Paris: Day One

We landed in Paris and had decided to leave our suitcases at the Hilton CDG Airport where I had booked a room for the last night of our stay (June 29). I was going to show them my reservation and ask them if I could leave the bags there for a few days. As we walked to the hotel, I pulled out the reservation and noticed, for the first time, that the reservation (which I had made on April 28, 2014) stated that the reservation (using lots of points and a small amount of money), was for April 29. I checked and rechecked the sheet and realized that I had somehow screwed up and made the reservation for the wrong month. I went to the registration desk and they confirmed that my reservation had been for April and that I had been marked as a no-show. There was no way they could transfer the reservation to June 29 and told me I was welcome to make a new booking for 260 Euros. It was a huge pain. The only good thing was that the SIM I had bought at Delhi airport fired up and worked just fine in France. I used the phone to go to the Hilton site and find a USD200 rate for June 29. I went ahead and made the booking and then asked them to hold the bags, to which they agreed without hesitation. I also sent an email to their reservation asking if they would transfer the old, “no-show” reservation to the new one. We also purchased “Paris Passes” for Sheila and myself so we could do as many of the tourist locations as struck our fancy without evaluating the cost each time. Although the Paris pass came with free passes to all public transport, we still needed to buy tickets into Paris since the only place to pick up the passes was in Paris itself.

Sheila and I waited in a long line to get our tickets into Paris and headed to the pass pick-up location only to find it opened at 10. It was about 9:30 and we stopped in at a café for some coffee and croissants to use up the time. We picked up the passes and headed straight to our hotel. The 121 hotel had received terrible reviews on tripadvisor and we had very low expectations. At first, it seemed that the reviews were well earned. The check in was at a neighboring hotel and the guy there made it clear that there was no chance for an early check in and we should come back at 2 PM. We left our backpacks in their storage room and headed into town for some sightseeing.

We started by heading to Montmartre and doing a walking tour through the area. We had a great time walking through and then we visited the Sacre Coeur cathedral. I showed Sheila the spot where my new camera equipment had been stolen on a previous trip to Paris. We got through the entire tour unthreatened this time. It really was nice introduction to Paris. We enjoyed the streets and the sites such as the Moulin Rouge. We stopped for lunch in café that once was frequented by the artists who lived in the area. Lunch was traditional French duck and a Salmon dish. It was great. We made it back to the hotel in the evening, cleaned up (we both badly needed showers as we had spent the previous day in the Delhi heat before boarding a plane and walking all over Paris). The room itself was surprisingly nice and cozy. It definitely was not a luxury hotel. But, for a basic, inexpensive hotel, it served its purpose. It seemed safe and clean. The rooms seemed renovated. While the walls had dings and dents, the bathrooms were clean and the room was adequate. Much better than I had expected.

We then headed to a café that was mentioned in our guidebooks – Le Bistrot d’Eustache near the Champs Elysees. Sheila had pork filet mignon and I had the fresh fish of the day, along with French Onion Soup and a good glass of Pouilly Fume.

It was after 11 PM by the time we returned to the hotel and went to bed. I was awakened at about 3 PM with non-stop screaming honking from the streets outside our hotel window. I looked out at the busy street and found hordes of people riding cars up and down the street waving Algerian flags and shouting and honking. This went on for over an hour. I guess they won the football game that night.