tall, the Eiffel Tower was designed by Gustave Eiffel (funny, that) for the 1889 World Fair, for which it stood as the entrance arch. Funnily enough, when it was first built, it was criticised heavily by the artistic community of Paris, who said it was an eyesore. Oh well, they grew to love it in the end. Or something. Another interesting thing about it is that it was never meant to be a permanent fixture. It was only meant to stay up for 20 years, after which ownership would revert back to the City of Paris, and they would tear it down. However, it turned out to be quite useful as a broadcasting tower, and was allowed to stay up. A good thing, too - the Tower received its 2,000,000th visitor in 2002, and it is the most visited paid monument in the world. This is what it looks like from the bottom.

You can pay to climb up to the top, as well, and as you do, the views only get more spectacular.

Those are three photos, taken from the first, second, and third floors, respectively. As you can see, it gets pretty damn high. Do you need a bit more of perspective? Do you remember the Arc de Triomphe yesterday? It was pretty big, right?

Nope:

Oh, and what about that spire in the Place de la Concorde? 23m is fairly high, isn't it?

Also nope:

...Oh? You can't see it? Let's zoom in more, then.

That's at 16x zoom. So yeah, the Eiffel Tower is pretty big. And you get a pretty awesome view of Paris from the top, including this, which seems to be advertising targeted solely at people climbing the Tower:

I mean, who the hell else is going to see that? The birds? Passenger planes? I just found that kinda funny, is all.

Anyway, I then headed back down the tower and was on my way to my next destination: Église du Dôme, which is down the back of Les Invalides, which also house the Musée de l'Armée. That is to say, I was going to go to the old veteran's retirement home, which also house the Army Museum, and down the back is Église du Dôme, which contains.... Napoleon's Tomb.

Now, Napoleon did some pretty amazing things in his life. First of all, after being put in charge of an army that had never seen victory, he not only crushed his enemies, but in doing so, won their adulation and loyalty... which he then used to lead a military coup in Paris, which was still under somewhat questionable leadership in the aftermath of the French Revolution. During the course of his life, he set himself up as the Emperor of France, forced the Pope into declaring him the Holy Roman Emperor, won some stupid number of wars, crushed five coalitions of nations against him, created the Napoleonic Code, which is the basis of the French constitution, and invaded Russia, even going so far as burning Moscow to the ground. It was there that his career met it's turning point, though - the Russian scorched earth tactics left Napoleon's army to the harsh Russian Winter, and on the retreat back to Paris. The Russian cossacks harassed the French forces, and by the time Napoleon limped back into Paris, his original army of over 600,000 men was reduced to less than 25,000 men. That kinda goes to show you, taking on the Russians is never a good idea.

His story doesn't end there though. Seeing his weakened state, the Sixth Coalition was formed to take down Napoleon, and in shame, he surrendered without a fight. He was exiled to the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy. However, he escaped less than a year later, and returned to Paris. The governing body there sent Napoleon's old army to capture him, but instead they supported him, and Napoleon again led them to seize control of the country. Other countries then tried to take him down again, and he was eventually defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. After that, Napoleon was exiled not to the comparatively nearby Elba, but instead to Saint Helena, about 1,870km off the coast of Africa. That was where he lived out his last years and died.

This is his tomb:

His Tomb is designed on two levels, such that it's only possible to look up to him, or look down upon him, but never as an equal. The tomb is ringed by a dozen angels, each of whom seems to be wielding a different assortment of items. In fact, I actually found these angels to be more interesting than the tomb.

This one seemed to be holding some kind of flying croissant:

This one had a baseball cap on:

And this one had what appeared to be the world's bluntest sword:

While this one had a vuvuzela:

There was another one which seemed to have a cow pat on its head, but I didn't get a picture of that somehow.

Anyway, after looking around in there, I headed outside. Just near the exit, there was a small souvenir stand, selling classic Napoleon/France-related things, like decks of cards, pencils, fake replica pistols... Oh. And batteries. Made in Germany:

I found that pretty funny. Anyway, I was soon on my way out, and after having a brief look through the Army Museum, I headed back to the pick-up point and awaited the bus.

That evening, there were two optional activities (that is, activities which were organised by the tour company, but you had to pay extra for if you wanted to go on them). They were a dinner at this incredible restaurant, where I had the most mouthgasmic Duck à l'orange you have ever tasted, and an... interesting Burlesque show. We were given free wine at the restaurant and free champagne at the show, and this made for a pretty good night, for our last night in Paris.

Day 4 is coming up next, but I'll warn you now that it's not particularly interesting. See you then anyway.

Contiki Chronicles, Day 2: Paris? More like ParISN'T!

Also known as the post with the most irrelevant title.

So, the next day was one of our free days in Paris. Having just charged up my camera batteries, I was ready for taking photos the moment we got off the bus along the Champs-Élysées. We were meant to be dropped of at the Arc de Triomphe, but the combination of strict driving rules and traffic meant that we couldn't actually drive all the way up there. So naturally the first thing I do is walk all the way up the hill to the Arc.

The Arc de Triomphe was originally commissioned to be built by Napoleon himself in 1806, although he never actually got to see it built, because he died a good fifteen years before it was finished, and inaugurated in 1836. Yes, that's right, it took THIRTY YEARS to build, from start to finish. And honestly, if you look at it, that's not all that surprising:

Yeah. It's pretty damn big. The big sets of words engraved in the sides of the monument are names of places where Napoleon won battles, while the smaller words are the names of his generals. The names that are underlined indicate they died in battle. The two carvings to the left and the right of the front, I believe represent Napoleon leaving and coming back from war.

It also happens to house the French tomb of the unknown soldier:

Anyway, that thing is like, monstrously huge. You can pay something like six euros to climb up to the top, and this is what you see:

Have I mentioned that Paris is like, super-huge? In those pictures you can see a couple of landmarks in Paris, most notably the Eiffel Tower, but also the Sacré Coeur ("Sacred Heart") Basilica all the way on the distance of that last photo. There's also the Champs-Élysées, which, after walking back down to the ground floor, I set off down.

Oh, but one other thing I found kinda cool - inside the Arc, they have a screen showing a birds-eye video feed of the tomb of the unknown soldier below:

Not particularly noteworthy, I just thought I'd show you guys.

Anyway, back to the Champs-Élysées. Si tu peux le parler allez tombez la chemise. 

Um.. Yeah. That. Every time I hear the name of the street, I can't help but think of that song.

Anyway (again), the Champs-Élysées is easily one of the most expensive areas of real estate in the world. It's also one of the busiest shopping streets in the world Pretty much all of the street down the end of the Arc is either shopping or overly priced restaurants. And it is PACKED, especially in summer. The funny thing is, though, that almost every store on the street operates at a huge loss. The reason for this being simply that the cost of renting a building is so ridiculously high that it's almost impossible to break even, let alone turn a profit. And yet they keep on being rented out, if only for the sheer bragging rights of saying you have a store on the Champs-Élysées. A lot of big name chains have stores on that street: Chanel, Bulgari, H&M, McDonald's...

It's a long street.

They also use it for military parades. Apparently, there's a very correct way to parade down the Champs-Élysées, and there's a very wrong way. When Hitler invaded in WWII, he paraded up the Champs-Élysées in the wrong direction, he went up the street, towards the Arc de Triomphe. When Paris was retaken, the joint American and French forces celebrated their victory by parading down the street, away from the Arc, and towards Place de la Concorde, where I was now heading.

The Place de la Concorde is a big plaza or something in the middle of Paris. It stands at the the heart of a giant cross, with the Champs-Élysées stretching out to the East, the Tuileries Gardens (and by extension, the Louvre) off to the West, the building which houses the French National Assembly all the way to the South, on the other side of the Seine and across the Pont de la Concorde, and to the North is L'église de la Madeleine, which is basically a big-ass church. At the centre of the cross, and in the centre of the Plaza is an Egyptian obelisk, the Luxor Obelisk. It stands 23 metres tall, and has a gold-leafed pyramidion resting on top. There are also some fountains. I got some photos:

Anyway, I didn't really stop to look, I just kept on walking straight through, down through the Gardens.  The Gardens, by the way, like a lot of things in Paris, are HUGE.

You can barely see the end of them in that photo, and they're fairly wide as well. So at length, I eventually came to the far end of the Gardens, to the most famous art museum in the world: The Louvre. 

Now, I'm going to tell you something now: The Louvre is big. There's almost no way one person would be able to see everything in it in a day, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to take in and fully appreciate the artwork surrounding you. Before the reign of Louis XIV, the entire place was the French Royal Palace, and the Tuileries Gardens were the Royal Gardens. At some point, it was converted into a huge museum and it still holds an incredible amount of important artworks, most notable da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Of course, the entire place is a massive tourist destination, and despite the fact that there are at least three, possible even four separate entrances, waiting time for tickets can be upwards of a couple of hours. I didn't go inside, but instead just took photos:

After loitering around there for a while (and grabbing some lunch), I met up with some other guys from the tour, and we set off for our last tourist destination for that day, the Notre Dame Cathedral.

That's it there. The Notre Dame Cathedral was completed in 1345, and is probably one of the most well-known churches in the world. It's a prime example of Gothic architecture, and pioneered a couple of architectural tricks, such as the "flying buttresses", or arched exterior supports, which became necessary when the sheer size of the building caused it to crack under stress. Also, entry is free, meaning that there is more or less always a steady stream of people going in one door, and another stream coming out the other door. That said, though, it's not actually all the interesting inside. There are a lot of alcoves with displays and memorials towards something or other, and a lot of candles and places to donate to get a candle, but that's about it. Oh, and the windows are kinda pretty.

After we looked around in there, we headed back to the pick-up point for the bus and went back to the campsite.

*phew* That took a bit of writing... and there's almost as much again tomorrow. Tune in again for day 3: Working Title!

The Contiki Chronicles: Day one: The White Cliffs of Dover (and also Paris, I guess).

So let's get this thing started.

Day one - London to Paris.

All Contiki Tours leaving from London leave from the same place - the Royal National Hotel (near Russell Square Station, if that's any help). The company has it's own basement-thing there, and I think you get a free night's accommodation there when you book a tour. The reason for this is fairly simple - they hold a meeting the night before so you know what's going on and you can meet the other people on the tour.

Also, the tour leaves at six am.

So on this particular day, I roll out of bed on receiving my wake-up call in the hotel, have a quick shower, make sure my stuff is packed and head downstairs to where everyone else is gathered to make sure none of the baggage is overweight. Eventually, all the baggage comes through (there were three tours leaving on this particular morning), and we all get on the bus, which after a time, eventually sets off. The crew for the tour then introduce themselves. We have Luca, the tour manager, Dom, the cook, and Andras the tour driver. Yay.

Anyway, that is when we arrive at the port of Dover to take the ferry over to Calais. That was also about the time I took these photos:

Well isn't that pretty.

We eventually disembarked at Calais, where we faced several more hours of driving before finally arriving in Paris.

Now, Paris is a really interesting city, with a lot of history behind it. It was originally settled by the Parisii tribe along the river Seine all the way back as far as 250 BC. Eventually it was conquered by the Romans - like so much of everything else in Europe - in 52 BC. After that, the city grew and grew, and with the collapse of the Roman Empire, eventually ended up being the capital of France. I'm still not exactly sure how that happened, but whatever.

It also has a curious history of never having been conquered (up to a certain point). When Attila the Hun tried to lay siege to the city, he was apparently stopped by Saint Genevieve who told everyone is Paris to pray, and this reportedly sent Attila to go and attack Orleans instead. To this day, Saint Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris. Furthermore, when the Vikings tried invading during the reign of Charles the Simple, he reportedly sent them away by giving them all his money the first time, something else which I've forgotten the next time they came back, and then when they came back the third time, he finally ended up giving them an area in the North of France - called Normandy to this day.

I say up to a certain point, because a whole lot later, after the reign of Napoleon, and into the 20th century, the Nazi's came along and conquered Paris. Shame, that.

Here are some pictures of Paris that I took:

There'd be more, but at that point my camera batteries ran out, so that was it for that day. That night I drank a bottle of cheap-ish Rosé before going to bed. Good times.

Tomorrow is Day 2, I guess. I might actually post that one before midnight.

The Contiki Chronicles!

So, as some of you may have known, I've just gotten back from a 32-day Contiki tour around Europe. And I also promised that I'd try to update this thing daily (like that's gonna actually happen). Which is why I am introducing to you.. The Contiki Chronicles! That is to say, a day-by-day record of the tour, based off my recollection of events and the 1000+ photos I took.

So get ready. Tomorrow is day one: The White Cliffs of Dover (and also Paris, I guess).