Category: Paris

Paris 2011 Day 3 - Palace of Versailles and flight to Rome

Paris 2011 Day 3 – Palace of Versailles and flight to Rome

Posted on by ziyi

We planned a visit to the Palace of Versailles before our flight out to Rome. Versailles was a 40minutes metro ride away from our accommodation and the tickets could be purchased online, costing us 36euros for 2.

  • Arrived to a majestic view of the palace.
  • The palace was really impressive, such as this hall with pillars and such a high painted ceiling.
There were many of such rooms with huge painted ceilings and the walls decorated with huge paintings.
  • The fireplace so grand and huge
  • Doors with intricate design with statues on the sides
  • Couldn’t get enough of the golden ceilings
  • Here was another one with red walls.
It was quite crowded
  • The details of these wall carvings were amazing
  • The room of mirrors was really stunning
  • There were details on every space of the room
  • Then there were these luxurious rooms in certain colour setting
  • Another room
  • A bed in one of the bedroom
  • There were also huge wall rug pictures like these.
  • Another room in green colour theme
  • Outside the palace was a huge pond
  • View of the garden beyond
  • The Apollo fountain
  • Another section of the palace ground
  • Maintaining certain colour themes
  • Much less bling, but still luxurious
  • Hallway
  • Games room
  • Yellow theme living room
  • Another hallway
  • Less luxurious section like kitchen
  • Walkways and tunnels
  • Pink theme
  • One of the bedroom
  • Saw a pavilion on the outside
  • Close up view of the Temple de l’Amour
  • What we had for lunch at Angelina Petit Trianon
  • We decided to row a boat in the grand canal. This was the view from our boat.
  • Where people could rent a boat to row. It was a tiring activity though.
  • View while walking back from the Grand Canal
  • Latona fountain
  • Another view from the palace
  • Leaving this majestic palace
  • Horses outside the palace
  • For those who wished to try a horse carriage
  • Statue of Louis XIV in front of the palace
  • Taking the double decker train
  • On the top deck of the train, our first experience with a double decker train

Our flight to Rome Ciampino airport was on Ryanair at 920pm at night taking off from the Paris Beauvais airport. There was a shuttle service that takes passenger from Porte Maillot to the airport so we took the metro there from our accommodation. We took a while to find the pick up location but managed to do so eventually. The ride to the airport was about an 1hr 15mins.

Waiting to board in the Paris Beauvais airport.
Paris 2011 Day 1/2 - Arrival in London and onwards to Paris, Sainte Chapelle and Paris city walk

Paris 2011 Day 1/2 – Arrival in London and onwards to Paris, Sainte Chapelle and Paris city walk

Posted on by ziyi

Day 1
This was the first time we were on the Airbus A380 and we were drawn to the really huge screen in front of us! First impressions of the plane was good already!

  • Arriving into London Heathrow in the evening, we checked in to our room at Fairway Hotel, walking distance from the St. Pancras station.
  • This was our room, pretty decent. It was a good choice since we had a early train departure the next day morning at 530am to Paris.
  • Shower
  • Toilet

Day 2 Arrived into Paris after the 2.5hrs on Eurostar from London. Immediately after depositing our luggage at our hotel, we took the metro to the Montparnasse for our train ride that we have booked online to Mont Saint Michel. Upon arrival at the station with 15mins left, we tried to retrieve our train tickets from the self service machine and was unable to retrieve our tickets (later we found out that the machine does not accept retrieval for bookings by AMEX and we should have gone to the customer service instead. We also couldn’t get it refunded by TGV)! By then we were late for our train and there wasn’t any more schedule to Mont Saint Michel already.

Since a day was created because the day trip was cancelled as we missed the train, we thought we would just spend the day in Paris for some attraction visits and shopping!

  • Sainte Chapelle cathedral was somewhere we wanted to see as we didn’t do so when we were in Paris many years ago.
  • The interesting architecture at the entrance.
  • The stained glass and the internal architecture was just intricate and amazing.
  • Zoomed in to see the details, as the glasses tell a story.
  • The internal arches of the cathedral.
  • The stained glass dominate the room
  • And went all around.
  • Again more internal arches and beautiful architecture
  • The entire area was surrounded by the glasses.
  • The circular glass that was looked so different in colors compared with looking from outside.
  • Each square tell a story, and unique compared to all the others.
  • A part of the glass as seen from the outside.
  • The glass look so different when viewed from the outside.
  • A view of the Seine river in Paris.
  • A little foggy but we could still see the Eiffel from here.
  • So we visited Galleries Lafayette and their home grown brand but it was lining with people from China so we left.
  • The mall was worth a visit as it was beautifully designed.
  • We decided to walk from Galleries Lafayette to the Lourve and came upon a garden called Jardin du Palais Royal. We were amazed with the square shaped trees.
  • But it looked like a really nice place to sit for a picnic.
  • We arrived at the Lourve not too long later. We didn’t go in as we had visited before in our first European trip and saw Mona Lisa.
  • We however decided on getting a little something to eat at one of the outdoor Cafe Diane.
  • Then we decided to walk along the most famous shopping street of Paris, Champs Elysees. Along the way we spotted the Eiffel once again.
  • Of course the most iconic Louis Vuitton of Paris sat along the main Champ Elysees, in a really elaborate buidling.
  • And also a quick visit to Arc de Triomphe that sat at the end of the street. After walking so much on this first day, we returned to our hotel.
Escape Plan to Europe, May 2005

Escape Plan to Europe, May 2005

Posted on by ziyi

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to Europe, May 2005:

Total duration 27D26N
London is 7hr behind Singapore while the rest of Europe is 6hrs behind Singapore.
Flight time is 7hrs 25mins on Emirates Airlines from Singapore to Dubai for transfer. Flight time is 7hrs 35mins on Emirate Airlines from Dubai to London Gatwick International Airport.
Flight time is 2hrs 25mins on EasyJet Airlines from London Gatwick to Rome Flumicino.
Return flight is 6hrs 30mins on Emirates Airlines from Paris to Dubai for transfer. Flight time is 7hrs 10mins on Emirates Airlines from Dubai to Singapore.

Early morning flight on 23rd May at 325am and arrival in Dubai in the same morning at 655am. Transfer to another flight in the same morning at 8am and arrive in London at 1235pm on the same day.
Afternoon flight on the 13th Jun at 505pm and arrival in Rome at 830pm.
Return flight from Paris on the 17th Jun at 950pm and arrival in Dubai at 620am the next morning, transfer to another flight in the same morning at 945am and arrive in Singapore 855pm.

Day 1 Arrival into London, exploring London
Day 2 Salisbury and Stonehenge tour
Day 3 Tower Bridge 
Day 4 Brussels 
Day 5 Amsterdam
Day 6 Sankt Goar and Heidelberg
Day 7 Lucern and Lauterbrunnen
Day 8 Jungfrau visit
Day 9 Liechtenstein and Munich 
Day 10 Dachau Concentration Camp and Innsbruck
Day 11 Verona
Day 12 Venice
Day 13 Florence
Day 14 Pisa and Monaco
Day 15 Nice and Cannes
Day 16 Barcelona
Day 17 Barcelona
Day 18 Carcassonne and Bordeaux
Day 19 Paris
Day 20 Paris
Day 21 Paris
Day 22 London
Day 23 Rome
Day 24 Rome and Vatican City
Day 25 Milan
Day 26/27 Home Sweet Home

This escape plan was planned our graduation trip which started off the whole wanderlust. We decided on an almost month long trip with a first visit to Europe. As we were really tight on budget, being recently graduated, we thought it would be great to do a bus tour around Europe with Contiki tour (Day 4 till Day 21), which offered more places to see without breaking the bank! And they say the rest was history.

Budget nature: Not cheap

It was not cheap to go to Europe during times when Euros were almost twice our currency. We managed to get good flight prices through Emirates and we tried to save up on accommodation living in hostels and eating bread for quite some days in order not to spend too much.

Complexity: Easy

Major European cities were very well connected by public transport which we used to get around while exploring. The major part of getting from city to city was taken care by the coach. Domestic flights and interstate trains were easy to arrange as well.