Good Morning Day 3!
After exploring Disneyland on Day 2, it's time to explore the city.
Locking up
Love our yellow home for the week.
Short walk to the bus stop
Quick family photo while waiting for our Bus #34
Took bus #34 which was about a 20 minute ride to Marnee La Valee station. From there, we purchased our 3 day Paris Visite Pass for unlimited travel for Zone 1 to 5.
54 Euros for Adults and 27 Euros for the Kids. Darn it, everything is so expensive when we multiply by 5! :-(
RER A to Charles de Gaulle étoile station
Girls were so impressed there were 3 levels of seating!
First stop - Trocadéro station for a good view of EiffelTower.
Yay, must have family selfie with Eiffel Tower !
I like this photo. Photobombed by a bird in flight :-)
The 2 princesses. So lucky to see Eiffel Tower with their own eyes at such a young age! Hubby's first time too.
Syiok-sendiri pose :-)
We walked towards Eiffel tower for a closer view. It was cold day indeed! Bought some hot snacks - Ham and Cheese Baguette, Chocolate Crepe and a cup of Hot Cappuccino to warm ourselves up.
Enjoying a hot baguette with a view!
She finished more than half of it. Elyssa's appetite skyrocketed during the trip ;-)
Snapped by Elyssa
One of my favourite photos of the holiday
Small princess with Eiffle Tower
Close up of Eiffel base
We didn't buy tickets to go up. Figured out it can't be thattt different with other views from high vantage viewpoints. heh. Plus I've already been up before, hubs is scared of heights and girls indifferent anyway.
Walked around a bit and then decided it was time for lunch.
Many nice side walk cafes
Eating time!
Hungry Elyssa couldn't wait. Haha.
Ordered from their "prix fixe" lunch menu.
20 Euros for appetizer, main meal and dessert. We chose : Set #1 - Escargots, Salmon and Creme Brulee. Set #2 - French Onion Soup, Beef & Choc Lava Cake.
Lunch was goooooood! Happy, happy.
Paid 40 Euros net. No extra charges for bread (we had 2 baskets! hehe), water (uhm.. 2 bottles also) or tax.
First stop - Arc de Triomphe
Strolled down Avenue des Champs-Élysées
Louis Vuitton! No money to buy bag, so just snap photo of building ;-)
Happy with the maple leave she found on the ground :-)
Wanted to go to the Louvre next but had trouble with our Paris Visite tickets :-((( When we put the tickets through the turnstiles, there was an error message that 2 out of 4 tickets was invalid! Aargh. Realised there was a magnetic strip so I shouldn't have placed it close to my phone. Ranting story ahead:
Station #1 - the station that we were at only had unmanned turnstiles. So had to go to another bigger station.
Station #2 - queued at customer service counter. Unfriendly French bloke who muttered dunno what indicated for me to go to the baggage turnstile. 2 rounds of going back and forth later, I realised his "solution" was to manually open the baggage turnstile for me. Huh?? I have a 3 day pass that needs to be fixed! Anyway, continued our journey and decided to get the tickets fixed at another station.
Station #3 - queued again. Again some mutterings and confusion. This time, the customer service lady issued me tickets and asked me to get the problem solved by going to the machine. I queued at the machine queue and decided to ask a friendly looking French guy behind me. He looked at the ticket and seemed confused too. Then he figured it was for the turnstile and asked me to try it. Turned out the lady just issued me a manual ticket valid for 1 trip. Hellooo.... I have a 3 day pass! Fix the problem please!
Station #4 - there was a computerised sign that said "back in 30 minutes". So we waited. 30 minutes later, a guy came and said the counter is closed for the day. Whattttt?????? Our manual tickets were only valid for one trip. But saw a broken turnstile that was wide open so we just went through that to go to the next stop.
Station #5 - queue again. Lady checked and said "There is nothing wrong with your tickets!!" Can faint already. Tried at turnstiles and confirmed still invalid (we checked at every station actually). Queued again and luckily got another customer service person. This guy checked and finally said "There is an issue with the magnetic strip. Let me issue you new tickets" Finally!!!!!!!!
Sigh..... wasted time with the tickets. Missed our chance to go shopping at Val D Europe again. Well, on the positive side there were no more problems with the tickets after that. And we did have some savings from Louvre the next day. (more on that in next post)
Anyway, we're on holiday. Ain't gonna let things like that spoil our holiday mood! Headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a simple home cooked dinner. Girls slept almost immediately after eating.
- End of Day 3 -
1 comment:
Aiyo really bang head with the ticket fixing story. Some more wasting valuable holiday time.
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