Paris 09-11 September 2010
Ryanair is a good low cost company to travel Europe but you need to make sure your carry on luggage does not exceed the allowed limits and that you print your boarding pass before to arrive at the check-in or else they will charge you extra to issue the boarding pass.
Other than this in most cases the airport is always a bit distant from the city centre, in Paris the airport served by Ryanair is the Airport Paris Beauvais Tillé situated 95km north of Paris but the very good thing is that the shuttle bus is right in front the arrival gate and they leave 15-20 minutes after the flight arrives so it's hard to miss it and the cost was 15 Euros (in 2010).
Unfortunately was time to sleep, I had to walk 7km to go to the hostel and it took me a while and when I arrived at the hostel was almost 2am.
I could get a bus probably but I wanted to see around, that was my first time in Paris!
During my stay in Paris I rarely used public transports, I mainly walked from a place to another.
I booked 2 nights at the Friend Hostel near Montmartre.
Probably they thought that I was not going because when I arrived they did not have my room available (4 beds dorm) but the guy at the reception found me a spot at the end.
I took the key and everyone was sleeping in my room so I had to do everything in the dark but I did not mind because I was very tired.
When I woke up the morning after everyone was gone from the room; just the time to organize my stuff and go, my parisian adventure began!
During my stay in Paris I literally fell in love for the city, it is a fascinating city, very artistic, romantic and at the same time transgressive.
There are lots of famous museum such as the Louvre Museum. I had only two days in Paris so I did not have time to go inside any of the museums.
The Louvre Palace and the Pyramid are spectacular, I went there in the morning then back at night because at night time it looks incredibly magical.
In two days I saw pretty much all the most important things, Eiffel Tower, Musée du Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Notredame, Champs-Elysées, the Panthéon, the Catacombs and much more.
The city is crossed by one river, the well known "La Seine" so there are many bridges "Ponts" and my favourite is Pont Alexandre III, on this bridge I realized the importance of the ND filters for long exposure photography...
I arrived at Beauvais the 9th of September at about 10pm with no problem, took the shuttle bus straight away and it took about 1hr to get to Paris.
I arrived at "Place de la Porte Maillot" near the Arc de Triomphe, that was the arrival of the shuttle bus, I was in PARIS!!!!
My original plan was to get the metro from Porte Maillot to Barbès to go straight to the hostel.
But man I was in Paris and I could not go to sleep without having seen the Eiffel Tower and also I wanted to walk, breath the air of the street, discover the city walking so I started walking, I saw the Arc de Triomphe and I started falling in love for Paris...
Step after step I was getting closer and closer to the Eiffel Tower, I could see it from far and finally at around midnight I was there, I was literally speechless, it was HUGE!!!! I was standing under it looking up and I could not believe it.
My next destination was Glasgow in Scotland but honestly I was sad to leave Paris because I relly liked that wonderful city.
Back to Place de la Porte Maillot to get the shuttle bus to the airport, my flight was the 11th of September at 11.10pm.
When I arrived at the airport I had some clothes to wash because one of the inconveniences of traveling only with the backpack is to have not many clothes.
But the sink in the toilet at Paris Beauvais Airport is the best to was you clothes.
Ready to go and I left Paris to fly to Glasgow...