Paris 2001
Paris for free and in a day.
I started by walking up the hill to the Montmartre, for a nice, if rather grey and wet view of Paris. This set the scene for the rest of the day - rain and clouds. From here I then walked south, past Gare St. Lazare and onto Blvd. Hausmann, which I then followed west to the Arc de Triomphe.
Having taken shelter from the elements for a wihle I continued on, walking south-east through the pretty Parc du Champ de Mars and then heading on to Invalides and the Eglise du Dome, which contains Napoleon's tomb. After resisting urges to shout 'Waterloo' and 'Trafalgar' at the top of my voice, I continued north, through the Esplanade des Invalides and crossed the Seine at the Pont de la Concorde, which unsurprisingly brought me to the Place de la Concorde. Given that it is such a famous square, Place de la Concorde was rather ugly and dull and not very impressive at all. I am sure there are historical reasons for its fame, but it is not because of its beauty!
My next destination was Notre Dame, famous for being the centrepiece of Victor Hugo's 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'. Situated on the Ile de la Cite in the middle of the Seine, the location is certainly beautiful (even in the rain). The queue to enter appeared about a mile long, so I skipped this, walked past the Notre Dame and left the island via the 'Pont de Archevoche' in the south-eastern corner of the island.
But I had to press on and so headed back up north to see the Centre Georges Pompidou. This is a bizzare structure appearing to have all its piping on the outside. Beautiful it isn't, but worth seeing it certainly is. I didn't have time to enter though, as I had a train to catch at 7pm from the Gare du Nord. Being really quite knackered at this point, I decided to get the metro and reached the station with half an hour to spare, giving me enough time to grab a baguette to eat before the return journey.