à Paris..!!!

Bon Jour!!

A long 10 hour Air France flight from Mumbai to paris finally brings me to the city which has been touted the most beautiful in the world.... Paris !!!

My flight was mostly sleepless due to a overly curious 2 year old kid sittting next to me who pointed at everything and anything with only one thing coming out of his mouth ..." Aa shun che?" -- which in gujarati means "what is this??" .. well..all because i did the mistake of playing with him in the first 15 mintes of the flight. At one point , he woke me up and pointed at the stewardess and out came those magic words--"AA SHUN CHE??".. man..if only his mother wasnt sitting next to him looking over her "adorable" son playing with the young guy(me !!:-( )...

so here i am -- getting outa the charles de gaulle airport(which by the way-is a really cool structure) like a zombie with no sleep ..looking out for my brother and bhabhi(sister in law) who have come to pick me up.. and i finally see my 9 month old niece, aanya for the first time.. check her out --



My brother lives in Montrouge.. an area about 15 mins drive from central Paris... its a beautiful residential area with cute pebbled streets and cafes all around.. Driving down from the airport to the house..i have my first paris by night experience..checking out the major spots in the city.. champs d'elysees..arc de triumph..and the Eiffel Tower !!



i was lucky enough to be able to drive past when the "twinkling light show" at the tower was on .. where the whole tower is lit up by sparkling lights for about 10 minutes every night .. The first thing that struck me was how big the structure is..i was kinda expecting the statue of liberty expereince, where i expected the statue to be huge and no offfence to the americans --but its isnt that tall you know !!.. but well.. this structure designed by Stephen Sauvestre is huge..and considering the fact that it was built in a little over 2 years in 1889 is highly impressive..

While discussing the next morning about what to do on a sunday.. driving outta town to nearby spots sounded like a good idea and we decided on driving down to versailles...

Versailles was built during the reign of Louis XIII, who used is as a hunting lodge and then redesigned by his son- Louis XIV.



Its an awesome place with a really neat Chateau and museum and a breathtaking garden..!! The sculptures on both the sides of the garden are gorgeous..



I just realised what a perfect sunday afternoon is... sitting by the lake at versailles curled up in a good book while sipping on a glass of good french wine with a mildly cool breeze blowing through your hair-- aah... Bliss !!

I read up somewhere that the indian steel baron, laxmi mittal threw a party for his daughters wedding at this place by renting the whole chateau and garden for 2 days...so i did some asking around at the info desk and a sweet french lady helped me book the place and we agreed on the condition that the booking will be cosidered valid only when i send her 10% of the rent .. which is 2 million euro's.. any people out there who would donate this small amount of money to bring a big smile of the face of one poor Indian?? :-)

Besides travelling around..i have been doing a good job of depleting the stock of good french wine at my brothers place by drinking it with breakfast,lunch and dinner and with cheese in the evenings.....!!

2 days in paris and its been awesome so far..Tomorrow is a day at The Louvre and day after a trip up the Eiffel tower so look out for the upcoming posts

Au revoir..