Paris, France
I just returned from a week-long trip to Paris. We, my wife and I, had a wonderful time. All the warnings we had about France turned out to be false. The people were extremely friendly and tolerant of our poor French language skills. We met more rude people last summer during our trip to Boston.
We stayed about 30km east of Paris, in a suburb called Bailly-Romainvilliers at a Marriot resort. We generally stay at Marriot properties since we get an employee rate. Each day we took a shuttle to the Chessy - Marne-la-Valee train station and from there took a RER train into Paris proper. If someone plans to go to Paris, the "Paris Visite" train pass is a great idea. For about 45 Euro, you can travel anywhere within Zones 1 through 5, on train, bus or Metro. Versailles is in Zone 5, so you really can see just about everything. Trains are clean, although the new art form in Paris appears to be graffiti. The only train problems we had were a malfunctioning ticket accepter on day one and rush-hour crowding on day 5.
We didn't do the typical tourist thing, trying to visit every site in the city in our short time. We did see the Louvre, the Effeil Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Versailles and Notre Dame. The rest of the time we spent just trying to experience Paris, ealking around and trying the cafes, the stores and the rest.
I'll post more later about the trip as we look through the pictures and video.
Au revoir!
We stayed about 30km east of Paris, in a suburb called Bailly-Romainvilliers at a Marriot resort. We generally stay at Marriot properties since we get an employee rate. Each day we took a shuttle to the Chessy - Marne-la-Valee train station and from there took a RER train into Paris proper. If someone plans to go to Paris, the "Paris Visite" train pass is a great idea. For about 45 Euro, you can travel anywhere within Zones 1 through 5, on train, bus or Metro. Versailles is in Zone 5, so you really can see just about everything. Trains are clean, although the new art form in Paris appears to be graffiti. The only train problems we had were a malfunctioning ticket accepter on day one and rush-hour crowding on day 5.
We didn't do the typical tourist thing, trying to visit every site in the city in our short time. We did see the Louvre, the Effeil Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Versailles and Notre Dame. The rest of the time we spent just trying to experience Paris, ealking around and trying the cafes, the stores and the rest.
I'll post more later about the trip as we look through the pictures and video.
Au revoir!