Paris: Oct. 13th

We got up early Saturday morning and Jeff was gracious enough to drop us off at the Brussels-Midi Train Station. We took the high-speed train, TGV, to Paris, which only took us about an hour and a half to arrive in the great city of Paris. Our hostel was located in the 18th District near famous sites such as the Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Coeur Basilica. Since we arrived in the afternoon and with Paris being so large, we decided to spend the rest of the day at Sacre Coeur and down at the Eiffel Tower.

Sacre Coeur is an amazing structure. It stands on top of Paris’ highest hill and lures millions of tourists every year to its steps to take in the grand view of Paris. Since it was the weekend, a number of street vendors were lined up along the streets surrounding Sacre. Vendors were selling everything from French wines to cheeses to cured meats to Haribo candies to fresh seafood. In front of the Sacre, we enjoyed two young men playing music and singing American classics to the large crowd resting on the steps.

After visiting Sacre Coeur, we took the metro and headed down to the Tracedora to have a great view of the Eiffel Tower at night. When we arrived, we noticed hundreds of French and English rugby fans piling out of the metro and heading towards the grounds behind the Eiffel Tower. We arrived in Paris at a great time. That night, France and England were playing against each other in the Rugby World Cup Semifinals. Thousands of rugby fans were in the City of Lights to watch their team play in the World Cup. We spent a couple of hours at the Tracedora where we enjoyed a full-length view of the Eiffel Tower which the top half of it was lit in yellow and the bottom half was lit in green. At every hour, the tower would give the crowd a great light show by sparkling for a good 10 minutes. After enjoying the tower, we followed the large crowd to the gardens located right behind the Eiffel. There, a huge TV screen was playing the match. The gardens were completely packed with excited fans. There were UK flags and French flags, red flares and fog horns to get this crazy crowd pumped.

We ended the evening with a late-night kebab sandwich near our hostel…perfecto!