Top 5 Cities To Go For Your Europe Tour – Part3 – Paris

I have intense pressure when writing this post as first 2 parts of the story –Top 5 Cities to travel in Europe, London and Top 5 Cities to go for your Europe tour, Rome, are so popular among our readers. That is why Part 3 has been delayed until now! He..he.. ‘Hmm… or you are just buying time?‘

Let’s continue on the Part 3 of the story and this time I’m also listing out the full top 5 Europe cities list for travel. However, only 1 of them to be fully elaborated for the ease of reading, and she is PARIS. The Top 5 Europe Cities To Travel are:-

1. London – read more;
2. ROME – read more;
3. Prague – read more later;
4. Venice – read more, and
5. Paris – read more HERE; 🙂

When I first stepped out of EuroStar train, what I’ve noticed was a city full of architecture. If Rome is what I considered as the city of world’s heritage, Paris would be the city of world’s lifestyle.

Beautiful Night Cityscape of Paris – Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Perhaps with the influence of my profession in construction industry, Paris has the best town planning of all cities I’ve ever seen. If viewing down from the top floor of Eiffel Tower, you would definitely be impressed with the neat alignment and flat city layout of Paris, which could hardly be found in other cities and countries (Except in your virtual Sim-city). A common characteristic of all major cities in Europe, Paris city attractions are mostly concentrated and within walking distance if you don’t mind to walk. Of course, they could either be reached by the extensive Metro and RER underground train network, or the Light Rail Transit network, TRAMWAY, though it’s quite costly.

Firstly, of course we needed to get our accomodation. There are huge amount of hotels, hostels or budget dorms available in Paris city centre. We stayed in one of the hostel in Montmartre, the home of arts and Moulin Rouge. Price starts from €16, accommodations is not a problem at all in Paris.

If you are interested in Paris history and french culture, you could grab a tourist guide to study. If not, you could actually explore it by simply walking around without taking any city map with you! Landmarks and signboards are so noticeable that you won’t be able to get lost. Roads are generally straight and wide especially Champs-Élysées, the up-market shopping street and avenue of Paris. We started our city exploration here as part of the historical axis of Paris. Tourist attractions along this axis includes the Triumph Arch, Tuileries Garden, I.M.Pei’s creation of Pyramid at Louvre art museum where you could witness the greatest art of all, the Monalisa and Venus de Milo statue. Louvre is one of the most visited and largest museum in the world. We had our lunch and tea break here at the stylish open air cafes. This historical Axis extends to the west until the new Triumph Arch, Grande Arch at La Defence business centre. Interestingly, if you are standing at the middle of the Champs-Élysées street, both Arches of Triumph and Grande can be seen through in one straight line!

In the evening, we turned back to the centre of Triumph Arch before continuing our walking journey to the Notre Dame Cathedral and finally the greatest monument of all, the Eiffel Tower, located at south of Champs-Élysées. EIFFEL TOWER IS REALLY BIG. It is really hard to believe that it was built in the 19th century!! It was already night hours when we were on top of the tower and overseeing the unbeatable Paris’s city skyline in the night! For families, Disneyland Europe is another attraction of Paris suburb with more than 10 millions visitors per year!

Foods are generally expensive from what I learnt during our short 2 day stay in Paris (Yes, 2 days were too short, we realised that on the afternoon when we were about to leave for Holland to check into our Amsterdam hotels). However, backpackers always have the choice to buy foods and drinks from the local supermarkets which are a lot cheaper. We bought MARS chocolates for our lunch once which were even cheaper than in Malaysia.

Overall, Paris is definitely one of the TOP 5 Cities in Europe. It is a metropolitan city with a combination of all elements, from historic to futuristic, artistic to engineering, fashion to authentic, foods to romance. To fully explore the city, we would need another week, at least. Need we say more? For upcoming stories, you may prefer to subscribe my RSS Feed for free update. – Travel Feeder.

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.