Paris Day 8: Hotel Andrea Rivoli, Palais Garnier & Raining

Read these first…
London Day 1: Flying With MAS, Heathrow Connect & Piccadilly Circus
London Day 2: Covent Garden, British Museum, British Library & Phantom Of The Opera Musical
London + Rome Day 3: YHA Oxford Street, Gatwick Airport, easyJet & Tiring Rome
Rome Day 4: Six Beds, Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill (Part 1)
Vatican City + Rome Day 4: Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica & St. Peter’s Square (Part 2)
Rome + Pisa Day 5: Santa Maria Maggiore Church, Pensione Rinascente & Leaning Tower Of Pisa
Pisa + Venice Day 6: Piazza Garibaldi, St. Mark’s Basilica & The Grand Canal
Venice Day 7: Foresteria Valdese, Libreria Acqua Alta & Thello Train

On day 8, our Thello train which departed from Venice arrived at Paris’ Gare de Lyon at 9.40am.

Morning view on board Thello train. It was really nice to wake up to the beautiful countryside of France.

After arriving, we proceed to Paris Metro (rapid transit Metro system in Paris) station in Gare de Lyon as well. We bought the carnets de billets (books of tickets): 10 tickets for €12.70. If you buy a single ticket it cost €1.70. We also bought train tickets to Château de Versailles which cost us more than the usual (kena tipu I think).

This is the Hotel De Ville Metro station (underground) near our hotel.

It was raining when we reached our hotel. Since our room isn’t ready, we leave our luggage and then proceed to a bakery nearby to tapau some food for lunch later. The Boulangerie Julien sell some really yummy bread and pastry. The shop smells heavenly! We bought tartine and pictachio+chocolate rolls (total €3.50) which was so delicious. Then in the rain, we took Metro to Gare du Nord to collect our Eurostar ticket. It took us quite sometime at the train station as there seem to be a security issue (missing luggage) which prevented passengers to go to level 1 where Eurostar office and boarding of Eurostar train is situated.

Once we got our ticket, we head back to our hotel to check in at around 2pm. We stayed at Hotel Andrea Rivoli, a 2 star hotel for 4 nights. The hotel rooms looks new like it has just been renovated not long ago. Talk about luck, the ‘small’ lift is not in service that day due to some problem so we brought our luggage up the spiral stairs with some difficulty. Kekeke

Our room @ Hotel Andrea Rivoli, Paris France. 1 night stay for a twin room with private bathroom cost €106.00. Yeah not cheap but the location is superb. It’s very near to shopping, good food and attractions like Notre Dame Cathedral and Seine River. You can even walk to Lourve Museum. The room also have air-cond, flat-screen TV, telephone, power points and free Wifi.

The bathroom and toilet. Perfect size.

We then rested in the room until 3pm. It was still raining when we head out again.

Our first stop is just to ‘look see look see’ Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House) which is situated just in front of Opera Metro.
Photo from TZ-7.

Another view of the majestic opera house.

Here’s a Mozart head statue at the Palais Garnier building.

And here’s Beethoven head statue.

We thought since it was raining it would be wise to skip the sightseeing and straight to shopping. So to Galeries Lafayette we went. It’s a very famous department store that houses a lot of luxury brands. You want LV? This is the place. The shopping mall is full of people. All dressing to their best and it’s like everyone is rich here (except us). Hahaha

Magnificent view of the dome and balconies from the ground floor.

We queued at the Louis Vuitton line but even after 30 minutes the line doesn’t seem to be moving. So we gave up but plan to return the next day. LOL

The only stuff we bought there is Maxim’s de Paris chocolates. It was my dad who introduces us to this very yummy chocolate when he bought some home also from Galeries Lafayette.

With the rain still falling, we walked to Fauchon.

On the way we passed by La Madeleine (Church of the Madeleine). Love the architecture.
Photo from TZ-7.

After Fauchon, we head to Ladurée next! They are both very famous sweet and pastries shops in France.

Place de la Concorde in the rain. I wanted to explore this place more but the rain. Arggh! Next time la since we never return few days later. We have more important stuff to do. 🙂
Photo from TZ-7.

We then returned to our hotel around 7pm-ish, not before ‘tapau-ing’ baguette for dinner. Later we head out again to a nearby Monoprix supermarket to buy ingredients for our breakfast tomorrow.

That’s it for day 8. We didn’t really do much. Day 9 is so much more interesting so stay tuned!