Day trip in Paris

Our little team near to the Tour Eiffel

Today morning we have to wake up early to catch the bus to Paris, it was an organized trip by the STUVO, so I’d like to say many thank for them, highlighted Matthew and Johan’s job.
So we went to the back of the Kortrijk train station at 8 am and the bus grab us for a long, 3 hours journey to Paris. We arrived there at around 11.20 near to the Place de la Concorde and the Grand Palais, since we had to gather together here at 8.45 pm, we had to organize our tour Eiffel team to be there on time, because we won’t have much time to look around there. Afterwards a little group of us decided to take a tour leaded by me, so our first stop was at the Place de la Concorde since we was so near and from there we went straight on the road crossing the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre, we took some pictures, but because of lacking time, we didn’t go in, there was a pretty long queue. 

Afterwards we go around the building and headed to the Hotel de Ville where Nóri met her friend, we had a little lunch break and then we continued our journey. We crossed the Seine, and went straight to the Notre Dame then we get closer to the river band and cross it again to reach the Pantheon, luckily it was free to enter for those who are under 25, so for most of us, and we also met an other group of Erasmus students from our accommodation. From here Nóri left us with her friend, so we continued without them. We found some cheap fast food restaurants, so we had our real lunch over here, like some hamburgers and took a little rest. After a while we visited the Jardin de Luxemburg in near then we just started to head to the tour Eiffel, but we took a little break at a small park. We took some time near to the Tour Eiffel and waited to gather up the team, who has the tickets to visit it, we tried to exchange our tickets to get in at an earlier time, because we had to departure at around 8.45 pm. Unfortunately they said, it’s not possible to get in earlier, because the computers won’t let us in earlier according to the time on our tickets…

What so ever, we didn’t give it up, so we walked around the tower bought our metro tickets for the way back, just to make it faster and we had a coffee break to warm up before. Most of the team was at the entrance at 7 pm, but they still didn’t want to let us in, just 5 minutes earlier than the exact time. We were waiting right in front of the entrance and while we was waiting all the members of the group arrived. At 19.25 we were at our free queue to get in and took the lift to the 2^nd floor, we arrived to there at 19.30, so we still had plenty of time to get on the top. Alexa left on the 2^nd floor, she didn’t want to go further, but everyone else did, we were at the top at around 19.45! So we went out took some photos counted if there’s still no one missing and we went back to the 2^nd floor to pick up Alexa, however the group split to two, because there wasn’t enough place for all of us in the lift from the 3rd floor.

Roda, me and Ana on the top of the Tour Eiffel

At the north leg of the tower we gathered up again and headed to the metro to get back to our start point. I messaged Matthew we’re at the metro, so we’ll be there at 20.50, so they were waiting only for us. At last we managed to get to the bus 2 minutes before I promised, so we DID it without leaving anyone behind! :)

Double decker metro wagon