Paris

I had seen lot of US but only realized what I had missed when I saw Paris ..



This is my first trip to Europe and am covering Paris ( France), Linz( Austria ) and Barcelona(Spain)..The trip itself was not finalized till the last couple of days. Infact, some places in Scandinivia got cancelled at the last minute and then I also had a struggle with our traveldesk to get the iterinary/tickets confirmed. The biggest trouble was the trip from Paris to Linz and back, which eventually was booked in Train, which is an overnight train...I will cover the Austria part of the trip in my next post ..

Air France journey was fine, but somehow felt Lufthansa was better based on my previous experience. I landed at Paris at around 8:30 in the morning to get a first experience of the cold weather in Paris..Also had a bad experience of getting duped of 20 Euros by the taxi driver..I was informed before I started that the journey to the hotel is free and the surprisingly the same was confirmed by an airport official..When, I landed at the hotel, the driver demanded money..Apparently, the most of the hotels in the Roissy region have free shuttles from mCharles De Galle airport, which ferry people to/from the hotel/airport..One needs to watch for the proper shuttle which will have the names of the various hotels ..

The day in Paris was a meeting at the southern tip of Paris, to which we went in train. I had not realized that most of the travel in the next few days will be in this mode..Its so contrarian to the life in US where I had not even once hopped into a train/bus for transport..and here the trains are the lifeline ..Just reminds me of mumbai..Infact when one travels in train, you can almost feel the mumbai effect ..the houses around the railway track, people hopping in/out, frequent trains etc..Infact, you can see some "ghopadphattis" also near the suburbs of france..






Weather would have been around 3-4 degrees C for most of the day; Most of the people wear 2-3 layers of clothes and a longer jacket and a scarf is very common..I heard this is one of the coldest months of the year..

Language in France is an issue and most of the people would talk only in French....However, people in the information desks speak English and are quite helpful...










After the meeting we got down in Saint Michelle and saw the Eiffel tower from far and spent some time doing small shopping and then finally came back by train to CDG and then the shuttle..