Paris 4

After a wonderful first day with a walk along the Seine, some wonderful food and some time at the Eiffel Tower we now turn our attention to the rest of the city.

A wonderful way to explore is by bike. Paris has tens of thousands of bikes for rent at a very reasonable price. It is easy to get around and can take you into many areas where parking would be a nightmare if you were driving.

There are so many things to see and do that you can not possibly get bored. Imagine tooling around on a bike and being able to stop and look around or shop so easily. For the foodies out there remember that you are in France so be sure to avail yourself of local specialties. Please do not go to Paris and look for American chain restaurants. They are there but you have enough of that at home. Enjoy things like Foi Gras, escargot and please remember the cheese. France has so many types of cheese and the wine is also incredible.

The we have places like the Arc de Triomph, the Left Bank, Montmartre and the Louvre. Those should keep you busy for quite a while and when you get hungry be sure to take advantage of small local eateries because you will find some of the best food there. Eat what the locals eat and do not be seduced by fancy resaurants that will undoubtably have good food but to really know what Paris is like you need to eat and drink what the people that live there do.

Please enjoy your trip, take plenty of pictures and make the most of a fabulous city.

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Paris 3

So we have had our first nights sleep and we have somewhere to go for breakfast. Lets go outside and see what Paris is like since we got in late at night and it was dark. The Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel is at 61 Quai de Grenelle which is right on the waterfront along the Seine. From just outside the hotel we get a fabulous sight to start off the day with.

Image was posted on Panaramio by user carlosbe and is viewable in Google Earth

Having started our day we head out to breakfast and then a leisurely walk along La Seine. From the maps and from Google Earth it looks as though a stroll of about 30-45 minutes will get you to the base of La Tour Eiffel.

Posted on Panaramio by user Fabio Belli FABIOSO and used in Google Earth

A great start to a great day. Here you are at one of the most famous places in Paris and this is just the first day. How great is this?

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Paris 2

A wonderful hotel to stay at would be the Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel which is on the Seine and has a wonderful view og the Eiffel Tower.

This image is from http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-3546-novotel-paris-tour-eiffel. This is a 4 star hotel and the walk to the Eiffel tower will take you through the wonderful streets of Paris and you can certainly walk along The Seine although I would probably take some of the side streets to find some local shops and restaurants. My goal when I am overseas is to make sure that I am able to eat what the locals eat to get a feel for the true foods of the country.

This hotel is a bit pricey but for the location and the ambiance, if you can swing it would be a wonderful place to stay. The reviews that I saw were not all that impressive but for the view I would say it would be worth it unless the hotel is absolutely awful and I saw no reviews like that.

The walk to the Eiffel Tower would take a bit of time but think of the areas that you would have the opportunity to see. And from what I have read of Paris in most places you can actually rent bicycles for a fairly low price and see the city that way. While I would certainly not want to ride a bike down something like the Champs Elysee for the side streets and for basic site seeing I think it would be the best way to go.

So we have had our first nights stay in Paris and we have gotten up first thing in the morning at the Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel and now we can start our tour of Paris with a wonderful breakfast. Not far from the hotel just across the river is a Restaurant that opens at 9AM that sounds fabulous. The SARL Chaumette, from what I have been able to find out, would be a great first stop when you get up for that first morning in Paris. They serve American food if you are not feeling adventurous that early but they also have what appears to be standard French Cuisine as well. Never having been to France I am guessing at that but the menu looks very interesting.

This would be a great way to start a trip to Paris after a long flight and a good nights sleep.

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Paris

Since I live in Pennsylvania, USA I of course will be flying from the East Coast. A nonstop flight from the East coast to Paris takes 7 ½ to 8 ½ hours depending on what city you leave from as well as the flight path but that time frame will be fairly close for the most part. Many people say that you should fly overnight and sleep on the plane so as to arrive in the morning hours and then just spend all day and go to sleep that night and it will take care of any jet lag you may experience. That may work for some but keep in mind that when you go get into Paris at perhaps 9AM, there is a 6 hour time difference from the east coast so while it will be daylight and you will be good to go having just woken up, you will probably need to end up in your room fairly early that first evening. 9AM Paris time is good but as far as your body is concerned it will be 3AM.

I personally do not sleep well on planes. I love to fly but for some reason I rarely do anything but nap occasionally. What works for me is to try and arrive in the mid-evening, get dinner and spend the evening looking at whatever happens to be open. I then go to bed, a bit late perhaps, but when I get up the next morning my lag is pretty much gone. That may not work for everyone but it does for me.

So in my case I would be arriving in Paris at night so here we have a night landing in Paris from the cockpit so you see what the pilots see as they land from http://www.youtube.com

At the very beginning you will see a flashing lite before the camera pans to the right and that is the light on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

From the Airport of course you would need to get to your hotel. I would probably take the train unless you have arranged to rent a car and have the appropriate international driver's license. According to http://europeforvisitors.com you can get to within 500 meters of any hotel in Paris using the train from the airport and making a connection to another train once you get into the city. Research this first so you know what trains you need to take. You can of course also take a bus or taxi but where is the adventure in that?

Figure 1 CDG Airport Metro (A Google Street View picture from http://www.panoramio.com )

I will leave you here for now since in most cases you will want to at least rest a bit after a pretty long trip.

Next Destination

I have decided that my next posting for this blog will be about Paris. I had intended for my posts to be about traveling to countries in general but some locations, such as Paris, just cry out for their own series of posts. I am doing my research now and should be able to start posting in the next day or so. If anyone would like to hear about any particular part of Paris or about any location I research please feel free to comment on the blog and I would be happy to do so. I would also welcome any photos that you might have that would work for this blog and I will certainly give full credit for any that I use.

Greece conclusion

I apologize to all for this series of posts. It was not nearly as well done as I had wanted. I rushed it due to some time constraints in my life. I can assure all that my posts going forward will be more thoroughly researched.

I have missed a number of things about Greece although I did hit on some of the highlights. I missed the Temples to the Gods in various areas of the country as well as parts of Athens that would be enjoyable to all such as the Museums, the Plaka neighborhood and market and the nightlife scene in the Kolanaki area of Athens.

I will end this post here and I will be back with yet another country that I wish to visit someday.

Greece part 5

We have seen Athens and treated ourselves to the sites and food here so it is time to go onward to more of Greece. After Athens the thing to do would be to check out some of the islands such as Mykonos, Santorini and Crete. The beaches here on the Aegean Sea and some of the finest beaches you will find and are visited by tourists from all over the world.

Beaches of course are not all we want to see. There is still plenty of history that we have not yet seen. Crete, for example, was the site of the Minoan culture and there are things to see here dating back many thousands of years. Mykonos not only has history but my research shows that it is also one of the most popular tourist areas for Europeans with a wonderful history as well as what is apparently some pretty intense nightlife. This is someplace that I certainly want to experience when I can.

I will leave you know enjoying the islands and return in a few days to move onward.

Greece part 4

In the last post we touched briefly on the food. Please make sure that you take full advantage of being here and try the food. Many people say, and I agree with them, that you really can't get a true feel for a culture and a people without eating the food. That means the everyday food that the locals would have. If you can try to stay away from the tourist restaurants because not only will they be pricier in a lot of cases but they will be catering to the palates of the majority of the tourists. Get off the beaten path and find a small local pub or restaurant. I promise that you will not regret it.

Now on to the sites because we came here for the history did we not? I would certainly want to start at the Acropolis.

Here we find the Parthenon which is a temple to the goddess Athena.

Images Copyrighted by Historylink101.com & found at Greek Picture Gallery.

 

There is quite a lot of history here and I would expect to spend at least a full day and perhaps several days depending on your schedule.

Yet another site in Athens would be Agora. Agora means market and it was the site of many famous happening including supposedly being the site where Socrates was forced to drink the cup of poison which ended his life.

Another site would be Kerameikos which is a burial ground that was used to hundreds of years and has some remarkable carvings and statuary including a life size marble statue of a bull with an incredible amount of detail.

What I have here is just a small sampling of what is to be found in Athens and you could easily spend your entire trip just in this one city. I will be elaborating on more of the country in posts that are yet to.

Anyone that has been to Greece or perhaps lives there please feel free to correct anything that I might be wrong on and should you have anything that I should include in my posts including perhaps pictures, I would be glad to do so and will happily give credit for anything that I use.

Greece part 3

So we have finally arrived in Greece. Having just landed in Athens, which is how most people arrive, we now need to head off to our lodgings and perhaps nap a bit depending on how far the trip was and what the time difference is. I personally would probably just arrange things so as to get into Athens around10 or 11 AM and then stay up and sleep that night. I would probably be up from the previous day since, even though I love to fly, I find myself unable to really sleep on planes and I have found that just making the first day in a new time zone just an extremely long one I am able to sleep like a baby the first night and am up and ready to go.

Finding lodging in Athens should have been fairly easy when booking travel since according to europe-cities.com there are 478 hotels in Athens and I am sure with that many hotels you should be able to find something that would be pleasing to anyone.

Athens is a great place to start your time in Greece since the city is home not only to the Acropolis but also to the Olympic venues that were built for the 2004 Olympics giving you not only the wonderful history of the area that gave birth to the Olympics but also the newest structures created in the country for that ancient championship.

Along with the history of the area there is also the food. Perhaps not everyone likes Greek food and you can find other types of food but if you are in another country I believe that it is a necessity to try the local food. The Greek food that you got in a food court somewhere in the United States will likely have only a vague passing resemblance to the real thing. I have thus far not found any food that I will not eat although I do have a number of things I will not go out of my way to order. I am personally looking forward to the time when I can travel to Greece and, among other things, enjoy the food at local restaurants rather than tourist restaurants.

Greece part 2

So we have decided on Greece. How will we get there? Flying is obvious and if you are pressed for time it is absolutely the way to go. If not pressed for time then a cruise of the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea would be the thing. Flying in can have its advantages though because you can get a wonderful look at many things from above depending on the flight path that is used. An example of an approach to the Athens International Airport is at YouTube. I am not familiar with Athens in any way to know if anything famous was flown over during this approach but you get a good view of a lot of the city from the air.

Cruising can also be fun provided you have the time available. Here is a video of the island of Santorini from Google Video. Any way that you plan to get there will have its advantages and I feel certain that you will enjoy the trip regardless of the mode of transport to get there.

Greece

Despite the economic problems that are hitting Greece very hard at the moment I truly would like to travel there someday. Since I, along with many worldwide, cannot afford to do any travel anytime in the near future this will a more or less virtual tour based what I wish to see.

Greece is considered by most to be the cradle of Western Civilization and is also where Democracy, the Olympic Games, Western Literature and many other things come from. Much of modern history owes its existence to Greece. Most if not all of us have or should have heard of people such as Herodotus, Plato, and Aristotle to name a few.

Once in Greece I suspect that you could spend a lifetime just sailing on the Mediterranean or Aegean Seas and exploring the ruins of antiquity that abound there.

Modern Greece of course also holds many charms not the least of which is the food.

With my next post I shall endeavor to go into more detail on how to get there and what should be seen.

My next blog

So I have been thinking about my next travel blog. With the economy the way it is I will not likely be able to make any of these trips in the near future but I will certainly make every effort in the future to do so. I believe that my next travel blog will Greece. There is such an incredible amount of history there and with the Olympics going on right now it seems fitting.

Travel Posts from here on

My last major series of posts was on the Philippines because I have been there and I love the country and the people. My posts from this point on will be other places that I have been as well as places that I would love to see. If you have any particular place that you have never been but would like to see profiled here please comment and I will be happy research and write an article or series of articles about it.

Anyone from around the world that would like to correspond with me to give me insight on the place you live would be appreciated and I will be happy to give you information on the place I live as well as the places I have travelled to. Researching is wonderful but there is nothing as good as getting local information from someone that actually lives there.

I am back

My apologies for the enormous gap in posts. I had some issues with ending up at a new lower paying job as well as have a very close family member pass away. I am back now and will be posting again regularly. If anyone has a particular location that they would like to see researched and written about please feel free to comment and I will be happy to do so.