DAy 3

Like all the other cities of Europe, Pari was different and stunning. Everybody knew it the moment they entered the trance. Each of these European cities apart from their lavish beauties and histories are known more importantly for how beautifully their history and culture is preserved. Though our India is good with the history part, not so good with the protecting part.

Parc Asterix was a great set up. It actually feels like you are in a different land.

Though we couldn’t get to interact much with the local environment, that day apart from “Hello sir! Do you speak English?” and running around for change for as much as 100Euros, I met a friendly group in the train to Paris. Also, took a stroll down the Paris lanes sipping cold drinks with a camera in one hand and an exotic dinner of crepes and pizza in broad evening light! I only wished if all this happened without the all panicky Sardars around! You know, the group changes everything; even pure crap can be fun! ;p

Even the junctions stretches to acres of land though the streets barely fit a bus and a car at once in a parallel row! Aah! What else! Perfumes! Fragrance! Fragonard.
Tour Montparnasse; the 59-floor skyscraper is one gothic black building above the rest of landscapes but offers some of the most spectacular views of the city of lights, love, romance, beauty, fashion & education (which we missed, of course, since it wasn’t getting darker any sooner).

‘View from the top is the most beautiful in Paris, since it is the only place from which one cannot see the tower.’
-Guy de Maupassant who loathed the Eiffel Tower and ate lunch there daily.

As we got down the bus to visit the Grand Louvre, this is what I could comprehend from what I heard from the tour manager.
“Welcome to one of the world’s largest museums. As you enter this most visited monument and continue to stare for a few minutes at each of these masterpieces it would take a minimum of your remaining lifetime. You have an hour and a five-minute buffer, please hurry up and if you miss the bus you know where to find us (which is generally followed by some unrealistic obsolete names of places and hotels; never mind). I then, ran through centuries of story telling art created by the greatest of artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da vinci; the Napoleon apartments to the Egyptian ruins. It was beyond anything. By the time I returned thinking to have missed my bus, panting and holding my crumpled map I saw most of them back enjoying their coffee. I wish they didn’t miss the Monalisa at least, not that it was as great as it was meant to be; at least you get to tell you saw it to folks back home ☺ I wish I bought the duplicate Monalisa for 3 euros as a souvenir! So many times it was stolen and so many great eyes it stole in return.


The other things that were more shocking were the free education policy, how incredible no. of museums are constructed for encouraging tolerance among the young, how the old were taken care off, why no one begs though some rare people choose to live like that and how blandly she showed one of the finest places in Paris around the Arc Of Triumph and why they considered it unfit for residence. In her words, “ For us, there is no quality of life if there is not enough silence, peace, freedom and enjoyment in living.” That struck me.



That day as I lay in bed with my eyes closed, all I could see were no dreams but the great rich London, the canals, tulips and lush green lands of Netherlands without a patch of bareness, the beautiful city of Brussels with all its palaces and streets warned for pickpockets and Paris with its great stretches of Rapeseed fields for bio diesel, old ancient architecture on the same stunning level as modern while the narrow streets being modified to suit the present day needs; so organized and well managed.
Napoleon’s loot was indeed a great one.
“Hail Napoleon!”

P.s Where are the electric wires?!