Europe Trip Part 1

Sunday, 17 August 2008

All right, here are the photos I took (I'm too lazy to include my dad's photos). I actually I'm tempted to just upload them all in facebook, but for my reader's sake I'm gonna put them up here, with some description of my journey =)

I met up with my parents in London before we begun the journey early in the morning

Trafalgar Square

On the next day, we woke up very early to take bus to get to the pick-up point for the tour. We took a coach to Dover where got on a ferry to get to Calais, France.

Nice eh?

The White Cliffs of Dover

Nice little cafe with a great view!

=)

After another few hours on the coach, we finally arrived in Paris, the city of Lights. The central part of Paris lies on a small little "island" surrounded by the river Seine. All buildings were forbidden to be higher than err dunno how many feet so that.. err... i think it's easier to see the sky or something. lol! Hence, the Eiffel tower is outside the "island"

We took a river cruise along Seine, passing by numerous bridges.. as well as the world's most romantic bridge, which look like an ordinary bridge to me. Tipu orang punya.....
No not this bridge.. ahhaha

The Lourve. It was a palace, but now a (damn big) museum. You can find the Mona Lisa painting here. (well, one of the few famous paintings that I actually know haha)

People dancing on the shores of river Seine

Red cross traffic lights!

With my mum, in front of Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb

Streets of Paris

Look at how we lean towards each other.. hahaha!

Eiffel Tower

The next day, we went to the palace of Versailles. King Louix something build the palace of Versailles to facilitate his hunting around this area long ago (it wasn't a palace initially, just a place for the hunters to stay and rest but the King liked it so much he turned it into a palace). Also, it was said that the King disliked the narrow dirty streets of Paris. It was made very beautiful, with the intent of keeping all the noblemen busy with wine and merrymaking so much that they will not stage a rebellion (so says the tour guide). This was quite successful, unfortunately for the monarch, he was overthrown by the starving people of Paris during the Revolution. It was so beautiful that it was said to be the envy of all the monarchies of Europe, all of whom tried to replicate Versailles. Anyways, during the revolution, most of the furniture in the palace was stolen and sold. Now, most of them are with private collectors around the world.

With our limited time, we didn't get to go through all the rooms. But seriously, here, you can see how damn bloody rich the King's were, compared to most people in the world at that time. All these grand decorations... it's really a wonder how they managed it at that age. The world would have been a much better place if not of human greed. One can't help to imagine how the normal citizens would view the Kings. Little wonder they accept them to be beyond the Law.

So much free space! All the streets were nicely planned, and this empty space is for visitors with carriages to park their.. er.. carriage. There were even seperate lanes for carriages, horses, and men on the streets of Versailles.

The front gates

The room to greet visitors

One of the rooms in the Palace. In this room itself, the weight of the gold used to decorate the room is more than 40 kg. Imagine that! There's so many more rooms in the palace....

The King' bed. The bed is rather short because the nobles don't exactly lie down straight. They kinda sit on their bed to sleep. The reason for this is that it's uncomfortable to sleep with a full stomach if you're lying down (wow.. every night also full stomach.. gengz)

I think this was the ballroom.. .or was it the main dining hall? Really grand huh?

This is the room of Queen Mary Antoinette. Notice the small hidden door at the left side of the room. It was this door which enabled her to escape (for the while) from the angry people of Paris during the Revolution. Actually, the main purpose the door is disguised so is to make the room look nicer (adding a door there wouldn't look nice)

The Napoleon crowning the Empress, Josephine

I think all these are pure gold

So much empty space! All these were once marshes.

Check out the clear blue sky lol

My parents

Flowers of summer

The fountain in the palace of Versailles

We were actually there on Bastille's day, though we missed the parade. Here are some French Tanks.

After that, we went to Eiffel tower. It wasn't really worth going up the tower actually, nothing beautiful to see there.

Shadow cast by the Tower

Inside the Eifell tower

Taken on the way down the Eifel Tower

Underneath the Eifel Tower. It's really big! I mean, if you look at it from the base, you'll feel how grand it is.

Arc de Triomphe

Champs Elysees

Tomb of the unknown soldier, underneath the Arc de Triomphe

There are quite a number of streets like this; a rounded err.. edge. Quite cool right? I think it was a Napoleon (not Bonaparte, his successor) who decided to re-plan the whole city-island, hence the straight streets and neat buildings.

This is a hotel, i think =)

All right, here are the photos I took (I'm too lazy to include my dad's photos). I actually I'm tempted to just upload them all in facebook, but for my reader's sake I'm gonna put them up here, with some description of my journey =)


It seems to take a very long time for me to upload pictures on this blog. I'm gradually feeling lazier to write descriptions about the photographs. I think I will have to reduce the amount of photos I upload for the other parts of the trip. Check out my Facebook for more photos.